Our world had grown familiar, safe and predictable. Each morning we woke up knowing what the day would bring with little in the way of shock and change. Occasionally, of course, things happened as they always do when life always hangs by what – at times – seems such a slender thread. People get ill, have accidents, grow old and die.
All that, though, happened around us. Occasionally, it came close to us, for instance, when Pauline’s estranged father died somewhere in Scotland and was dead and buried before the letter reached us. As we got older too, funerals became more common. We began to dread the phone ringing late in the night telling us someone close had died.
The children grew up and began leading their own lives and we carried on, joking with each other about what kind of pensioners we would become.
Then I got the friend request on Facebook.
Not that I ever bothered that much with it. My profile was years old and half-completed. I had only a handful of friends and a status rarely updated. Still, she found me. I could see it was her, even through all the changes of the years, remembering that long Christmas kiss back in the 70s when we whispered to each other about being together forever.
Then I went away and everything changed. Pauline came along and I never went back. Sue became just another one of those memories that slip into the mind when I sit there late at night alone with a drink and a few minutes peace and quiet.
Then Sue began telling me all about her life and how she’d recently moved too, to be near her children after the death of her husband. She was only a few miles from me now.
I agreed to meet her, encouraged by Pauline who thinks I’m too happy with my own company.
After that, well… things could never ever be the same again, no matter how I tried to put the clock back, put everything right and get my old safe, predictable life back once again.
[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]
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