Angst ridden for the moment. But hey, you know them!


She watched him from across the grid as he walked heavily towards the glass decanter and began to pour. She glanced at her watch, it wasn't even noon.

A moment later as he turned, his door slid open.

"You're feeling sorry for yourself."

It wasn't a question, though he considered several answers. The only one he gave was to swill all the liquid from the glass.

She sighed quietly closing the door.

He turned back for a refill.

"What happened to 'we move on from this', Harry?"

"We have moved on, Ruth. Life has an uncanny knack of moving on regardless of all that we lose."

"Nothing's lost," she said with restrained exasperation.

But she knew something was.

He stared at her with cool eyes and once more raised the glass and consumed its contents.

"Harry, please…"

"It's fine Ruth, you said what you said. That's all. That's it. There is no problem."

He put the glass down, her eyes following it with relief.

"Now please leave me alone."

Her eyes flicked up to him. Unsure. Surprised at the tone.

"I have things to do," he added quietly.

At the door she glanced back. He had returned to the decanter.

"That's not going to help," she said.

"And you would know would you, Ruth?"

He poured a measure larger than those that had gone before. He wanted more.

But not of her.

How could you lose a relationship that you didn't have? How could you need something you claimed you didn't want?

But he made her angry. This belligerent childishness made her angry. Telling her to leave him alone made her angry. Wallowing like this made her angry.

At least when she was angry she didn't need to unpick why she'd said no.

As she got to her desk she heard the pod doors close behind her. She knew without looking that he had gone.

An hour later she threw a file onto his desk. It slid off the other side taking a sheaf of papers and folders with it. God, he really did make her angry. Cursing she bent to pick them up and shuffle them back into some kind of pile, placing the table top diary alongside them. She opened it to the day, unsure if that was how she had found it. There was only one thing written besides today's date. Funeral.

The anger was suddenly gone. She had made this all about her. It wasn't.

As she stood pondering her earlier words and her misjudgements of him she was startled by the phone ringing.

"Hello, Harry P…" began Ruth.

"Is he there?"

"No. Who's ca…."

"Where is he?" the insistent voice broke in again. There was something urgent yet slightly familiar about it.

"I believe he's at a funeral. Can I help you with …"

Ruth tailed off, abandoning the question, before the words were formed. On the other end of the phone she had heard one more muffled utterance before the line went dead.

"…Dad, you're late."