To my Dearest, Serena.

Do you remember? The smell of engine oil, frustration and my best perfume? The meeting of eyes, hands shaking, voices conversing. The little green car that made me chuckle and the sound of irritation in your tone that made me want to take you in my arms there and then and hug it out of you. The feel of your hair, slightly on end where you'd run your hands through it while you berated that stupid mechanic who'd sworn he had fixed the head gasket, pleaded with your breakdown service to come and tow your car back to where dashboard lights become pound signs and surgical brilliance becomes vehicle ignorance, begged your insurance company for a courtesy car to transport you between home and hospital, bar and bathtub, nurse and nephew. "Engine whining or growling? Any intermittent smell of burning rubber?"

Do you remember? Down the cast of eyes, trying to impress, Queen AAU and King CEO, the lowly foot soldier arrived for duty, the voice slightly shaky and pitched too shrill, an order-taker, not an order-giver in this life as yet, the fear, the pain, the turmoil of lie upon lie upon lie. No place to call home at work, at home, anywhere in between. The craving for nicotine and yet unlit, quitting not the usual path for a Major with no army. "I think you're supposed to light it" but still no spark apart from the blaze set alight when our fingers met, did you feel it too?

Do you remember? The call of the bird in the chilly air, coats pulled close against the invading damp. The smiles offered and accepted, the start of the long, slow walk ordained by fate, cursed by indecision and keeping up appearances. The not knowing yet knowing, exchange of names and reputations, professional not personal, that came later, first impressions solidified and hardening rapidly, a curiosity, a cat caught cleaving to the possibility even then, of hope, of care, of more than our minds knew but our hearts already desired.

Do you remember? The walk inside, the hesitation, the magnetic pull of hand to hand yet repel they must as opposites don't yet attract, or shouldn't at least, like sides repel and we are not the same, can't see it, too blinded by situation and circumstance and Y chromosomes all heated and possessive. Of meiosis and mitosis and 3, no 4, offspring with lives and lives and opinions, not seeing or seeing too much, taking and not giving, reap what we sew in decades of innocence and trying to be socially acceptable, fitting in with parental expectations and societal norms, but now on a path? To destruction or salvation, damnation or salvation, two sides of the same coin perhaps. A day of beginning, of meeting and of initiate greetings, of meeting of minds and hearts, soulmates arisen.

Do you remember? The lift, the selection, which floor, which ward, which treadmill are you getting on Ms Campbell, Ms Wolfe? Colour of scrubs, Bahama turquoise and Shiraz Magenta, not the ending, but the colours set out for the first carousel. The mass of the public and the names and the faces of colleagues, fall in to be remembered, ranked, sorted with no hat into skill set, patient care, surgical prowess and ego. Who is with who and who has been with whom, a social dance more intricate than any Viennese waltz, paper and pagers, computers and catheters, needles and knickers all in chaotic order. Today or tomorrow the rounds of beds, but now, a lift, advice, a friendly face imprinted like a sucking on its mother, the anchor in the waves, the settled and serene Serena, the bumbling and breathless Bernie, their first awkward dance.

Do you remember?

Love, Bernie.