Hello there!

Caution: wordy, apologetic bit. I owe a very big sorry to those of you who were following along with Meant to be. It was turning into a story that was going to be much bigger than I thought it would and I got overwhelmed. About four months ago I decided to try and write again just to assure myself that I still could. This is the result, and it's all finished, so if you decide to trust me again and read it, then you can be assured it does have an ending. It's also getting a sequel, when you get to the end you'll know why.

I'll put it in the M section soon because this story has a bit of swearing. It's not rude or overly explicit (not by my standards) but the characters would insist on being themselves. I had no choice in the matter.

You'll find the chapters are short, that just happened too. I'll probably post once a day for sixty-nine days. I hope that works for you.

The title comes from the tarot card and for the purpose of this story it means clinging onto the past and finally being able to let it go

Let's see if they finally do, shall we?

Love, kwak

With thanks and gratitude to the great L.M.M. ~ everything is hers, only this idea is mine.

...

"Come on, confess your confusion. Spread it around..."

FOUR OF CUPS

1

Ken Ford was undecided whether to come clean or not. It was one thing to cower in a soupy trench in the Somme and vow to yourself that should you ever make it out alive you would certainly make a few changes. Quite another to find yourself alive in the dulcet streets of suburban Toronto and actually have to make those changes. When he stood on the doorstep of his parents' townhouse, he was all too ready to amend his vow before pressing the bell.

If his mother and/or his sister was in, Ken would make the announcement. If his father was there also, and certainly if he was the only one present, Ken would revert to old habits and wait for a more opportune time.

Lucky for him he got to make good on his vow within moments of entering and had only to wait for his mother to stop trying to speak through her trembling hand that seemed permanently clasped over her mouth before he could begin.

They went into the conservatory because that was the only public room that didn't have people in it.

"Unless," Leslie added, "you wanted to go upstairs? Bathe, change, did you want to get out of your khakis, are you allowed to?"

"I have bathed."

Ken sounded both proud and a little put out that his mother hadn't noticed. After years of tepid baths in cloudy water (the majors got first dibs) and the mud, ash, grease and sweat that felt like a permanent part of his skin, the bath at the quarantine station felt like baptism. A new leaf, that's what he was.

"Mother," he went on, pressing her into a wrought iron chair, "there's something I must tell you. I've been meaning to for some time, but I couldn't bring myself to put it in a letter."

The hand went to Leslie's mouth again, but she was resolved to be brave, brave, brave. Her son had come back to her whole and alive, she would tolerate anything after receiving such a gift. She forced her hand down and gripped hard on her knee, the iron chair began to teeter on the cold tile floor as she shifted her weight.

"Go on, yes," she said with her best, most motherly smile.

"I'm engaged."

The teetering stopped. Aha, of course. It wasn't just wooden legs and venereal diseases these soldiers brought home. But continental girls, most of them without a penny or a word of English or an empty womb.

Leslie looked about, she could not help herself, for a full ten seconds she expected Ken to stand up and usher out some bolshy Babette or shivering Fantine from behind the ornamentals.

"Engaged?" she said at last, "to whom?"

"To Rilla… I think."

Leslie did not know if this was better or worse. She knew there had been some flirting involved between Rilla and Ken, but no one took it seriously because her son was a serious flirt.

"You think," she said. "How many girls have you proposed to lately?"

Ken had been slouching forward in his chair, legs wide, hands dangling from his knees. Now he sat up with that perfect posture he was known for and gave his mother a look she knew all too well.

"Ha ha. You could give me some credit for growing up a little since those days; a lot of water has passed under that bridge." The war had just about washed the bloody bridge away. "I'm not confused about Rilla, only about what we may have promised each other."

"But that should be easy, did you say the words or not?"

"Ask if she would have me, you mean?"

Leslie sat back in her chair; she had not expected Ken to put it quite like that. The subject seemed to be straying somewhere she felt it should not go. This put her on dangerous ground because she knew the response her son sought from her was not the response she longed to give. And she was in no mood to quarrel. He had only just come home.

"No," Ken made a face to show he was thinking, "as far as I recollect those words were never said."

The chair lurched backward over the red and black tiles. Leslie was on her feet.

"Well then, you are not engaged,"

She sounded more relieved than perhaps she meant to, but then he had only just this minute walked through the door. Not even de-mobbed, barely out of quarantine, and he hits her with this.

"Then, of course, there's Willoughby," Ken said, still wearing his thinking face.

Leslie returned to her chair, it seemed to be the safest place to brace for another hit.

"Willoughby, yes?" She was starting to sound impatient. If her son had made vows concerning this moment then so had she, and this was not how she had pictured his homecoming at all. The scar on Ken's face, for instance, the one she had been determined not to notice, least of all comment on, was bordering on glaringly obvious now. And then there was the way he moved. It wasn't a hobble or a limp, yet something was off kilter as if he'd had a quarter inch shaved off the bottom of one of his feet. But it was his frame that most alarmed her, his captain's uniform was hanging off him, he looked older and younger at the same time. Like the wiry youth he used to be, while his eyes had the washed-out quality of an old, old man.

Ken was explaining just who Willoughby was, when his sister darted into the conservatory.

"Mother! Why didn't you - Oh, Kenneth-Ken…" she cried, and flung herself at him.

She said all the things Leslie wouldn't, couldn't say: about his scar, his weight loss, his turning up unannounced – such a thoughtless, impulsive, Ken-ish sort of thing to do she almost forgave him for it.

"That man outside the front door," said Persis, when all her present exclamations had been used up, "is he with you? A corporal, I think he was, and rather better preserved than you, dear brother," she touched his cheek, and the scar then ran down it. "He was pacing about by the steps with a look on his face as though he wished he had a cigarette. I nearly offered him one."

"Are you smoking?"

"As if I would," said Persis. "No, it's just the house is filled with them right now. Cartons and cartons of the things, and socks and chocolate and potted meat, you know, the usual palaver."

She smiled up at her brother. When he smiled back the scar curved like a bow pulled taut by the bright white arrow of his teeth.

"I was setting out some boxes -"

"Yes, I'm afraid you caught us on the busiest day of the week, the volunteers all convene here you see," Leslie added, feeling she should contribute something to the conversation. She had left her chair too and was hovering close to her son. Drinking him in as Rilla's mother would say.

"- and I saw him," Persis went on, "I thought perhaps he was there for pick-up until I saw the duffel bag. Shall I," she paused and turned to her mother, "should I invite him in?"

"No, I'll get him," said Ken, again with that slight lean as he strode out into the hall.

"And who is him?" said Persis, watching him go.

"Willoughby… I think," said her mother.

...

the music on repeat for the writing of this was Hunters and Collectors Holy Grail. The quote at the beginning is from their song, True Tears of Joy

chapter 2 tomorrow

k.