Her hand paused in mid-knock as she once again surveyed the exterior of the weatherbeaten, Yorkshire farmhouse. "Are you sure this it? It sure doesn't look like any Bed and Breakfast I've ever seen."
"Yeah, this is it. She gave me very exact directions when I made the reservations." He tugged on the collar of the heavy, wool sweater she had bought him as he spoke. "There wasn't another sweater in that place? And my old sweater was fine."
Turning to hide her giggles, she knocked on the heavy oak door. Something's never changed. "Your old sweater also had a rather large bullet hole..."
The door swung open suddenly, and a large pair of bright, blue eyes peered at them from a shrunken, wrinkled face.
And then she smiled, and it was as if clear English sunshine had emerged from the clouds, "Well, hello, you must be the Thornhills. We're so pleased you will be spending your second honeymoon with us. You must be Eve," she took Michelle's left elbow, "And you must be Roger," she took Danny's right, and started leading them through the farmhouse. Fortunately, in her chattering she missed Danny's grimace as she tugged on his arm. Michelle cast a worried glance behind her.
"My name is Miss Froy, and you must look upon this as a second home..."
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The next morning:
A single sliver of pure, clear sunshine roused him from a deep, pain-free slumber. He reached for the warmth which had been in his arms throughout the night, and found nothing.
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On the moors:
He really hadn't needed to ask Miss Froy where she had gone. He found her seated on a stile, overlooking a barren valley, with her chin her hands, contemplating. He hoisted himself onto the fence next to her.
She watched him carefully. He really shouldn't be exerting himself, she knew, but she also knew it was impossible to stop him.
They sat in companionable silence....
"When you died, I thought I was going to shrivel up and die, too. All the things that had become better in my life since you had come into it, the smell of strawberries and cream, Buzz' jokes, the sound of bells, the fighting, the holding and being held... all those things were gone, but it felt like everything that I had had before was gone too. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to see anybody, not even Rick, Abby, Meta, Bill..."
She reached over to smooth a curl behind his ear. He thought he would flinch from guilt beneath her touch, but instead he found himself tilting his head into her hand to prolong the contact just a little bit longer.
"You still wear that awful hair gel I tried to get you to throw away," she mused.
He nodded.
"Do you know, I couldn't throw away any of your stuff, even the stuff in the bathroom for months. I just couldn't do it, not the dozen black and off-black dress shirts, not any of the Italian suits hogging the closets-when the cleaners called to ask why you hadn't picked up any of your clothing, I started shouting at them, didn't they read the papers, why didn't they know... I think I remember throwing the phone against the wall. It wasn't until I was packing up to go to Palo Alto that I could even touch any of your things. Abby found me in the bathroom crying, and holding that stupid hair gel. She finally had to pack the stuff up for me and take it to the junkyard."
Somehow he couldn't absorb the information; he didn't know what he would do, what he could do, if Michelle died.
"Michelle, why haven't you ever gotten married?"
"I guess I never met the right guy."
Somehow, his heart stopped beating, and his breath completely stilled. And yet, he was alive to feel the pain.
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