Hanna and Linus both looked up at her in astonishment.

‘What?’ She looked stunned as Bell held it out to her.

Linus dropped his spoon in his cereal bowl excitedly. ‘Mamma’s been looking for that all weekend!’

‘Where was it?’ Hanna croaked.

‘In your bedside drawer. I was just returning the inhaler, and –’ She shrugged.

‘It was never lost at all, Mamma!’ Linus laughed.

Hanna blinked at him as though she couldn’t quite understand his words. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she managed. ‘I’m so silly. I must have put it there and forgotten all about it.’ She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘I must be getting old! How could I be so forgetful?’

‘Wait till we tell Pappa.’ Linus began eating again.

‘Bell, thank you. I can’t believe I did that. I’ve worried myself stupid all weekend, for no good reason.’

‘I’m just glad it’s found,’ Bell smiled, although technically, it had never been lost. Merely forgotten. It was a funny thing to forget, though.

She watched as Hanna slid it onto her finger again – I never take it off – a question running through her mind.

So why had she?

Sandhamn, 3 August 2009

It had been a long day and his feet burned as he jumped onto the old boat, already late for dinner. The stock-take had taken twice as long as it should have done when the bakery’s cat had leapt from its sleeping perch on the very top box and sent the whole tower crashing to the floor. Some of the tin cans were dented but otherwise fine, but half the tubs of herring had exploded on impact and he’d had to mop three times to get rid of every last speck, else the smell would quickly become unbearable once the temperatures rose again tomorrow.

He couldn’t wait to get back home and swim. The stench of fish sat on his skin and his whole body ached from shifting boxes all day; his lower back was stiff from manning the tills, which were set too low down for someone of his height.

All around him, the marina hummed to the low buzz of life as the boat owners went about enjoying their summer on the high sea – some catching the last of the sun on deck, or sitting chatting in foldaway cabin chairs with a glass of rosé; others hosing the waterproof cushions, polishing the bowlines or checking the sails. He unwound the mooring rope from the low bollard, ready to sink onto the bench and putter out of the marina and into the sound. Another day done . . .

A pair of soft, pretty feet with pink-painted toenails stopped in front of him, and he looked up. But there was no surprise in his face. He already knew to whom they belonged.

They stood in silence, as though they already knew each other well, and he had a strange sense of time collapsing in on it itself in her presence – the future; the past. It all dovetailed into the present. This moment right now. Nothing else mattered.