In measured tones that seemed to follow the shape of the road Leonard told me that even though he’d tried his best, he’d eventually found it impossible to manage Iris on his own. The early-morning cleaning job at Pearl’s had been a distraction to help him fill the hours when the carers came in, so he didn’t have to watch as strangers tended to the body he’d promised to protect and worship since he’d dropped to one youthful, unwrinkled knee and proposed to her some sixty-odd years before.

In recent months Iris had rarely left her bed, except to occasionally fling the covers and sometimes her nightie off without warning and stand at the window staring at some invisible point in the ocean. On those days Leonard would wrap his arms around her from behind, put his head on her shoulder and gently hold her. Most of the time she’d step away or arrange her frame into such a shape that her bones slipped through his fingers, but every now and then he’d feel her relax into the well-worn nook of his arms and, for a few precious moments, the girl with the hibiscus hair was back.

“It’s all I live for, Sadie. Those rare little spaces in her mind that she’s saved just for us.”

His gnarly hands gripped the steering wheel tighter and as we came up to a bend in the road I found myself leaning into it with him.

“Until I met you and Norman, that is.”

Hell’s bells, old-timer, way to break my heart.

After the latest of Iris’s all-too-frequent falls out of bed, which had resulted in a broken arm, Leonard had finally conceded defeat and accepted he could no longer keep her safe in their home. She’d been given a place at the Wheeler Center and the doctors had advised him to refrain from visiting for the first few weeks to allow her to settle into a new routine.

“So when you told me about Norman and his plan, well, it seemed like the perfect distraction. And oh, how marvelous it has been, my dear. But then, when we got to Edinburgh, I... I couldn’t sleep and...well, I just started thinking about how it was all nearly over and that I’d have to go back home soon. And...and Iris wouldn’t be there in her kitchen or her garden...not ever again. And I’ve spoken to the nurses in the center regularly, of course, and they say she’s doing well, but... I must admit, my dear, the thought of...of...well, I just got myself a little upset over it all, if the truth be told.”

It seemed that window-seat bed had been just about as uncomfortable as it looked and, wide-awake and worked up, rather than attempt the impossible task of trying to get back to sleep for a couple more hours, Leonard had come up with his own little early-morning plan.

“I would never have wanted to worry you, Sadie, but I thought I’d be back before... I didn’t even take my coat. The thing is, I remembered...well, being in Scotland reminded me about the heather. Iris just loved it. She said it always brought her luck, ever since her grandfather used to send her a dried sprig in the post every year for her birthday as a little girl. She even had it in her wedding bouquet. So I thought...it grows wild everywhere here, and if maybe I could just go for a little drive until I found Iris some heather, I might...it might bring her some luck for the next stage of her journey. At the Wheeler Center and...and all points beyond.”