"Hey," John said, breathing a sigh of relief as Lise walked through the front door. "I was getting worried, you're usually home by now and you weren't answering your phone."

"Yeah, sorry about that, I got held up at the station," she shrugged, glancing down to her phone, "and the battery must've died."

John nodded, frowning. "It's fine, just…just let me know next time, alright?"

Lise stood still for a moment, staring at John, her lips pursed in frustration. "John, you don't need to worry about me."

"It's just the way it works," he shook his head, coming to place his hands on her shoulders. "I love you, so I'm always going to worry about you."

"I know," Lise accepted with a sigh, nodding in defeat and also in understanding, remembering how before John retired, she had fretted internally every time he was late to call or her texts went unanswered.

"Anyway, I managed to keep dinner warm if you want to go and sit down." He smiled slightly as a small act of apology. "You can pour the wine if you like."

"Thank you," Lise replied gratefully.

"Kelly texted me today," John told Lise a while later as they sat opposite each other at the dinner table, plates of pasta and large glasses of red wine in front of them.

"Oh yeah?" Lise asked with interest before she chewed a forkful of food.

"She wants to bring…" He paused, raising his eyebrows before continuing. "A boy with her to dinner tomorrow."

Lise smirked. "Please tell me you aren't going to be one of those...neanderthal fathers who don't want to see their daughters with someone unless they're 35 and already married."

John gave her a petulant glance. "No, it's just erm, it'll take some getting used to it."

"Mm-hmm," Lise hummed, nodding her head. "Has she been seeing this boy," she emphasised the word, a look of amusement on her face, "long?"

"The boy is called Jake. She said it's been a couple of months."

"So, they're serious then?"

"I suppose..."

"I'm sure he's fine...nice even," Lise said with a shrug as she continued to chew her food. "Kelly is far more sensible than I was at that age."

"Oh yeah? A few skeletons in your closet?" John asked, a smile on his features.

"Let's just say I had a thing for boys in bands, so my parents were not crazy about some of the people I brought home."

John laughed, secretly hoping that although it was decades later, Lise's parents would be more impressed with him.


On the day of Kelly's visit, John did his best to stay occupied in the kitchen as he waited for his daughter to arrive with her plus one.

"Hi Kel," John said, embracing Kelly as she entered the front door upon her eventual arrival.

"Hey dad," she replied warmly, hugging him back.

John spied a nervous looking young man standing in the doorway.

"Come in," he offered, closing the door behind the apprehensive guest.

"Dad, this is Jake," Kelly told her father. "Jake, this is my dad," Kelly motioned towards John and Jake offered him his hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Cardinal," he told John quickly.

Lise, who was hovering in the background, did her best to stifle a giggle as she glanced towards John, who she could see was swallowing back his own amusement quite convincingly, but she saw his mask of seriousness slip for a second. "John will be fine," he assured the boy.

"It's nice to meet you...John," Jake said, correcting his greeting with slight embarrassment.

"And this," Kelly said, moving the conversation forward and past any awkwardness, "is his partner, Lise."

"It's nice to meet you, Jake," Lise reached out and shook the boy's hand. "I'm just about to put dinner out if you want to come through," she continued, motioning towards the dining area. "Your dad has been working hard in the kitchen all day," Lise told Kelly.

"You made this?" Kelly asked John with surprise once the plates were before them.

"Yeah, I eh," John said, scratching at his beard. "Retirement has left me with some time on my hands, and it turns out I'm not as awful in the kitchen as I thought I was."

"It looks amazing," Jake piped up.

"Thank you," John said with genuine warmth. "Now, let's eat!"

"So, what are you studying, Jake?" Lise asked, looking up from her plate.

"Oh, English," he informed her. "I'd really like to move into journalism one day."

"That's a great career," Lise said with an approving raise of her eyebrows. "I thought about it myself."

"You erm, a cop right?" Jake stumbled.

Lise nodded. "I am."

"And you are too, Mr. C-" he stopped and corrected himself, "John?"

"Yeah, or I was before I retired."

"That must have been such an interesting job," Jake said, doing his best to make conversation.

"Interesting is one word for it," John said with a laugh, locking eyes with Kelly and giving her a tiny nod of approval over their dinner guest.

Sometime later, John washed the plates in the kitchen whilst Kelly stood next to him and dried.

"So...what do you think?" she asked nervously.

