My dearest Robin,

You're in the garden with our boy, chasing, playing, laughing and I can't stop smiling. You keep looking at me, you probably are right now, wondering what it is I'm writing as you always are. I've kept it a secret for so long, since the diagnosis in all honesty and I know you told me not to be so morbid, to have more faith in the world when I felt it was being wholly unfair. I still don't have that faith in the world but I have that faith in you.

I don't believe I have long left now and though it's going to pain me to say goodbye, I know that I'm going to be okay just as I know that you are going to be okay.

You are my best friend, always have been since the day I found myself in this country with barely any friends and absolutely no idea what a 'sausage roll' was until a handsome stranger offered me half of his whilst waiting for a taxi into Devon.

You showed me the beauty of the world and the beauty of the people I'd once disregarded for fear of getting hurt. I fell in love with you slowly and completely and I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for all of it but especially for the absolute angel that you created with me.

It's not going to be easy, this parenting thing, and though I wanted to battle through it with you, perhaps have a few more little terrors to run us absolutely ragged, I do not regret a thing.

Inside this book is a list, the very same list that we created that first night when you let me talk about the 'what if'...you know the one, the 'what if I don't get better?'. I've added a few little things of my own, some that we thought up together - places I want you to take him, things I want you both to do together - and then I have one last request to make of you when you are ready for it.

Fall in love again, my sweet. Make another woman as lucky as I was to have had you and to have loved you. You deserve to share your life with someone and Roland deserves to know the love of another mother. I have no fears that either of you will forget me and she will not be a replacement but merely an embodiment of all I want for you. I give you my permission and my blessing, my love. Your heart is too big and too wonderful to be contained, let it out.

I have to go now, sweetheart. Roland simply has to have cuddles on the lawn with the two of us and what kind of fool would I be to miss that?

You have given me more than a lifetime's worth of happiness, don't you ever doubt that and know, no matter how cliche it sounds, I will always be with you.

All my love and unending gratitude,

Your Marian xo

'Open the drapes in every room, every morning. Let the light back in.'

The rooms are dusty, the place needs a good clean. He can see the particles swirling about in the beams of light that haven't touched the carpets in over a month and he feels guilty, he should have done this sooner, she'd have wanted him to do this sooner. Just the thought of her in the past tense has him aching inside. She was always so present, his Marian, filled with a wonder for the world around them and all of the things the universe had to offer - the most wondrous, of course, being their boy, their Roland.

Roland had been living with his parents this past month, allowing Robin the time to properly grieve and the incentive to leave the house every day to see his son. He'd visit for most of the day, let his mum fuss over him and let his dad distract him with pointless football chat - it never worked, his mind was always and, he felt, would always be consumed with his late wife - whilst Roland would buzz about them all, parking himself on one of their laps whilst he played in his own imagination. Then, after forcing down food that seemed to just sit at the bottom of his stomach, he'd take his boy upstairs for his bath, get him all snug in bed and read to him until soft snores filled the room. He'd leave after that, go back to his own dark pit of a room and lock himself away for the next twelve hours until the whole process would begin again.

Today was different though, today his son was coming home.

His house felt as though it didn't belong to him anymore, despite the familiar furnishings and the pictures that proved that it very much was his...there was something missing now. He knew what it was - Marian.

She was everywhere. Smiling, beaming out from dusty frames - prom night, their wedding day, the day of Roland's birth with sweat stuck to her forehead and her skin flushed from exertion but still as beautiful as ever - in every carefully picked ornament that decorated the coffee table that she'd painted and distressed by hand. She was woven into the fabric of every cushion meticulously placed on their sofa - she used to whine at him for not understanding the correct position of each one and he'd laugh at her, tell her there were more important things to worry about in life...it had been the truth but now, he wished he'd paid more attention - into the rug in front of the fire on which they'd sometimes lay down upon at night and whisper their dreams and promises. She's everywhere and it's as though he's lost her all over again.

He breathed in the hot steam of his tea, letting the burn from the warm ceramic anchor him when, in truth, he just wanted to float away. His mother was sat opposite him, doing her best to keep her concerned gazing to a minimum. She was worried about him, she was always worried about him just as he was his own son but he didn't know what to tell her.

"How can I help you?" she'd cried to him the night after Marian's death, "tell me what you need," the night they'd agreed it best to keep Roland with them until Robin was back on his feet, pleading with him as she'd picked him up from the ground and pulled him into her arms as though he'd weighed nothing. He'd been unable to do anything other than fight to keep breathing through hacking sobs and she hadn't asked again, had only shown that she was still there for him in any way possible.

"Have you been taking him…" he began, swallowing thickly at the lump that instantly formed in his throat. Tears stung at his eyes as they did every time he thought of his Marian alone in that graveyard, shame washing over him at the knowledge that he hadn't been back since her burial - he didn't yet have the strength.

His mother's warm palm came to rest over the back of his hand, her fingers curling around to touch her fingertips to his palm as she squeezed soothingly and confirmed "we have," before letting out a soft breath of laughter and telling him "he tells her stories, sings her songs, that kind of thing." Robin nodded though his head only hung lower, the battle against his tears lost as his body began to shake with the build-up of his sobs. "He won't forget her, Robin" she promised as she stepped around the counter separating them and turned him, pulling him into her embrace whilst she rubbed soothing lines up and down the length of his spine, "and neither will you, my precious boy."

Their mugs stood upside down on the draining board, soapy suds trailing down to puddle at the upturned rim. His eyes followed each and every droplet that formed, watching it from beginning to end. His mother had left around half an hour ago, had pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead, told him to get himself sorted and had driven home to collect Roland and all of his things.

There was a pack of sausages in the fridge, thin and skinless, just like his boy liked. A tin of beans waited in the cupboard and he had a handful of potatoes readily peeled to boil and to mash. He'd let Roland help with that, he'd always enjoyed helping Marian with the cooking, perhaps this was another way for them to remember her, to honour her memory.

He'd needed the cry he thinks, eyes still a little sore, needed the release because now is the time to pull himself back together. If not for him, for his son and for his wife.