Moving to a new flat is no small task—everyone knows that.
At last, Margaret and her husband, having saved enough to buy a larger home, were preparing to move just after the New Year. They had already begun packing their belongings into large boxes, sorting through everything. Some items were destined for the bin, while others were carefully wrapped.
Then came the turn of the tall wardrobe with its cluttered top shelf. Before leaving for work, her husband had pulled down a box of Christmas decorations, along with everything else stored there, stacking it all neatly in a pile. Now it was Margaret’s job to sort through it.
Of course, the things kept on the highest shelves were rarely used, yet one couldn’t bring oneself to throw them away—not until absolutely certain they’d never be needed again.
Margaret had taken a fortnight’s leave precisely for this purpose, to go through all their possessions, deciding what to keep and what to leave behind. It was no easy task. What of her old schoolbooks, her diaries, her certificates? When her parents were alive, they’d kept everything, and now it had all passed to her like an inheritance.
She sat beside the pile, methodically sifting through the relics of the past, some of which went straight into a black bin bag, others set aside. Then, at last, her fingers closed around a small wooden box, its surface decorated with seashells and little stones, still tucked inside a soft linen pouch.
It had been a gift from her grandfather, brought back from a seaside holiday when she was ten. That little box had become her secret treasure chest, where she stored keepsakes—tiny mementos of moments she never wanted to forget.
“I wonder if Lucy has something like this,” Margaret thought of her daughter, then dismissed the idea.
Children these days were so practical, so unromantic. At ten, they already knew what they wanted to be, where they would study.
At that age, she’d had no such certainty. She’d gone to an ordinary school, trained as a technician, and ended up working at the local biscuit factory.
Her husband, William, had been luckier. He’d wanted to be an architect—and so he became one. After university, he’d returned to their hometown and now was a respected professional, his designs in high demand.
Lucy was just as determined. Though, at eleven, she hadn’t quite settled on a career yet.
Margaret held the little box, suddenly afraid to open it. What waited inside? What childish memories would come flooding back?
Finally, she lifted the lid. What could possibly be so precious? A cheap pendant on a broken chain, bought for her by her mother at a souvenir shop. A brooch from her grandmother, missing two of its tiny stones. A large mother-of-pearl button—beautiful, though she couldn’t remember where it had come from. A tube of lipstick in a gold case, a gift from a friend in Year Eight, which her mother had forbidden her to wear. So it had lain untouched.
And then—there it was. A dark blue velvet bow tie, exquisitely made.
The memory carried her back all those years, to that New Year’s Eve party when boys from another school had visited. She couldn’t recall why—perhaps their own hall was being repaired, or perhaps it had been the headmaster’s idea.
There had been a concert, then dancing—the first proper dance of her life. Year Five or Six? It was then that she’d fallen—if one could call it that—for a boy. He stood on stage reciting a poem that had seemed so mature to her young ears.
And here, tucked away, was a scrap of paper with those very lines written down. He’d worn a dark blue suit and that bow tie. How earnestly he had spoken!
She had hoped, desperately, that he might ask her to dance. She stood in the corner in her prettiest white dress, her hair loose for once instead of in its usual plaits, her feet in polished shoes. How old had she been? Eleven? Twelve? She couldn’t recall, but the flutter in her chest, that first sweet stirring of the heart, had stayed with her.
No, he hadn’t asked her to dance. He’d left early, slipping away quietly.
She and her friend had followed, watching from a distance as he shrugged off the bow tie, pulled his cap low, and disappeared. Only later, as they turned back, did she find the bow tie on the floor. He must have tried to pocket it—but lost it instead.
She snatched it up, dashed outside, but he was already climbing into a car, the door closing behind him. His parents must have come to fetch him. They never spoke, never saw each other again. She didn’t even know which school he’d been from.
How many years had passed since then? Yet her little box had kept this small, seemingly insignificant moment alive. She tucked the treasures back inside and set the box on the windowsill, deciding it should stay there—not hidden away, but kept as a relic of her childhood. Perhaps one day she’d tell Lucy about it. How would she react? Likely with a sigh: “Mum, childhood’s over. These things don’t matter. You should live in the present, not the past!” Or something to that effect.
But she was wrong.
When Lucy came home from school, she spotted the box at once, sifted through its contents, and asked, “Is this your archive? Where did you get all this?”
She picked up the brooch first, then the bow tie. Over supper, Margaret told her about the boy—how she’d found the tie, how she’d never seen him again.
“Didn’t you try to find him?” Lucy asked. “You could’ve gone to his school.”
“Oh, don’t start about social media! I didn’t even know his name or where he was from. Eat your dinner and do your homework—I’ve got enough to sort out.”
That evening, William came home from work, and once supper was done, he helped pack. Lucy, grinning, announced, “Dad, Mum fancied a boy at school! She’s been keeping a memento of him all this time!”
“Lucy!” Margaret protested, but William only chuckled.
“Not very kind to share secrets, is it?” he said lightly.
“Besides,” Lucy went on, “she’s got Gran’s old brooch, and—look!” She pulled out the dark blue bow tie.
“Some boy lost it,” she explained. “Mum liked him, so she kept it.”
William’s eyes narrowed. He reached out, took the tie from her, studying it closely.
“Where did you get this?” he asked at last.
“Lucy told you—some boy lost it, I found it, couldn’t return it. Kept it for twenty years.”
Then came the slow dawning in William’s eyes. He remembered that school party—how he’d left early, how he’d lost the tie.
His father had bought it abroad on a business trip.
“I went back to the school, asked if anyone had found it,” he murmured. “The teachers shrugged, the caretaker hadn’t seen it. Fancy that.”
“So—it was you?” Margaret whispered.
Fate, it seemed, had been smiling on her all along.
That evening, they sat reminiscing—how they’d finished school, gone to university, drifted in and out of each other’s lives. She in one town, he in another, meeting occasionally, always as friends.
“I always felt I was waiting for someone,” Margaret admitted. “Not you—not that boy, not consciously. But my heart kept saying: don’t rush.”
“I never cared much for girls,” William said. “The lads teased me—they all had sweethearts, and there I was, on my own.”
Then they’d met again—at another New Year’s Eve party, years later. Drawn together from the first dance, they hadn’t parted since.
“When I saw you that night, I knew,” he said. “You were the one I’d been waiting for.”
Lucy, listening, slipped between them, wrapping an arm around each.
“This isn’t just your fate,” she said softly. “If you hadn’t met then, I wouldn’t be here. But—well. Here I am.”
Clever child, indeed.
They laughed, then turned to decorating the Christmas tree waiting on the balcony.
And the bow tie? William took it. He said he’d wear it for their New Year’s dinner.
