Returning Home

The man she had buried was back and knocking. Paula looked through the door visor and blinked. How could this be? She had raised their son and sent him off to university, lived through birthdays and Christmases, weddings and illness, all on her own. Life had moved on without him, and now here he was. Mark’s voice cut through the numbness that was already rising. ‘Open up, love, it’s me. I’m soaked and it’s bloody cold out here.’

Her hand hovered over the lock. This man looked like Mark and sounded like him, even stood like him, but there was something in his posture, in the way his shoulders hunched as if time had never passed, that did not feel quite right. But before she could decide what to do, he bent down, lifted the garden gnome, and retrieved the spare key she had forgotten was still there. The door rattled open under his hand. Paula took two steps back and placed one hand over her heart, which thudded like a slow drum.

‘What’s wrong with you tonight, love? It’s like you want me to catch a cold,’ he said, as he shook his head with mild exasperation. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, soft and sure. ‘I need a hot bath and some warm clothes. Can you pop the kettle on for us?’ Paula nodded, or thought she did, her gaze fixed on the figure that climbed the stairs as though he had never left. ‘I must be dreaming,’ she murmured, and pinched herself hard. Her skin pulsed under the sharp sting, but nothing had changed.