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“And we can be friends, can’t we?” she added with a bit of a wobbly smile.
Of course they could. They had their dead fathers in common, after all.
Dead fathers.
Oh, damn it.Damn it. Damn it!
Val, of course, noticed the change in his expression immediately. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes, it is.” Except it wasn’t. He glanced down at his watch—his father’s watch—and looked at the time, groaning inwardly. Croydon was at least an hour and a half away in current traffic, an hour if he was lucky, and he’d forgotten. He’d never forgotten, not once in nearly ten years.
“What’s happened? You look worried.”
He let out a short, barking laugh. She didn’t know the half of it. To his surprise, he found himself answering honestly. “Memorial service. For my dad and the other people…in the accident he was in. I go every year. This is the first time I’ve forgotten. I can’t believe it.”
He was fully aware that he must sound unhinged. He clenched his hands for a moment, then stood. “I don’t even have time to change…”
Val’s brown eyes were wide and soft. “I’m so sorry. I kept you…”
“No. No, it wasn’t you at all.” Except, of course, it was. He sometimes, especially in the early years, would go on a bender around this time. Val certainly wasn’t the first woman who’d ended up in his bed a couple of nights before. But today he’dforgotten. He raked his fingers through his hair and swallowed back that choking feeling threatening to tighten round his chest. “I’m so sorry but I’ve got to go.”
“Do you…do you want some company?”
Those words stopped him in his tracks.
He took a deep breath to tell her no, and found himself saying, instead, “Sure. Fine. Let’s go. But—Hind?”
Val gave him a wobbly smile. “I haven’t asked for an afternoon off in years. This is more important.”
CHAPTER NINE
WITH ITS GRAYsheets of rain and a persistent dampness that crept into the innermost regions of even the most waterproof jackets, London had risen to the occasion for the Flight 0718 memorial with weather that matched Desmond’s mood perfectly.
He’d attended this memorial service without fail every single year since the accident. It was always held here in the little gray church in Croydon.
This was the first time he’d ever come with someone, he realized. The first time in all that time he hadn’t wanted to be alone. It was strange to have to give context, to explain what all the other attendees already knew.
“One of the passengers was the vicar here,” he whispered to Val. “He would have been serving here twenty-two years, had he lived.”
Val made a soft sound in response, and reached out and placed one of her hands on his arm. He resisted, with some effort, the urge to shake her off as they entered the church’s dim interior. She began following an usher who smiled and offered her a hothouse orchid—the favorite flower of another victim of the crash, who’d been a florist in Kent—but Desmond shook his head.
“Back here,” he mouthed, and gestured to the corner of the last row but one on the left-hand side. They sat and Val blew on her hands to warm them; wordlessly, he dragged off his gloves and handed them to her.
The vicar’s eldest son, a tall, broad, tow-headed twelve-year-old, read out the same passage from the Psalms that was read every year. He’d been a mere toddler in his mother’s arms at that first, horrible service. Val fixed her eyes on the boy and did not look at Desmond, for which he was grateful. He worried the program until the cover page sliced into his thumb; Val gently took it from him.
He watched the blood trickle down his finger with an odd sense of detachment. He was glad for the sting; it would keep him centered. He barely reacted when Val produced a pristine handkerchief from her handbag, pressed it into his hand.
Candlelight flickered on the walls, which were worn soft and gray from years of worship. Desmond knew already that after the service the families of the victims would hug each other, chat, perhaps even laugh; nearly ten years of shared grief lent an intimacy to the occasion. Some of them were friends now and met outside of this yearly memorial. Some brought new partners to the service, more and more each year. Babies had been born; children had finished school, or gotten married.
For Desmond, though, each service might as well have been the first one. And he regretted with every minute that passed giving in to Val’s offer in his moment of weakness.
He clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. Candles were lit for every lost victim, while the congregation breathed the damp, frigid air in the silence of remembrance.
Every year since the accident he’d mourned alone, but tonight Val tugged off her borrowed glove, then slipped her hand into his. And, desperate for something to anchor him down, he held on and closed his eyes.
Afterward it was a little easier, but not by much. He stood a little way from the throng, close to the door, Val’s hand still folded in his. He didn’t speak to anyone, other than cursory nods or greetings when he was approached.
No one ever came to Desmond for more than a few seconds; his presence at the memorial was acknowledged, but there was no warm welcome for him as there was for the others. A couple of people eyed Val with curiosity, but he had no relationships here that would lead to any introductions. And Val, bless her, was quiet and unobtrusive. She’d somehow managed to read the situation, even though he hadn’t had the words to explain.