Excerpted: The Incident and Everything After

She’d been dreading this moment for weeks. Liz Reardon knew exactly what was waiting behind the door in front of her. She’d planned to avoid it, but the universe had conspired against her. Now she was stuck, still trying to think of a way out of it as she wrapped her hand around the doorknob.

 “Control,” she whispered.

She took three deep breaths. In one quick motion Liz turned the knob and opened the door. She fumbled for the light, not comfortable with the pitch black of the group therapy room.

Before she could find the switch in the dark, the room filled with light and shouting. “Surprise!” everyone in the room yelled.

“Oh my God,” Liz said, placing her hand on her chest like she really was shocked.

She looked around the festively decorated room full of people. She smiled. Or at least showed them her teeth. The reality underneath was all sneer.

They might as well have brought cake and balloons for her funeral. They all knew, every one of them, that Liz hated the idea of turning sixty. They all knew how much she’d dreaded this day, the start of this year, this decade. And still they went ahead with celebrating the very thing she did not want to face.

Surely not everyone had to commemorate the passing of every decade. It wasn’t written in the law anywhere. She’d asked them twenty times, at the very least, just to let this pass. She’d been very clear that she wanted nothing to do with it. They decided the best way to deal with her not wanting to acknowledge today was a party where they yelled “surprise.”

Her friend, Martha Ennis, had tried to talk them out of the party, but her failure to do so meant Martha breached the surprise party confidentiality. For a day or two, there were serious considerations about a possible trip to the Caribbean to avoid the celebration, but Martha’s health had changed that before the idea could become reality.

So, there was Liz. A foil banner over the bulletin board said “Happy Sixtieth” in cartoonish letters. A collage, created by someone who obviously despised her, displayed pictures of her: black and white baby snaps, graduation photos, a wedding picture (of her second marriage only), pictures cut from newspapers and magazines of stories about her career and awards, and images of her holding each of her three children as infants. Over the collage was the title “Liz Through the Ages,” written in a failed attempt at calligraphy that looked more like a five-year-old’s block lettering.

Liz said hello to most everyone in the room. She slipped out to her office where she dialled Martha, who was recovering from open-heart surgery in the Health Sciences Centre.

Martha answered on the third ring. Liz didn’t bother with hello.

“If you’d woken up during your surgery and felt them snapping every bone in your chest and rooting around in your heart, you still would have had a better time than I’m having now.”

Martha laughed then gave a pained groan. “Oh. Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m not trying to make you laugh. I’m being serious.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“There’s a collage called ‘Liz Through the Ages.’”

“Oh, dear God.”

Liz could hear the smile on her friend’s face. Martha’s smiles were always big enough to alter her speech a little. Martha never grinned, never smirked—always a big, full-on, beaming smile that changed her face and made everyone like her instantly.

“I just needed to say that. I needed someone to understand the particular circle of hell in which I’m forced to stand.”

“Mission accomplished. It sounds as hideous as we expected.”

“We never envisioned a collage though.” Liz sighed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than you, I’d say. And I have good drugs.”

“Drugs. Now there’s an idea. They could make this party tolerable. Or a flame-thrower might do the job.”

Martha laughed. “Well, your cake will probably be the equivalent.”

“Ouch. Two months. Two months and you’ll be sixty.” Liz smiled. “I’m planning the collage in my head now.”

“Oh, Christ, no. Haven’t I been through enough?”

Liz closed her eyes and swallowed the lump she hoped Martha didn’t hear. “Yes, I guess you have. I wish you were here, you know? It’s not the same without you.”

“Oh sure, wish that party on me.”

“I wish you good night. And good sleep. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”

Martha had been in hospital for six days now and Liz saw her every morning before going to work. For five mornings she brought flowers until Martha said her room was starting to look like a funeral home. So, this morning Liz had brought fruit and some trashy magazines. Martha had said she hated those kinds of magazines, but Liz knew she was probably thumbing through one now as they spoke.

“I know. Good night. Oh, and Liz . . .”

“Yes?” “Happy birthday. It’s all going to be okay.”

“This from the woman high on painkillers. I know. I know. Thanks.”

On the way back to the group room, Liz felt a familiar sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of being sixty. Her father had died four months exactly from the date of his sixtieth, and her grandfather had died six days after that dreaded birthday. Her whole life, she had seen sixty as a death sentence, noting every person—uncles, family friends, an aunt by marriage—who died after their sixtieth birthday. She had tried to avoid believing in some kind of sixtieth curse, but when her second husband, the love of her life, Sid Noonan, had died eight months after turning sixty, a superstition had turned to an abject dread.

Martha told her that this fear of hers was crippling her. Liz had been focused on it so much lately. So, she’d recently stopped talking about it. She wanted people to believe she didn’t really think she’d die soon. Even if she was certain that she would.

She walked back into the party. The room was full of people with glasses in hand and chicken wings and meatballs on tiny paper plates. They were all smiling and happy, all with years before they turned sixty. They weren’t counting down the less than 365 days they had left in this world.

Only one of her three children was there. The local child, Lauren. Liz’s two sons were off living their lives, Charlie in Thai land and Zach in Ottawa. Lauren stood across the room smiling at her husband of two years, Ronnie. Lauren was half-sister to Charlie and Zach.

Lauren’s father, Bob Chafe, was still very much alive, while Charlie and Zach’s had been dead going on two years. Wouldn’t they all be surprised if they knew that this afternoon, during a very long lunch, Lauren’s dad and Liz had been reliving old times? Turns out sex was much better with Bob Chafe when you weren’t married to him.

Excerpted from The Incident and Everything After by Tina Chaulk © 2026. Used with permission of Breakwater Books.

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Tina Chaulk lives with her husband, two children, and five rescue animals in Conception Bay South, Newfoundland and Labrador. She works in the Department of Communications of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services. Tina loves writing about funny and flawed characters, as seen in her two previous novels, this much is true and A Few Kinds of Wrong. Tina’s exploration of such characters continues in The Incident and Everything After, her third novel.

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