From Heartache To Forever. Caroline Anderson

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      ‘Tea or coffee?’

      ‘Tea would be lovely, thank you. Want a hand?’

      ‘No, you’re fine. Go and relax, I won’t be long.’

      Relax? He was too wired for that, and stiffening up nicely after all the heaving and bending. He was going to hurt in the morning. Ah, well. At least they’d made a start.

      He flexed his shoulders and strolled over to the shelves in the corner of her sitting room beside the fireplace, where a silver trinket box had caught his eye. It was a heart, he discovered, smooth and rounded, incredibly simple but somehow beautiful, and crying out to be touched.

      He picked it up, and it settled neatly into the palm of his hand as if it belonged there, the metal cool against his palm, the surface so smooth it felt like silk. There was something written on it, he realised, and he traced it with his fingertip, his heart starting to pound as he read the tiny inscription.

      A date. A date he recognised, a date he could never forget because it was carved on his heart, too.

      He heard her footsteps behind him.

      ‘Tea,’ she said, her voice sounding far away, the clink of the mugs as she put them down oddly loud in the silence. He turned slowly towards her, the heart still nestled in the palm of his hand.

      ‘What’s this?’ he asked gruffly, knowing the answer, and her smile nearly broke his heart.

      ‘Her ashes.’

      Her face blurred, and he bent his head and lifted the tiny urn to his lips, his eyes squeezed tightly shut to trap the tears inside.

      ‘You kept them,’ he said, when he could speak.

      ‘Of course. I didn’t know what else to do. You weren’t there by the time I picked them up, and I didn’t want to stay where we were because of all the reminders and I knew if they were there I’d feel tied, so I had to keep her with me until we could decide together what to do.’

      He looked up, blinking so he could see her face, and her smile cracked.

      ‘Oh, Beth…’

      He reached out his free arm and pulled her against his side, and she laid her hand over the delicate little urn in his hand, her fingers curling round over his as she rested her head on his shoulder.

      ‘Grace didn’t suffer, Ry. At least we know that.’

      He nodded, and she lifted the little heart gently out of his hand, kissed it and put it back on the shelf, next to a pretty cardboard box. She touched it fleetingly.

      ‘That’s her memory box,’ she said softly. ‘The midwives gave it to me in the hospital. Would you like to see it?’

      He shook his head, mentally backing away from it, unable to face it. ‘No. Not tonight. I’m too tired, Beth. I think I might head up to bed. I’ve got another long day tomorrow and you’re working.’

      Her smile was understanding, as if she’d seen straight through him.

      ‘When you’re ready,’ she said gently, but he’d spent two long years running away from it and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for what he knew must be in that memory box.

      Time to stop running? Maybe, but not now. Not tonight.

      Not yet…