With her father’s help, White Cottage had been mortgaged for the funds to get her through college. Evening education followed, while she gained experience as a low paid junior veterinary. The property was also surety for the funds she needed to open the practice and although people sometimes commented about their high veterinary bills, they had no idea of the costs involved.

Nevertheless, business was good and she would soon be in the clear, reaping the benefits of her many sacrifices.

Before turning the ignition, she squandered another precious minute gazing back at the cottage. It had once been The White House, a grand, five-bedroomed family home built by an ancestor. She could imagine horse-drawn carriages, and Model T Fords pulling up outside.

In the Second World War, a bomb caused dangerous cracks in the masonry and a portion of the house had to be demolished. With post-war austerity, the family decided the building was adequate with three bedrooms, so the brickwork was tidied up and the house renamed White Cottage.

She pulled the envelope from her pocket and stared at the handwriting, presumably his, DJ’s. Shelly pressed it against her cheek.

Oh, if only she could see him again!

But she had to think of the long-term consequences; what good could come from digging up the past and all the pain that went with it? She had enough to deal with. What effect would it have on her father – after all, it was his fault that DJ went away. Returning the correspondence to her pocket, she started the car. Perhaps she would open it this evening, depending on how she got on with the spare-room spring-clean.

*

Years back, Shelly had made a feeble effort to empty the crammed wardrobe, but within ten minutes, she was in tears. She promised herself then, she wouldn’t try to sort her mother’s things until she had forgiven herself for that terrible Christmas. Her mother’s elegant dresses brought back many beautiful memories, but each one loomed like Marley’s ghost, pointing the finger at her. A room full of hobgoblins and heartache.

She was only sixteen, when it started, and by the time she was seventeen she had lost three people she loved more than life. Now she would have to face the first of them, in the dust and gloom and memorabilia of the spare bedroom.

Perhaps the time had come to put everything right. Starting that very evening.

Shelly stood tall, ready to face her demons. She needed to move on and live her own life, free to love again, and be loved.

She set to work. Boxes of jumble that her father had shoved in there over the years were destined for the charity shop. She dragged cartons onto the landing, making space to investigate. The Women’s Institute ladies had come over after her mother’s funeral and packed Mum’s stuff away.