**The Old Suitcase**
I stormed out, slamming the gate behind me so hard the dogs in the shed started barking. Another row with Gran—always the same. “Water the vegetables,” “Help with the jam,” “Stop staring at your phone.” As if an eighteen-year-old like me had nothing better to do in summer!
“Emily! Come back this instant!” Gran shouted after me, but I kept walking down the dusty country lane, not looking back. I had nowhere to go, but going home was the last thing I wanted.
I reached the lake and sat on the bank, watching the sun dip behind the treeline. Resentment churned inside me—towards my parents, off working in Germany and leaving me behind, and Gran, dragging me to this backwater instead of letting me stay in town. I’d already got into university; my life was supposed to be starting. Instead, I lugged jars to the cellar like some errand girl.
The next morning, Gran knocked on my door. “Emily, love, could you help? These jars need taking down to the cellar. I can’t manage those stairs anymore.”
Grumbling, I washed up and got to it. The jars were heavy, the steps creaky. I made three trips. On the last one, I spotted it—an old, battered suitcase tucked in the corner, thick with dust.
“Gran, what’s this case doing down here?”
“Goodness knows… Might’ve been your grandad’s. Haven’t set foot down here since he passed.”
Curiosity got the better of me. Ignoring Gran’s protests, I hauled the case into the light. The fabric was peeling, the clasp rusted.
“Leave that filthy thing be,” Gran muttered. “No telling what’s inside.”
But I was already digging through yellowed shirts, fading photos, and scribbled notes. At the bottom lay an envelope, neatly tucked away. In faded ink, it read: “To Kate. Forgive and understand.” The handwriting was Grandad’s.
“Can I…?” I glanced at Gran.
She nodded. The letter was raw. In it, Grandad Thomas begged forgiveness from a woman named Kate, confessing how his jealousy had ruined them. The date—1969. Gran went pale.
“That… that’s a year after we married,” she whispered.
“Maybe we should leave this alone,” I said softly.
“No. I need to know. Where’s this place he mentioned—‘where I broke her dreams’?”
Late that night, Gran asked me to find train tickets to a town near Norwich.
“Just do it, love. I have to see that street.”
Next day, we took the train. The journey dragged, and Gran talked the whole way—about her youth, meeting Thomas, marrying for love. But always, quietly, she’d wondered if she ever truly had all of him.
We took a taxi to the address in the letter. The house was tidy, ivy creeping up the brickwork. As we hovered by the gate, a voice called out:
“You looking for me, dear?”
We turned. An old woman stood there—sturdy, sharp-eyed.
“Hello,” Gran said. “Do you know Katherine Ellis?”
“My daughter,” the woman smiled. “Moved to Edinburgh years back.”
“And Thomas Whitmore? I’m… his widow.”
She introduced herself as Nana Edith and invited us in. Thomas had been stationed here, she explained. Her Kate worked as a nurse, and they’d fallen hard. But gossip twisted everything—someone claimed Kate had been unfaithful. Thomas believed it and left. Kate never forgave him, though she never stopped loving him either. Two years later, she got engaged. A month before the wedding, Thomas’s letter arrived. Nana Edith opened it, read it, and sent it back.
“I wanted her to move on. And she did, happily. You lived your life too, Lydia. Maybe it was all meant to be this way.”
We left in silence. Gran had tears in her eyes.
“What if she’d forgiven him?” she whispered later, in our B&B.
“Gran,” I said gently, “no use with ‘what ifs.’ You were his wife. He loved you. And you loved him.”
She nodded, pulled me close, and for the first time in ages—smiled.
