Thanks for the reviews. A lot of people mentioned the lack of photographs in the house for Lucy to recognise Harry. That is explained here.
"I wanna flip one!" Lucy said loudly.
"It's too hot," Ruth said as she turned over a pancake. "You might get burnt."
"I be careful," she said, blinking with wide pleading eyes which made Harry smile. She was so cute and knew how to use it.
"Luce, I can't," Ruth said. Lucy stuck out her bottom lip, but that faded when Ruth put a pancake on her plate, putting a little maple syrup on it and cutting it up for her.
"Yummy!" Lucy said after a bite. Ruth smiled and put another pancake in the pan as Harry came up behind her.
"Have you got another frying pan?" he asked.
"Yes, bottom cupboard," she said, nodding in the direction. He got out another pan and asked her to put a cooked pancake in the pan which she did.
"Still want to flip a pancake?" he asked Lucy.
"Yes!" she said, getting up. Harry crouched down and let her hold the pan, his hands over hers guiding as Ruth watched, her heart full.
"So you just jerk the pan upwards," Harry said quietly. Lucy stuck her tongue out with concentration as she moved it a little. "A bit harder," Harry said. She did it again, Harry providing most of the effort and the pancake jumped in the air, landing back in the pan.
"I did it!"
"Well done," Harry said.
"Again, Harry. Please!" He smiled, helping his daughter flip the pancake.
"Got another one for you Lucy," Ruth said, putting it on her plate. She happily took her seat and started eating, as Harry put the flipped pancake on his plate.
"That'll be stone cold by now," Ruth said. "Let me make you another one."
"I've had worse things than cold pancakes over the last few years," Harry said, his eyes holding Ruth's for a moment. She looked down at the floor, and then smiled at him. It was forced, he could tell, but he appreciated the effort all the same.
Ruth read Lucy a bedtime story as Harry watched and listened from the open doorway. He'd always known she'd be a fantastic mother and it was great to see that he'd been right. Over the last three years, Lucy had clearly been in wonderful hands. Not that it'd been easy. He knew that.
"Goodnight sweetheart," Ruth said.
"Night mummy. Is that man Harry going to be staying here?"
"Yes," Ruth said after only a brief pause. "Is that okay with you?"
"He helped me flip pancakes," she said sleepily, as if that was the answer to everything.
"Go to sleep," Ruth said. "See you in the morning."
"Night night mummy." Ruth left her daughters room and looked at Harry, watching her.
"A drink?" she suggested.
"Perfect," he said, going back downstairs to the kitchen.
They took two glasses, the whisky bottle, a baby monitor and sat outside, looking at the light summer evening. "Just in case she wakes," Ruth said, putting the monitor on the grass. "She won't. She slept very well from six months old."
"You put a bench in our garden," he said softly.
"Yes," she said with a smile. "It felt right." He smiled at that.
"You haven't told her about me," he said quietly.
"No," she said. "She's not old enough to ask about her father yet, but I know the day's coming." She smiled a little. "I've been filled with dread over what I'm going to tell her."
"What about… pictures of me. Anything?"
"No," Ruth said. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I couldn't bear it. I took them down after the funeral. To look at you made it harder for me to cope. It was a reminder of what we could have had. What we should have had, and it'd been torn away from us. Every time I saw those pictures, I felt hollow and devastated all over again. It made it harder and more painful to make it through the day. And I had to stay in the present for Lucy, I couldn't fall apart. I had to take them down. They're in a box under my bed."
"What about our wedding photo?" he asked gently. He didn't particularly like photos of himself but he loved a photo of the pair of them taken on their wedding day. It'd been a close up, both of them looking at the other with the love so clear in their eyes. Ruth'd just been about to lose the white flower in her hair, and he'd adjusted it, his palm going lower to stroke her face when the image had been captured.
"Apart from being imprinted on my heart?" she said, smiling. She knew perfectly well which picture he was talking about. "It's in the box with the rest of them. I needed to get through each day. I needed to think of practical things, like when Lucy needed feeding, or whether the car needed more petrol. I couldn't wallow in my grief, no matter how much I wanted to. They were a reminder I didn't need."
She swallowed and brushed her hair out of her face. "I would have told her about you. When she was older and could at least grasp the concept."
"Do either of you… visit my supposed grave?"
"I… bring her on your birthday and a couple of other times a year. This is a strange conversation." She shook her head once before going on. "She doesn't really understand. Lucy's only three, concepts like death are beyond her grasp. When we visited you, she'd just run and chase the sparrows. Or pick daisies. She liked to do that a lot."
He smiled, imagining his blonde beautiful daughter picking flowers. "When's Lucy's birthday?" Harry asked quietly as he poured them two glasses of whisky.
"May 2nd," Ruth said.
"But that was…"
"Only a week after you… left," she said. "Yes, I know."
"You weren't due for another month."
"I know," she said. "There were… complications. I was induced."
"What kind of complications?" he asked, concern on his face.
"I'm fine, she's fine," Ruth said, reassuring him. "I…" she bit her lip, then continued. "I can't have any more children."
"Oh, Ruth…"
"It's fine," she said. "I didn't need more."
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"After a week in hospital, I was fine," she said. "Promise." He smiled wearily at her.
"What about you? How are you?"
"I'm okay."
"What happened to you?"
"I'm not going into the details," he said firmly. "I can't."
"You can," she said. "You don't have to, but you can. Whenever you want to."
"Thank you, Ruth," he said. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate that."
She smiled and rested her head against his shoulder gently. After a minute, he put her arm around her and she smiled. "I've missed you."
"So have I," he said. "You don't know how often I thought of you. How much you helped me when I was… in there."
"How did I help you?" she asked.
"I thought of you, holding out baby. I thought of our wedding day. I thought of your face in a million different expressions, and more. I didn't know, whether we had a boy or a girl. I thought of you with a boy and a girl. More to think about. And I had a lot of time to think."
"What do you think of Lucy?"
"She's so much bigger than I imagined," he said, taking a sip of whisky. "I know time passed, but I always imagined her as a newborn. Not growing. Like she was frozen in time."
"She's very blonde," Ruth said.
"With your eyes," he continued. "She's beautiful." His voice caressed the word and she smiled with pride. "Bright too."
"As a button," Ruth said. "Harry, are you going to be staying with us?"
"Of course I am," he said simply, kissing the top of her head. "Where else would I want to be?"
"I wondered if… after everything you'd want space. Time away from us and "family life." That's all."
"The last thing I want is to leave the two of you," he said. "Honestly."
"Okay," she said. "Just to get the awkward question out of the way, where do you want to sleep?"
"I can't share a bed with anyone yet," he said, an arm still around her. "I'm sorry, I just can't."
"It's okay," she said. "I understand. Do you want the bed? I'll sleep on the sofa. Really, it's fine."
"I can't," he said, voice filled with sadness. "I can't sleep on a mattress any more. All I need is a floor and a blanket." She felt a lump come to her throat, but she didn't argue.
"I missed you." He kissed her gently.
"I know." They stayed sat on the bench in the quiet of the gathering night. Neither wanted to ever have to move.