The suitcases are stacked by the door. I’ve double-checked our rooms to make sure nothing has been left. Grandad’s coin is now back in my purse.

‘Do you want me to come to the airport with you?’ Oliver asks.

‘No. I do want to say goodbye—’

‘Of course, we’ll—’

‘Not to you.’ I look pointedly at Adam.

‘Anna… I can’t…’

‘It’s our wedding anniversary today. Wouldn’t you want to see Clem on your anniversary?’

‘That’s not fair.’

I know it isn’t but I’m running out of options. ‘It will absolutely be the last time and then we’ll get on the plane, I promise. It’ll be my goodbye. Closure.’

‘But last time… You could have died, Anna. You weren’t in a good state when you came back.’

‘Because I wasn’t supervised. You’d be here. I need this.’

Indecision slides across Oliver’s face. I wait. I whisper.

‘Please.’

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Adam

‘Please.’ Anna trails off and I know she’ll be staring into the distance, nipping her lower lip between her teeth in that way of hers when she’s struggling to find the right words.

It’s our anniversary and I can’t move, I can’t speak. I can’t tell my wife that at the bottom of my suitcase under the clothes I’ll never unpack is a wooden box – the traditional five-year gift. It’s impossible for me to explain that inside are small rectangles of coloured paper on which I’ve written the words that best describe her. I haven’t got it right the last few anniversaries; I know somewhere along the line we stopped making an effort but I wanted to… I want to show her how much she means to me, still.

Always.

This year, I hoped I’d hit the nail on the head. Anna is way better at the gift stuff than me. On our first anniversary I arrived home with a bouquet of roses, a huge box of chocolates and a takeaway menu I had picked up from the new curry house on the corner. I had thought it was enough. I knew I could never match the star I had named after her for our first Valentine’s but, looking back now, I hadn’t really tried. The house was lit with flickering candles, it was like walking onto a film set. ‘Love me Tender’ was playing from the Bose. The smell of paella – always our ‘special occasion’ meal – drifted out of the kitchen. Anna hesitantly came down the stairs, smoothing her black dress over her thighs, tucking behind her ear a tendril of hair that had escaped her complicated up-do. She looked beautiful.

She always looks beautiful.