Epilogue
But today there is plenty of daylight left after their walk up the track to the next village, where there is an eighteenth-century house with beautiful gardens and a tea shop.
They have spent a nice hour or two walking, drinking tea and eating cake.
Now they are on their way back and they are discussing their plans for the following day.
They need to be at the airport by eleven, so they will be getting an early night.
Inside the house, Eve slips up the stairs to take one last look at her wedding dress before she folds it carefully and puts it in her suitcase.
She and Joe will be getting married on the beach in Mexico in two days’ time – just the two of them.
She knows Sascha will be upset at missing out, as will Mackenzie, but this is the way she and Joe want it to be.
On the way back down, she pops her head into the room that will be her study when she returns.
She has decided to stop teaching and work from home for the charity TFJ instead.
She will fundraise and work on cases and divide her time between this and helping Joe with the renovations.
She feels a wave of excitement wash through her every time she thinks about it.
She looks in on Joe, who is making dinner in the kitchen.
She studies his face. She is conscious all the time of the damage that has been done to him.
People don’t see it immediately, but it’s there and she knows he may never mend completely.
Later, they will lie in bed and talk for a while, heads together, or maybe he will want to be silent.
Whatever he chooses, Eve stays nearby. He likes her to be there in the house somewhere and she recognises his need for her presence as what it is.
It is the fear of losing what he has, all over again.
Eve knows that this is the way trauma works.
She knows that we expect what happened yesterday to happen tomorrow.
She doesn’t know how many more tomorrows it will take and whether there will ever be enough of them to reverse twenty years of hurt.
But she doesn’t mind. She really doesn’t. She has everything she needs.