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He smiled back, posture relaxing as we completed the journey.

We arrived and exited the car. “I need to tell you something,” Kerr said.

I glanced over as we made our way through the melting snow in the car park. “I hope it’s not as big a bombshell as the one I dropped on you this afternoon.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About letting people in, people close to me. I’m going to tell Katie that I want to go ahead with becoming official partners.”

My heart glowed brightly. “That is wonderful news.” I squeezed his hand as we made our way into the building.

I could almost feel him trembling as we walked the corridor down to the ward. I had called ahead to my colleagues and told them the situation, and to let Anna know we were coming.

The curtain was drawn around her bed as we approached. Kerr hung back, letting me open it to reveal Anna sitting in the chair next to her bed. “Hi, Anna. We’re here.”

The expectant look on her face killed me as she peered over my shoulder to get a look at her precious son. Her hands went to her mouth, tears forming in her soft brown eyes. “Kerr!” she said through her fingers.

I turned to usher him past, taking in the look of shocked recognition on his face. Of course, they were both many years older than when they’d last seen each other, but the family resemblance was so clear I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. But when you aren’t looking for something specifically, it can go under your radar.

“Mum,” he said, his voice nearly giving out, along with my heart. He came into the room and knelt in front of her, taking her frail form into his arms, her body wracked with sobs.

I shut the curtain behind me, shifting over to the bed and sitting down before I fell down with the emotion of it all. Tears openly ran down my face, but I didn’t care.

“He told me you were dead,” Kerr said, drawing back to look his mum in the eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice breaking. “I shouldn’t have left.”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “It was all him, not you.”

“I wrote to you. But when you didn’t write back I thought you hated me.”

He shook his head. “I never got the letters, Mum. He must have taken them.”

Eventually, once they were both convinced the other was real and not a figment of their imagination about to disappear in a puff of smoke, I fetched an extra chair for Kerr to sit next to his mum. They chatted about his time at university, his career, and what she could remember from her time in Glasgow. Her memory was patchy, and we all knew some of it would never come back, and that, in time, the dementia would worsen and permanently rob her of more of her faculties. But I hoped that perhaps there would be time before that occurred. Time they could now spend together.

I excused myself to go and fetch them some tea, had a good, snot-​ridden, sobbing-​out-​loud cry in the kitchen, then prepared and brought back a tray with three mugs and offered one to both of them before sitting on the bed across from them with mine.

Anna gave me a knowing look as Kerr smiled at me from her side. “My son tells me that you two are seeing each other,” Anna said, the delight in her voice apparent.

I raised my eyebrows. “Come on now. I think we’re more serious than just seeing each other,” I told him with a grin. “After all, I did just swim out to sea in my scrubs for you.”

His smile widened. “Oh, I’m serious all right. There’s no way I’m letting this one get away. She is absolutely perfect.”

Perfect. Not too loud. Not too gregarious. Not too ambitious. Not too much. To him, I was perfect as I was.

Anna nodded. “And she gave me the greatest gift ever.” She took hold of Kerr’s hand and looked him in the eye. “She got me my boy back.”

Kerr blinked hard, squeezing his mum’s hand.

I took a deep breath, a new lump forming in my throat. “Okay. I need to rehydrate with this tea before you guys make me cry any more. I’m a dried-up husk over here.”

They both laughed, and we went on to discuss a plan, which we would okay with Anna’s social worker, to get her a visit pass to Kerr’s house for Christmas Day—​now only a couple of weeks away.

By the time we left the hospital both of us were exhausted but so happy that we couldn’t stop smiling at each other on the way home.

When we reached our destination Kerr all but carried me into the house and up to my room, where he placed me at the edge of the bed, stripped my bottom half, and showed me just how grateful he was for everything I’d done with the most intense and exquisite orgasm I had ever had in my life.

We removed the rest of our clothing and he lay over me, entering me in achingly slow strokes, murmuring in my ear how much he loved me, how beautiful I was, how perfect. How he never wanted to let me go.

I cried out his name when I came again, telling him I loved him over and over, burning the words into his mind and onto his heart so that he’d never doubt again.