He didn’t turn away, but avoided her gaze nonetheless.
“We were playing near the creek. Running over the rocks and jumping over logs, typical boy stuff. I was having such a great time, I didn’t notice the larger than normal splash from behind me. I just kept running. It was a while before I realised I couldn’t hear Nathan anymore.” His eyes rose to her face. “By the time I did, it was too late. He’d fallen in, hit his head. My parents sent me to my uncle a couple of months after the funeral. They divorced two years later.”
He turned, facing her. “When I said understood, about Tim, I meant it. If I’d known that you were going through that, I would have left you alone. All I wanted after Nathan died was for people to stop asking, and just let me be. It’s rough when you lose someone you love. Especially when you were powerless to prevent it – change it. I know that feeling. It took me a long time to get over it, as much as you can.”
“I’m sorry Mike.” The words left her mouth, even before she thought them. Her hand, like her lips, had acted on their own accord, reaching out to hold Mike’s as he spoke. “I had no idea.”
“Look, this isn’t what I brought you out here for,” again he offered a smile in recompense. “To share my life’s history. I wanted to show you how great life can be, when the sadness fades. And it does Penny. It may take a while, but you learn to live again. To let go and go on.” He squeezed her fingers gently. “There are moments like this to be had for you Penny. Carriage rides, great food and pretty decent company,” he mused lightly. “But only when you’re ready.”
She looked at Mike, unable to speak, his words piercing her, and she offered only a smile in return as sounds of the park surrounded them.
The silence that passed between them then, though tinted with some unspoken understanding, recognition of souls who had loved and lost, it sparked with something new.
His hand still holding hers.
