You left me, sweet, two legacies, –
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

"You Left Me" - by Emily Dickinson

Boston, Massachusetts, USA – early December 2012:

Emma looked up to see that the line of people now wound past the section on New Fiction, turning back on itself, and then past the Business, and all the way through the vast section on Cookery and into Children's Books. She guessed that there were at least forty people waiting to have their copy of Remembering Michael signed by the author. That's me, Emma thought, acknowledging her own smug sense of achievement. I'm the author they've come to see. She was about to welcome her next reader when her eye caught a familiar face, and not so much a face as the back of a man's head - medium height, balding fair hair which curled at the ends, wide shoulders, stocky build. Emma felt her face flush, and for a moment she stopped breathing, her eyes drawn to the rather well dressed figure browsing in the War section. "It can't be," she said aloud.

"I bought a copy for myself and one for my mother," the mid-thirties woman said cheerily, and somewhat impatiently. "I'm Anna and my mother's name is Naomi."

Emma heard her, but she could not look away from the man browsing in War. Then he turned. This man had blue eyes and a thin nose, and he was much too young. He couldn't have been any older than late forties, and when he caught her staring at him he smiled, and then quickly looked away. The disappointment weighed on her like a wet coat.

"Ms Ruth?" the voice in front of her desk said, drawing her attention back to the book signing.

"I'm sorry," Emma said, smiling apologetically at the woman who'd introduced herself as Anna. "I thought I saw someone I knew."

Anna smiled, placing her two copies of Remembering Michael open on the table in front of Emma. "One is for Anna and the other is for Naomi. I can't stop thinking about this book, and I know my mother will enjoy it also. I've told her all about it."

Emma quickly signed each copy, closed the books, and handed them back to Anna with a smile. The gesture was meant to discourage long discourse with her readers, but Emma often ignored the rules in favour of asking her readers what they'd enjoyed most about the book. Not this day, though. This day, thanks to the anonymous middle-aged man, she was distracted and troubled. It was not who he was which troubled her; rather, it was who he wasn't.

She smiled up at the next person who placed their copy of her book on the table, opening it to the frontispiece. "I love this book," the woman prattled. "I find Grace to be so .. stoic, and as for Michael … I can see him in my mind, and then I look at my husband and wonder why he can't be more like your Michael." Emma smiled as she signed her name. The image of the man who'd been browsing in the War section still floated before her eyes, but it wasn't that man who distracted her. It was another man, a man whom she knew she'd never see again. She lifted her eyes to the next person in line, but this time, due to a heavy heart, her smile was forced.

London – mid March 2013:

Malcolm Wynn-Jones lived for spring and summer, not that he was terribly out-doorsey, because he wasn't. Despite his mother having passed in the early autumn, he still adopted her view of the seasons. Spring and summer were both equally welcome, while autumn was barely bearable, and winter was frequently off the chart. During the cold weather Amelia Wynn-Jones had suffered with her arthritis, and on the very coldest of days her chilblains had been so bad that she'd had to resort to wearing woolen gloves, even while she ate and slept. Even the fancy heating system which Malcolm had had installed only took the edge off her discomfort, and when she'd entered the hospice during her last months of life, she'd suffered so much that her doctor had increased her pain medicine. With spring on the doorstep, Malcolm resolved to get out more, maybe take a daily walk in the fresh air, lift the bulbs and replant, buy some more bulbs and plant them. He smiled to himself and went back to the coding which had already eaten up the weeks since Christmas – his first Christmas without his mother.

When first the doorbell rang he'd assumed it was one of the warning sounds on his system. He did a quick check, and nothing appeared out of order. On the second ring he lifted his head, and then turned to the doorway which led into his living room. The only visitor he'd had in the time since his mother had passed had been Margaret from next door, who wandered in at least once a week with a casserole for him. He always accepted her kindness, reminding her that he'd been responsible for the bulk of the cooking in his home for the past eight years or more. Margaret was kind, and at seventy-nine years of age, it was unlikely she had designs on him. It was not her time of day. It was just after 2 pm, and Margaret's visits were either in early morning, or at tea time.

He sighed, lifted himself from the chair, and made his way to the front door. The figure he could see through the lead lighting was small – much smaller than Margaret, who was rather solidly built, what she herself described as a `fuller figure'. Rather carefully, Malcolm opened the door, and then stood speechless.

"Hello, Malcolm," said his visitor. "I wanted to ring, but I destroyed all my contacts with my .. former life. It's a good thing I memorised your address, otherwise I'd have had to resort to some .. digging around online. I hope you don't -"

"Ruth! It's so good to see you," Malcolm said, smiling widely. "This is such a surprise. Come in."

Rather hesitantly Ruth entered Malcolm's house, and while she longed to hug him, she also knew that to do so would result in maximum embarrassment for him. "Go straight through," he said. "I can make us a pot of tea."

Ten minutes later they were sitting across the corner of the vast walnut dining table under the window which overlooked the back garden. "Is your mother out?" Ruth asked, having added a drop of milk and one sugar to her tea. His answering silence told her everything she needed to know. "Oh, Malcolm, she didn't did she?"

"It's been six months this week," he said quietly. "Her heart gave out, and she went rather quickly in the end. I'm sure she's happier now she's with ..." and he allowed the sentence to hang in the air between them.

"I'm so sorry." Ruth looked at Malcolm with sorrowful eyes, and he thought that perhaps this woman had lost enough in her lifetime.

"Are you back for good?" he asked.

"I hadn't thought in those terms, but I suspect I may be."

