Memory Tray
Sometimes she thinks about that morning. Mark, laughing, reaching from the hotel sheets —
— What are you doing? Come back to bed, and bring the damn breakfast with you —
— while the headline on the newspaper expands before her eyes. Aviator Killed at Hendon Display. Beneath, where she already knows it will be, Alexander Hardcastle, twenty-one.
The way the cups rattle as she sets them down, pushing the rush of grief into a deep, cold ball. Knowing, as always, that it was pointless to indulge in guilt. Even if people could look into the future, they would never change anything they did.