In the end, I kept it simple and emotionless.
Hello Emma
Thank you for your email. I’m sorry it’s taken me a long time to reply. As you can imagine, hearing from you has come as quite a shock.
I did find your letter and have thought about you often since.
I would be happy to meet you. Let’s arrange a time and a place.
Yours
Nick
Of course there was only ever one place where we would meet up, and when Emma replied to my email the very next day, she had the same idea.
If you can bear to, let’s meet at the bandstand, she wrote.
I hadn’t been back there for so many years, and at first the thought made me feel dizzy with fear. But the more I thought about it, the more it made absolutely perfect sense. And so I said yes.
Over the next three days I worried about it constantly. Had I made a huge mistake, letting this woman back into my life, even briefly? Would seeing Emma again send me spiralling back down a rabbit hole of depression or, possibly worse, would all my old feelings resurface, and I’d risk going through heartbreak all over again?
But now, the day was here. The day that I never thought would come and that I’d spent the last twenty-seven years trying (and sometimes succeeding) not to imagine.
I hadn’t told anyone about meeting Emma. The only person I had ever told about her was Andy anyway, so there really wasn’t anyone Icouldtell. But that meant I had no one to talk to, or to reassure me that I was doing the right thing.
I woke up so early that morning that it was still dark outside. I went downstairs, made myself a coffee and stood at the kitchen window looking out into my small back garden. I thought about the kitchen in the old house, the house where I had lived with Dawn, and where Emma had lived since. It was strange to think about Emma being in that kitchen, that house, after I left it to move here.
Finally, it was time to leave. I dressed carefully, climbed in my battered old Ford Focus, and set off. The drive was a couple of hours, and those two hours felt like a lifetime as doubts and memories crowded my mind, jostling for attention. But finally, I arrived in the place I still thought of as my hometown, and pulled into the car park round the corner from the park. I hadn’t told Amanda and the girls I was here and, as much as I loved seeing them, I hoped I wouldn’t bump into them.
Today, I needed to focus on this.
I climbed out of the car. My legs felt shaky and I realised how nervous I was. The sun was warm but a gentle breeze stopped it from feeling too hot, and as I set off towards the park I let myself think about what it would be like the first time I saw Emma again after all these years.
What would she think of me now? I knew she’d be older – forty-three, forty-four? – but at fifty-eight, I was twenty-seven years older than the last time she’d seen me, almost old enough to be her father. I was going grey round the temples and the lines on my face seemed to deepen by the week. I wasn’t fool enough to imagine that Emma would still find me attractive, and yet I couldn’t fully extinguish the tiny flame of hope that burned inside me that there could still be the same spark between us.
As I approached the gates of the park my footsteps slowed.
I was here, and the moment I had tried not to imagine for so many years had finally arrived. I stopped to gather my thoughts. The blood roared in my veins and my head spun. I caught a glimpse of myself in a car window. I looked old and tired. What was I even doing here?
Come on, Nick.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside the park. I turned the corner, and the bandstand loomed into sight – surrounded, just as Emma had described all those years ago, by a beautiful rose garden, pinks and yellows and peaches bursting all around. My heart hammered and my breath came in gasps.
And then, there she was. Sitting inside the bandstand with her back to me, red hair flaming in the bright midday sun.
It was Emma.
My world imploded.
35
EMMA
When I turned round and saw Nick approaching, I felt as though I might pass out. I took him in, feeling a jolt of surprise at how much he’d aged. But of course he was now twenty-seven years older than he had been when we’d first met. As he got closer, though, I could see that he was still handsome. His hair was shorter, and going grey round the temples, and his face was more lined, his chin less defined. But he was still Nick, and he still set my pulse racing, despite the years that separated us.
And then he was there, in front of me, and all the words left my mouth.
‘Hello, Emma,’ he said, and I smiled, unable to reply.
