Rose thanked the nurse, calmly hung up the phone and stood for a moment in her dressing gown, the fridge humming beside her.

Knowing she wouldn’t get back to sleep, she made a peppermint tea and picked up the portable radio from the windowsill beside the sink.

When she flicked on the light in the living room, Berger – her white cat who was curled up on the sofa – yawned, stretched and turned to face her.

On the coffee table in the middle of the room were scattered pieces of the jigsaw puzzle Rose had half-heartedly started a month ago in the hope that it would act as a distraction from all that was going on in her life.

Which, she realised now, looking at the few pieces she’d put together, was a lot to expect from a thousand pieces of card.  

The picture was a festive scene with Victorian children building a snowman outside of a traditional sweet shop and as she picked up the box to shuffle through the pieces, she heard Richard’s voice from behind her.

‘Rose? What are you doing up?’

She turned to see him squinting in the light, his arms folded across his chest.

She looked away, back at the puzzle.

‘The hospital called,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

He sat beside her and his presence – the smell of sleep on his warm body – was at once comforting and crushing in its familiarity. Had this been yesterday, she’d have moved away, gone back in the kitchen, but the call had sapped her energy and she felt suddenly exhausted.

‘What’s happened?’ Richard asked.

‘Mum’s died,’ she said and the words sounded too loud. ‘Mum’s died,’ she said again, quietly.

‘I’m so sorry, Rose,’ Richard said.

‘The nurse said she passed away in her sleep. That she wasn’t in any pain at the end. So that’s something. I’m glad she didn’t suffer. Especially as there was no one there with her. I should have been there. I suppose I should call Caroline to let her know, but I can’t remember the time difference between here and the States. And maybe the hospital’s already called her. I don’t know if they make international calls. I should have been there. I-,’

Richard wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer than they’d been in months and Rose felt herself surrender. She felt warm tears flow down her face and her chest heave with sobs.

‘I’m sorry Rose,’ Richard said again. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Rose felt his hand on the side of her face, stroking her hair in the way her mother had done in her childhood.

She felt his arms around her as memories shifted in her mind, overlapping and replacing one another: herself as a toddler, crying over a grazed knee; as a teenager arguing with her mother about a curfew; at 21, introducing Richard to her parents over a ploughmans at The Red Lion; her mother’s happiness on Rose’s wedding day, watching her first daughter marry...

She sat up suddenly, releasing herself from Richard’s embrace.

‘I should go to sleep,’ she said, wiping tears from her face, her eyes puffy and tired.  
 

Upstairs, Rose got back into bed alone and closed her eyes, though she knew sleep wouldn’t come. She lay still for ten minutes, half an hour, an hour, then lifted back the duvet and got up.

She walked down the hallway to the spare room and pushed open the door to find Richard wide awake.

‘Come to bed, Richard’ she said.

Richard looked at her. ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t be alone tonight.’
 

In bed, his Richard wrapped his arm around Rose’s waist, his hand resting on her stomach.

‘Is that okay?’ he asked.

Rose was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on the red digits of the alarm clock as a question circled in her mind: Did you ever hold her like this? Did you ever hold her like this?

And maybe she would ask sometime, but not tonight. Tonight she needed him here.

 ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, that’s okay.’