"Of what?" John asked, playing dumb, as he continued to look down at the dish he was currently tackling.

Kelly rolled her eyes. "Of Jake."

"He's nice," John said lightly but sincerely. "Respectful."

"You really like him?" Kelly asked, nervous for her father's approval.

"I really do," he reassured her. "You picked a good one."

"Thanks, dad." Kelly bit her lip, smiling. "You know," she said after a few moments of silence, "I'm really happy for you and Lise. She makes you happier than I've seen you in a long time."

"You don't think it's…" John swallowed, his next words barely louder than a whisper, "a betrayal...a betrayal of your mother?"

Kelly took a deep breath before she answered. "I think mom would want you to be happy, and that means moving on with your life," she tried her best to convince her troubled looking father. "You can't hold this...guilt forever; what happened to mom wasn't your fault."

John nodded solemnly. "I know," he answered quietly, thinking of when Lise had told him the same thing. "I'll never forget her, you know that, right?"

Kelly was tearful. "Of course I do, but you're allowed to move on, dad. You're allowed to be happy."

"I love ya, Kel," he told his daughter as he went in for a hug.

"I love you, too."


It was Sunday morning, and Lise and John were at their regular coffee haunt when Lise spotted a colleague taking a seat across from them. The dark haired woman was leaning forward and cooing over a small infant in a carry seat.

"Hang on," she said, standing up from her chair. "I haven't seen her since she had the baby, I should go and say congratulations."

As he watched her across the cafe, chatting with her workmate and smiling gently at the baby, John felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach as he was forced to confront thoughts of if Lise had thought anymore about children of her own.

"Sorry," Lisa said, sitting back down opposite John.

"How was she?"

"She seems good, happy...tired but happy," she said with a fleeting smile, before she returned to sipping her coffee.

"Is that...something you'd want?" he asked her with trepidation.

"Is what...?" She placed her coffee down and looked at him, puzzled. "What, the baby?" she asked in disbelief, her eyes wide. "A baby?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, doing his best to appear casual, "kids."

Lise shook her head. "You know it isn't."

"I know it wasn't, but things change." Swallowing, he looked at her from under his eyes. "People change their minds," he said, his voice softer than before.

"Well, I haven't," she told him defiantly.

"You're sure?" John continued to press.

Lise crinkled her eyes closed and shook her head out of frustration, only looking at him once she found the words to address him. "Where is all this coming from?"

It was John's turn to shake his head, trying to dispel an irrational anger at himself. "Lise, I don't see a baby in my future," he told her plainly. "And even if I did, I couldn't..." he fumbled his words, looking up to see if Lise understood what he was trying to say; while her expression was open, she still looked slightly confused. "I had a vasectomy when Kelly was five. The way Catherine was, she couldn't have coped with another pregnancy, never mind a baby," he explained. Now looking at Lise's face, he saw her eyes soften and her brow furrow in sad sympathy for his late wife's predicament. "I just…" He rubbed at his temple. "You're young-"

"I'm not that young," she cut him off. "I'm nearer 40 than 30."

John fought the urge to roll his eyes. "You're younger than me," he corrected his words. "I don't want you to change your mind, five years down the road, and you're stuck with this...old man who's ready for grandchildren."

Her face softened in compassion. "You're not an 'old man'," she said, smiling warmly as she rolled her eyes in jest, reaching for his hand across the table, before turning more somber, "and I'm not going to change my mind, I know what I want. That life...it's not for me. I've heard it all, 'Oh, just wait until you meet the right man,' and 'You'll hear your biological clock ticking when you hit 30,' but that didn't happen, so then it changed to, 'When you're 35'," she sighed. "But it just...didn't happen. It isn't going to happen."

John nodded, the conviction of her words making them impossible to refute.

"Besides, I get to have a little taste of it with Kelly," she said with a smile. "Not that I'd ever try to be her mother," she added hastily, "but it's nice, hanging out, chatting, sharing advice," she shrugged. "But then she goes back to her life and we can still have ours, where we can do whatever we like and go wherever we want without having to consider anyone but ourselves."

"Yeah," he smiled, seeing the appeal, "it's a pretty nice life, you and me."

"This life, my job...it's enough for me; it's all I want. You are all I want."

John smiled. "Kelly said something to me once and I think she was right: you and me, we're better together. I think we're good apart, but we're better together."

"Yeah," Lise agreed contentedly, "me too."