Sarah Winman

He was forty-five years old, and every night he wondered where the years had gone.

Car accident. Five years ago now.

He built the fires and Annie opened the wine, and the years rolled out. Thirteen, to be precise. Thirteen years of grapes and warmth.

Do you remember how you stared at me? How unnerved you made me feel? And I asked you why you were staring at me.

The year was 1976. You were thirty. Me, twenty-five. These are the details you never thought I’d remember.

Talking bollocks because of the drugs.

And Michael said, We carry on and we don’t give up. And he knelt down and kissed him. It was their first kiss. Something good in a day of bad.

as stars appeared as fragile as ice crystals

What’s got into you?

I’m stuck.

Still? she said.

All the things you were going to do

They sat there quietly, not talking about death, or the kiss, or how life was going to change