“You will give me a ring when Sinead comes back, won’t you? We’ll arrange to have her brought to Eastvale and back home again.”

“I’ll ring,” Thornton said. His voice sounded throaty. He turned just as they opened the door. “Would you minding sending the wee ones in as you leave?” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen to them out there.”

It was the first thought he’d shown for his own children, Annie realized, taken aback by the request. Grief affects us all in different ways, she told herself, and who was she to judge Lenny Thornton? She knew next to nothing about his life. She shielded her eyes from the onslaught of sunlight and watched as the children actually obeyed her instructions and went inside. Maybe they thought there was a treat in store for them.

“Come on, Gerry,” she said. “Let’s have a little shopping trip.”

Excerpt from Linda Palmer’s Memoir

Let it be a steam train, then. I remember my excitement as it chugged out of Leeds City station, all straining hooks and cables, the whole thing creaking and rattling like the chains of Marley’s ghost, the way only a steam train can, almighty exhalations of smoke exploding from its funnel as it built up momentum, the speed quickening, faster and faster, settling into the regular, rocking clickety-clack rhythm as it escaped the confines of the city. Soon green fields full of sheep and cows flashed by, a tiny village, a lonely farmhouse, a river. A cyclist waiting at a level crossing waved to us, then bent to adjust his bicycle clips. Perhaps I’m already being free and easy with the details, but I’m sure you get the picture. It helps to put me in a mood to go on, and even invented memories can summon forth true ones.