He nodded. ‘I wanted to be here. I’ve missed too many years.’
‘Yes. I was cross with you about that, but now I’m starting to understand.’ She paused for a moment and Brody saw the tiny wobble at the corner of her lips, the slight sheen in her eyes, as she said, ‘She would have been twelve today. That hardly seems possible, does it?’
He shook his head, unable to answer.
‘She would have been all grown up and at senior school,’ Katri continued, smiling, even though a single tear was now running down her cheek. ‘Taking the bus on her own. Giving us attitude – because I amsurethere would have been a whole lot of attitude…’ She trailed off and swallowed.
‘I have no doubt,’ Brody said.
Katri nodded, then straightened herself. ‘Peter is coming with me to the cemetery. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘No. He should be there with you.’ Katri’s new husband had seen her through the last few anniversaries of Lena’s death, through the birthday visits to the grave every 12 January that Brody had missed,and Brody was grateful to him for that. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be part of this one. ‘But I think I might wait until you’ve finished before I go to the grave. I need to go alone.’
She nodded. ‘Maybe next year.’
‘Yes, maybe.’
She shifted in her chair, preparing to stand up, and Brody cleared his throat. ‘I wanted to say…’
She stopped moving, looked at him. He held her gaze.
‘I wanted to say that I’m sorry. Sorry that I pushed you away. Sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.’
Katri was not the sentimental sort, but her eyes filled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think I needed to hear that. But it’s okay, really. I know you tried.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. Once or twice.’ She sighed. ‘But it was so horribly painful to even go there – for both of us. Eventually, you just couldn’t face it anymore.’
Brody frowned. ‘I don’t remember that. I just remember being very, very angry.’
Katri laughed gently. ‘Oh, yes. You were definitely angry.’
‘When I think back to that time, all I can picture is being stuck behind this huge, invisible wall, me on one side, everyone else on the other.’
She nodded. ‘But it’s down now?’
He shrugged one shoulder. ‘In the process.’
‘I’m glad.’
Something behind him caught her eye and she turned to see a man standing outside the coffee shop, looking in their direction. That must be Peter.
‘You’re happy?’ he asked.
Katri smiled and nodded. ‘I am.’
‘Good.’
She stood and grabbed her handbag, but paused to put an arm around him and kissed him softly on the cheek before she left. ‘I’ll text you when we leave.’
He nodded, and when the door had closed behind her, he went to order a coffee and then sat back down. He had a bag with him, and he placed it on the table. Inside was a small wooden box. He lifted it out and removed a delicately carved figure from the packing material inside.
He’d wanted to make one of Lena, how he remembered her, with her bright smile and her inquisitive blue eyes, just like her mother’s, but he hadn’t been able to. Maybe one day, but not yet. So he’d made Pip instead. She stared up at him from the tabletop, sword in hand, feet planted wide. She looked ready for anything.
He’d almost finished his coffee when his phone beeped, signalling the arrival of the text message he’d been waiting for from Katri. He slugged back the dregs, put Pip back in her box and left the coffee shop, walking the short distance to the cemetery on the edge of the park.
It was picturesque, as cemeteries go, full of old gnarled trees and lichen-covered headstones. He followed the path around to a particularly pretty part of the gardens, where the graves were smaller, where there were more flowers and photographs and teddy bears. Brody lifted a bunch of yellow and white daisies from his bag and placed them at the foot of a small white marble headstone.
