On Reg’s one-year anniversary, Millie takes the day off from work and goes to the cemetery. She pushes the leaves away from the grave and kneels on the cold earth. I can’t believe it’s been a year, she says, keeping her voice low even though there’s no one else around. I’m okay. I keep busy. She tells him about work, about driving the ambulance, about the trip she took to the coast with Julia. Just to get away, she says, a little holiday. She doesn’t mention the two chaps they met there, fighter pilots, and how she’s meeting one at the weekend for a drink. She fills him in on the news from Beatrix, how well she seems to be doing. In the latest letter, Nancy had said that she had found a new group of girlfriends, that she wasn’t spending as much time with William. That boy, Nancy wrote, will be the death of me. Gerald, on the other hand, is so easy. With him, I never have to worry.
Millie hasn’t heard from Ethan in quite a while. The last postcard she received from him had his moves redacted. She asked around and learned that this was happening to other chess players. Apparently, officials believed that they might be coded messages. She didn’t know what to do, so she sent him a short letter explaining what happened, carefully writing out all the moves they’d each made up until that point. But so far, he hasn’t responded. She wonders whether the entire letter was redacted or perhaps destroyed. She could see how it could look like code to an untrained eye. Certainly, it would have looked like that to her less than six months earlier.
She takes in a breath and gazes around the cemetery. It’s a beautiful spot, in every season, but in the fall the trees are ablaze with color. So, Reg, she says, I’ve moved to a new flat. You were just in the old flat, somehow, all the time, and I needed a space that didn’t contain you. Beatrix is not happy with me, I think, but I’m hopeful it will help her, too, once she comes home. To a different place and not one that’s ringed with memories. It’s closer to work, which is good, and only two flights up instead of four.
Grief is a strange thing. It ebbs and flows, she’s found. Some days she can think of him and be stalwart. On other days, though, someone will mention him, just in passing, and she’ll get that tickle in her nose and know that she needs to turn away. The anger is mostly gone although that, too, seems to erupt at the most unexpected times. One night, a few drinks in, she wrote a letter to Beatrix telling her that Reg had been the one to send her away. She had wanted her to stay, she wrote, she had pleaded with him to change his mind. She couldn’t send it, though. It seemed unfair to Reg and one day, hopefully soon, she can explain everything to Beatrix in person.
She stands up and kisses her fingers, then places them on the grave. Bye, love, she says. I’ll come back soon, although she wonders whether that’s true. It’s easier to just forget. It’s better to move on. She heads out of the cemetery. She and Julia are going to the clothes swap to find something a bit more fashionable to wear. A new scarf, perhaps, or a pair of flashy earrings.