"I left MI-5 some time ago," Malcolm said. "Things became .. difficult, and I couldn't do it any more. Despite that, I still miss it. Strangely for me, I miss the company."

Ruth nodded and sipped her tea, and as she put her cup back on the saucer she spied a photograph on the cabinet against the far wall. It was a head and shoulders shot of two people, their heads close together, both of them smiling widely into the camera lens. Malcolm and a woman. "That's not your cousin, is it, Malcolm." He smiled and shook his head. "Is it .. serious?" Ruth asked.

"It is for me. Her name is Dawn."

Ruth looked around the room for signs of a woman's presence. "Does she live here?"

"No, although that would be my .. preference. We're neither of us getting any younger. She has a house of her own which she'd shared with her husband, and she's reluctant to let it go. Neither of us has children, so I'm impatient for her to make that final commitment."

"What happened to the husband?"

So Malcolm, happy to be able to share with someone his love for this good woman, told Ruth his and Dawn's story. He had known her for years, having met her at church, and when her husband had died suddenly Malcolm had provided her with a shoulder to lean on. It wasn't until three years after her husband's death that Malcolm has asked her to have dinner with him, after which their relationship had undergone a subtle change from friends to something more.

"How long have you known one another?" Ruth asked.

"Around nine years."

Ruth looked down and found herself smiling. "That's almost as long as I've known you."

"Yes. We haven't moved very quickly. Firstly she was married, and then she was newly widowed. I did wonder if we would ever .. be something more."

Malcolm's words ignited a painful memory in Ruth, but she had no wish to revisit the reason she'd left London six and a half years earlier. The parting from Harry by the Thames still haunted her dreams. "I have some news, also," she said cheerily.

"Don't tell me you're married, Ruth. That would be -"

"No, I'm not married. My news is better than that. I've spent the last few years in Boston, working for a publisher. Last November my first novel was published."

Malcolm's eyes twinkled. "That's wonderful news. You must give me a copy. I'll pay for it, of course."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ruth said, as she grabbed her rather bulky bag from the chair beside her and thrust her hand into it, pulling out a new copy of Remembering Michael, reaching across the table to hand it to him. "This is for you, even if you never read it. And it's a gift."

Malcolm held it in both hands, gazing at the cover with his mouth open, as the truth dawned on him. "You're Emma Ruth?" he said? When Ruth nodded, he carefully placed the book on the table in front of him. "Dawn visited the US late last year. She has a niece living in Massachusetts, just outside Boston. She brought back several copies, and suggested I read it .. which I did. It's wonderful, Ruth. As I read it I thought of you and .. I'm sorry. I'm probably being terribly inappropriate."

"You're not being inappropriate at all. Even though it's set in the 1940's, the story is one which occurred in this century. I wrote it as a gift to ..."

"To Harry?"

Ruth nodded, her eyes very wide. She took a deep breath before she spoke. "Is he .. is Harry all right, Malcolm? You haven't mentioned him."

Malcolm took so long to answer, and with his eyes downcast Ruth steeled herself for bad news. Eventually he looked up. "Harry retired last year," he said quietly. "Just before the London Olympics he took extended leave and travelled throughout Europe, and even to the east coast of the US. He was away for almost six months. When he came home he visited me here. He said he'd been looking for you, but he failed to find any trace of you. I suggested to him that finding you would be like finding a needle in a haystack. He seemed .. defeated, which I thought very unlike him. Not long after that he retired and moved to the country. He's renting a place on the north coast of Suffolk. It's a rather .. remote cottage.."

"You've seen him .. since he's been there?" Malcolm nodded. "How is he, Malcolm? Almost seven years is a long time."

"It is. Harry is .. he's worn out, Ruth. If I didn't know him better I'd say he was simply going through the motions."

"Did I do that .. by leaving?"

Malcolm shook his head and then sighed, tracing the title of Ruth's book with his forefinger. "He and I haven't really talked about what it is ails him, but if I had to give it a name I'd say that Harry is suffering from acute disappointment with himself and his life."

"So, he's depressed."

"I'd say so, although I'd never say that to Harry. You know what he's like. He'd flatly deny it."

After contemplating his words Ruth changed the subject. She didn't wish to revisit the confused feelings which the writing of her novel had uncovered. During her last six months living on Cyprus she had begun writing down some of what she remembered about her almost-romance with Harry. They were random notes and memories which soon became something rather more substantial. At the time she'd suspected that her dissatisfaction with her personal life had fueled a longing for what she could no longer have. It had been two years later that her friend and employer had suggested that she probably had a novel in her. "You must have plenty of stories to tell," Meagan had said. "I've been looking for some new and exotic authors, and you fit the bill perfectly." Ruth had never in her life felt exotic. Even during the two years she'd spent in Cyprus, her brown hair and tanned skin had allowed her to fit in with the local population. It was Meagan's prompt which had Ruth again reading the notes she'd had made while she was living just outside Polis. It was the notes she'd written while wondering where her life could possibly go from there which became her first novel.

Ruth didn't know how she felt about Harry, or the possibility that he was a very changed man, but she knew one thing for sure. When her current commitment to live appearances and book signings was over, she had to see him. She would not be able to get on with writing the sequel to Remembering Michael until she had spoken to him.

When her visit with Malcolm was over, and he had taken their tea things through to the kitchen, Ruth lifted another spare copy of her book from her bag and placed it on the dining table between she and Malcolm. When he returned from the kitchen she still had her hand on the book. "Malcolm, would you see that Harry gets this?" she said, hoping he'd simply say yes, and that would be the end of it.

"I have a much better idea," he said, standing behind the chair he'd occupied while they'd shared tea. "Why don't you take it to him in person?"