We find out in the morning.

No, I say, when my husband says he must go after him, fearing that he will have gone towards the train.

He’s weak, I think. He’s weak.

He had nothing but potato water.

Look after your garden.

I imagine a trail. A dog, a boy, another boy, a man. My man going missing. Then me, I follow after him. My daughter finds me gone. Her partner looks for her. So on. And so on. One by one. A fairy tale. Until we all walk, all of us, one by one away.

LETTER

John,

Where to start?

–Are you sure you’re happy to do this?

I could just record something, I know. But then I’d just ramble. You know me. And I want to get it right.

I’ve asked Ruth to write things down as I speak. Strange, talking into the air. Hearing her voice in my earpiece.

–It’s Ruth, right? Thank you, Ruth. Sorry. I knew that. Let’s start again.

I’ve tried to memorise what I want to tell you, but I was never very good at that. The words seem very solid until I go to say them, then they disappear. Like trying to remember my dreams, when I wake up.

Yours always hang with you through the day, you say. I think mine move to make way for daydreams.

–No. Sorry. There’s no need for any of that, is there? Try again.

You said, I don’t want there to be time, to think of you in pain. Well, I feel the same.

So I’ve asked them not to tell you. When it’s time.

If they told you to come, then you would know.

You would know from the moment they called. And you would know as you were on your way here. And when you got here you would sit here watching. And I would have to think of you going through that.

By the time you got here, I would be asleep. They’ve said I would be asleep. By then.

So.

–That’s right, isn’t it? I’ll be. By that time.

And I would be asleep, they’ve said, by then. So.

You would watch. That’s all. I would not be able to help.

But this will help, I hope. I want to say some things.

I want to say that I knew in the first few minutes I was going to love you, and would love you, and would fight through things for that.

There are people together all their lives, and they don’t have that. But we do. Even through the fights and niggles, and the things that come. We do.

We were so young. And I had never been so sure and determined about anything before, that I couldn’t properly understand.