AFTER NEFYN LEFT, EFA had continued to nurse Emrys. When she had gone to him, his eyes had seemed clearer. His voice stronger. He had held her hand tightly, pulled her near. She had lain then by his side, until he had whispered his thanks for all the things she had done for him. She had asked Mary to come and sit with him now, and walked the coast path towards the church. She did not know why she had come, but something about the coolness of that interior had lured her. She pushed the door open, and rather than reach for the broom as she usually would, she left the sand that had blown in, preferring to listen instead to the sound of the sea breathing against the church walls.

We always want more, that’s what the old Doctor had told her. However blessed and happy our lives have been, however thankful we know we should feel, we always want more. She had seen it in the Doctor’s widow’s face as she fell into the arms of her sons. The sudden loneliness. The going home without him.

When she was younger, Efa had thought that time would prepare her, that the years would wear away the fear that she felt, but they hadn’t, of course. He was all she had known. The first man she had been with. They had moved through the years from young lovers to friends and back to lovers again, as most couples did. She had watched him age, watched his cheeks redden with veins, his skin wear thin. The softening of his face and his smile. And he had witnessed her thickening waist, her stubborn hair, the lumpy veins of her legs. He had placed a hand on her waist in the dead of night when they had gone to bed in silence after an argument. A gentle reminder that they shouldn’t fight. He had been the one who sat with her in the hospital waiting room when the baby they had lost wouldn’t come away. He was the one who had taken her to the café afterwards, and talked to her about the caravan holiday he had booked and how he wanted to buy her a new flask, bringing a gentle smile to her face though it was ruddy and blotchy with crying. And it was with him that she had laughed and talked of getting old as they danced barefoot along the harbour wall when they were young, and it was with him that she had talked about being young when in old age they had looked out at the same wall, with the dark sea breathing beyond.

She heard the bare feet on the tiles and knew instinctively it was Nefyn. She came to sit beside her in the pew. Laid her head on her shoulder.

‘I knew you were here,’ she whispered.

Efa nodded silently. Her vision blurring.