Chapter I

She lay with her arm behind her head like an artist's sketch, the blankets and sheets pulled halfway up and draped lazily around her. It was before dawn. Shelagh still wasn't used to sleeping past four, and when, sometimes, she found herself opening her eyes at that hour she always said a small prayer. She prayed for different things now; guidance from God, as always, but also prayers for her family that conjured a warmth within her that hadn't been there before. She loved God as much as she always had, and her family just as much. But there could not have been two forms of love as different from each other.

Shelagh brought her left hand up so she could see its outline in the half-light, ran the pad of her right thumb across the ring. She let her hands wander now to her abdomen, flat but not for long. Another in a series of events that took her life on more twists and turns than she ever could have imagined.

One of the things that struck her about life was its capacity to change. One moment you're a nun and the next you're a wife and mother. At first it's hard to bear, but after a while you learn not to look at it as a loss. There's even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human.

Patrick stirred beside her, and reached to run a warm finger over her wrist. "It's early. What are you thinking about?" he asked, voice husky from sleep.

Shelagh hesitated. The response was long and complex. She wished it was conventional and contained.

"When I was younger, before I came to Nonnatus, I had a friend," she began slowly. "Not a best friend, but a good one. The last time I saw her was the day I left for London. She was standing on a street corner." Her words were large in the dark silence. "We had already said our goodbyes a few days ago, but she happened to turn around to watch me go. It might have been an accident. I looked at her for a long time through the window as we drove off." Shelagh smiled to herself, but Patrick heard it. "She wore purple gloves, and she waved to me. And I waved back. My hands were cold, though, because I'd forgotten mine. They were blue, and I forgot them."

This memory of her past was like a ring of smoke, staying suspended for a moment, then slowly fading away. It was rare for his wife to speak of her past. Each story she told was like a small piece of some precious stone. Patrick listened, and he stroked the back of her hand again, noticing how it now lay spread across her stomach. "I think about what happened to those gloves. When I joined the Order all my possessions were given away. And before I left home I had already given most of them away, anyway…But those gloves. They were right beside the door when I left." She sat up and looked at her husband. A shy sun was rising behind her, and her outline emerged from the darkness. "Whose are they now?"

Patrick smiled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear instead of responding to a question he had no answer to. "I don't like unfinished endings," she concluded, leaning into his palm.

"Neither do I," Patrick said.

She turned slightly and the timid light illuminated her cheek. "But I like beginnings."

"I do, too."

She reached for his hand and placed a soft kiss to the center of his palm. Lying down again, she curled beside him like a shrimp. She pulled his arm with her, bringing it to rest against her chest, near enough for him to feel her heart. He lay down, one arm around her. Soon her breathing slowed, her heart fell into a steady rhythm, he felt her sleeping.

So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. Her small stories, often uttered in darkness, filled Patrick's heart to bursting. Each one was a new seashell he could later press to his ear, hearing the echo of her.

There was so much that he didn't know about her, and so much that, over the course of time, he had discovered about her.

One night she had told him about the first baby she'd delivered. She still knew its name, the exact date. Three nights later she'd spoken very briefly of her mother. Just this week he had learned that, as a girl, she'd worn her hair in a long braid down her back. His eyes had gone watery with revelation, filled with the feeling that he was on the verge of understanding the essence of something.

A picture began to form with each grain of her past she shared with him. A young woman with cold hands, setting off on a journey that would last ten years. Abandoned gloves. Patrick took a long, slow breath. Every day was a beginning. They slept until sunrise.

Author's Note: So...first tentative step into writing a Call The Midwife fic! I wrote a later chapter (by that I mean a bunch of word vomit that shall never see the light of day until it's cleaned up and makes actual sense) of this in a notebook a few days ago and just agonized over how to lead up to it, so writing this chapter was very difficult for me. But, once I got going, the rest poured out at about 3 AM. Would love to know what you think.

While writing this I listened to "Le père" by Armand Amar, and "Julie -In Her New Apartment" by Zbigniew Preisner