Page 93 of All the Things We Never Knew

He looked surprised. ‘God, no. Not ever. There are a lot of people like me out there who’ve had a second chance of life, but not so many that it’s common, you know? So when I think about it, I think how fucking lucky I am to be one of them. It’s cheesy, but it makes me feel blessed.’

He held out his hand and I passed him my empty coffee cup, our cold fingers just touching.

‘Do you want to go on, or go back?’ he asked. ‘It’s almost two.’

‘Maybe best to go back. Not sure I fancy this in the dark.’

‘And besides’ – he smiled – ‘there’s a great pub I know that has an open fire and does killer shepherd’s pie.’

‘Sold.’

We shouldered our bags again and mounted our bikes, turning back the way we had come. The wind was mostly behind us now, and the trail mostly downhill, so it took way less time to return than it had going out. Still, getting into a hot shower and then into clean, dry clothes in my Airbnb felt like heaven.

I met Joel just before seven at the pub, as we’d arranged. He’d showered and changed too; his dark hair was still damp, and he was wearing a navy-blue wool jumper the same colour as his eyes. He’d bought a bottle of wine and found a table right by the blazing fire. I joined him there, feeling the heat of the flames soak into me from the outside and the warmth of the wine from the inside.

There was another kind of warmth too. I looked at him, wondering if he was feeling it as well.

Then he said, ‘You know, there’s another thing I’m grateful to Nigel – to Gray – for.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Meeting you,’ he said.

FIFTY-THREE

ANNA

‘This one’s string’s broken, Mum.’ Barney held out a sparkly gold bauble for me to inspect. It was one of the cheap ones that Gray and I had bought at Woolworths the first year we were in the house, when it was a building site and we had no money, but we were so happy and in love we were determined to make Christmas magical in spite of those things.

Alongside the decorations we had accumulated since – the fancy glass ones, the artisan ones bought on various holidays abroad, even the ones hand-crafted by the children – it looked mass-produced and shabby. But it was part of our history, and it deserved its place on the magnificent Norwegian spruce tree that Barney had carried from the market and wrestled down the stairs, which was already in its place by the window, festooned with lights and laden with the contents of the boxes Lulu had brought down from the loft.

‘There’s some ribbon in my sewing kit,’ I told him. ‘We’ll tie a bit on. It’ll be fine. Run and fetch it.’

‘Okay.’ He headed for the stairs, then stopped halfway up. ‘Where’s your sewing kit?’

‘Honestly.’ I rolled my eyes in mock exasperation. ‘Sometimes you behave like a weekend guest who arrived two hours ago, not someone who’s lived in this house for thirteen years. It’s in the bottom of the chest of drawers in my bedroom.’

‘Sorry, Mum. I just wasn’t sure…’

I smiled. ‘Don’t worry, darling. I understand.’

And I did. In the past year, the bedroom had been transformed into a hospital room and back again to a bedroom. For a while, ‘my bedroom’ hadn’t been the room I’d shared with Gray but the spare room down the landing. And just recently, half of the things that had lived in the drawers and wardrobes had been sorted through and removed. Where Gray’s stuff had been before, there was now empty space.

When I’d told Orla that it was about time I tackled the task, she offered to come and help.

‘In case you need a hand. Or just some moral support. It won’t be easy.’

I accepted gratefully. ‘And I thought… This might sound weird, but I thought I might ask Laurel if she wants to come too. Just in case there’s anything of Gray’s she’d like to keep for herself.’

‘I think that would be a kind thing to do.’ Orla smiled approvingly.

So, on a Saturday morning when Lulu was at cheerleading and Barney was at football, the three of us had gone into the bedroom and tackled the job. The first part had been easy – there were rows of shirts from what Gray had called his ‘fat period’, which he’d kept as a kind of insurance policy, together with suits and jeans in the same sizes, and those went straight into a pile for the charity shop.

‘It’s so weird to think of Gray wearing these,’ Laurel had said, holding up a shirt with a size-eighteen collar. ‘I only ever knew him as… well, you know.’

She’d trailed off, as if worried that she had overstepped.

‘Hey, it’s okay.’ I touched her arm. ‘There are things here from before I knew him too. Like this.’