The couple lived well. They married at the age of thirty. Their son was born. They had a lovely family. Money was never an issue. They bought a flat in London and transformed their old country cottage in the Cotswolds into a charming home, full of warmth and comfort. Holidays were spent abroadParis, Barcelona, Santorini. Her husband was devoted, and she never thought of anyone else.
Their son grew up and married a sweet English girl named Pippa. Both were in their early twenties. Were just the same as me and my husband, the woman thought joyfully, only ten years earlier. The young couples parents bought them a small flat in Brighton.
She was glad, yet as the years drifted by, whether because of age or some nagging superstitions, she began to feel uneasy about their serene life. Anything could happen.
And happen it did.
Her husband died.
It took her an age to recover. Slowly, she learned to live again, found some workshed been a housewife before. Everyone said the inheritance needed sorting. She went with her son to the solicitor. She didnt quite see why; surely half belonged to her anyway. There didnt seem to be any other heirsher husbands parents had long since passed.
The solicitor ushered them into his office. At a broad oak table sat a woman shed never seen before.
Her husbands share had been left to this woman.
She stared, bewildered, at the solicitor, then at the stranger. The woman looked olderaround fiftyplain, tired, a face she couldnt place. Clearly, she must have known her husband years ago.
The solicitor explained there was a will. Her husband had made it twenty-seven years ago, and since hed never revoked it, it was legal and binding.
A stranger
Once, in a dreamlike past, two people had fallen for each other as though in a film. They were young, just out of university, a riddle of hope and possibility ahead of them.
She was his first love, and he treasured her for itYoure like my child, hed say, though they were the same age. Shed giggle and smile, the sound echoing with bright, impossible promise.
One evening, watching a romantic film where lovers made mutual wills, theyd been struck by the idea and, laughing, wrote their own: All I have is yours, for ever and ever. The girl had sighed, saying, Its just paperit should be official. So they visited a solicitor. Later, they drank champagne beneath streetlamps that looked like spinning moons and made love long into the beautiful confusion of night.
But then life happened. The boys father fell ill. He and his mother took the old man abroad for treatment, far from the rainy English roads.
The girl met another man a few times, and soon, she was pregnant. He proposed. Her mother pressed herMarry him; your old friend is gone. This one is solid. The first love never answered her letters.
She married. They moved to Manchester, her new husband having landed a respectable job. Their daughter was born, but their marriage faltered and finally broke. A divorce, a silence. She wrote a new will for the child.
So many years passed that when a registered letter arrived, she was startled. Shed long since convinced herself shed forgotten her first love. But there was his name, making everything shimmer. So much love, so long buried!
He had forgotten about the will too, lost in the fog surrounding his fathers death and his mothers failing health. When he heard she had married and left for a northern city, hed tried to forget but never could. He met his future wife. There was no romance, but he liked her steadiness. They had a quiet life.
What could be done? Would the woman take half? she wondered.
How strange, that he left that old will. He must have loved her so much back then. And now, she would have this share as a memory of him.
Half the estate is mine now, the woman said quietly.
Not any halfthe London flat, the cottage in the country, the car, the savings.
Her heart nearly stopped. The death of her husband, and now thislike betrayal in a dreams fog.
All those years together, not once did he mention his old sweetheart!
Now to hand over so much money
She took the woman to court, but nothing changed, only her nerves wore thin as mist.
The money was given to the other woman.
She bought herself a fresh flat and took her daughter to the coast, to the swirling, endless sea.
Thank you, she whispered, each day anew, as the world drifted curiously by.
