He offered to accompany her.
“Jack, I’ve walked to that shop since 1978.”
“I know.”
“Then stop fussing.”
She took her coat from the peg and left.
Forty-five minutes later, she had not returned.
Jack telephoned the shop.
The owner said she had been in earlier.
“She bought a loaf and asked about the road to the library.”
“The library?”
“That’s what she said.”
Jack put down the telephone.
The library had moved years before.
He searched the surrounding streets, called Helen, and contacted the relevant services when he could not find May.
A local police officer eventually located her sitting on a bench near a bus stop, several streets from home.
She was cold, confused, and deeply embarrassed.
When Jack arrived, she stood immediately.
“There you are.”
He approached carefully.
“Hello, love.”
“Nobody would tell me where the school was.”
Jack looked at the officer.
May had been asking directions to the primary school where she had worked before retiring.
She still knew the route as it had existed decades earlier.
On the drive home, she stared through the window.
Jack kept both hands on the steering wheel.
He wanted to ask why she had gone so far, why she had not called, and why she had not recognised the neighbourhood.
Instead, he said, “Would you like some tea when we get in?”
She nodded.
“Yes, please.”
At home, she removed her coat and sat at the kitchen table.
Jack put the kettle on.
When he returned with the cups, she was crying.
He sat opposite her.
“I couldn’t remember the way home,” she said.
“I know.”
“I knew the streets. I just couldn’t put them in the right order.”
He reached for her hand.
She held it tightly.
“I used to take thirty children on school trips,” she whispered. “Thirty. I could count heads, organise lunches, get everybody on the right bus. Today I couldn’t find my own front door.”
Jack’s throat tightened.
“You found someone who could help.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
He stayed beside her while she cried.
He did not tell her it was all right.
It plainly wasn’t.
Afterwards, they arranged safer ways for her to enjoy walks, including company when she went farther from home. They discussed what support might help and updated the plans they had made with Helen.
May protested some changes and accepted others.
Jack understood her resistance better than he would have a year earlier.
The restrictions meant losing pieces of her independence.
But the alternative was allowing her to become frightened and disoriented in places where she could not reliably find help.
There was no arrangement that left everyone entirely satisfied.
Their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary fell on a Saturday in June.
Helen arranged a small lunch at the cottage.
Sophie brought flowers. Ben made a card, which May praised so extravagantly that he turned pink and asked her to stop embarrassing him.
Dorothy arrived with a bottle of sparkling apple juice and told stories about May’s early years as a teacher.
Jack wore a navy suit.
May wore a pale blue dress that she had bought for Helen’s wedding and altered several times since.
She was delighted by the attention, though she occasionally lost track of the conversations.
When Helen brought out a cake, May stared at the number fifty-five written in icing.
“Is that right?”
Jack stood beside her.
“Afraid so.”
She looked at him.
“Good heavens. You must have been very patient.”
“I’ve had my moments.”
“More than moments.”
Everyone laughed.
Later, Sophie found an old wedding photograph in the sitting room.
It showed Jack at twenty-five, thin and serious, with dark hair neatly combed. May stood beside him wearing a simple white dress with lace sleeves.
Sophie brought it to the table.
“Grandma, look.”
May examined the picture.
“Oh, that’s lovely.”
“That’s you and Grandad.”
“Is it?”
Sophie smiled.
“Yes.”
May brought the photograph closer.
She studied the young woman.
“Well, she was pretty.”
Jack watched from the other side of the table.
Then she looked at the man beside her.
“Who’s that?”
The room became very quiet.
May glanced up.
“Have I said something wrong?”
Jack moved his chair closer.
“That’s me, love.”
She looked again at the photograph.
Then at him.
A moment passed.
“Oh,” she said.
She smiled politely.
“You were quite handsome.”
Jack returned the smile.
“I had more hair.”
She laughed.
The conversation resumed, though everyone was more careful afterwards.
Jack noticed Helen watching him.
He gave her a small nod.
He was all right for the moment.
At least, he could remain at the table and finish the meal.
That evening, after their guests had gone, he found the photograph lying beside the cake stand.
He picked it up.
May was in the sitting room watching television.
He sat at the kitchen table and studied the young couple.
He remembered the heat inside the church, the uncomfortable shoes he had bought for the occasion, and the way May had squeezed his hand during the vows because she knew he was nervous.
He remembered her whispering that he had forgotten to polish his shoes properly.
He remembered laughing when the photographer asked them to look serious.
He remembered nearly everything about that day.
May had looked at the photograph and seen two strangers.
Jack turned it over.
On the back, in faded blue ink, May had written:
Our wedding day. Jack and May. 15 June 1965.
He traced the handwriting with his thumb.
Then he returned the picture to its frame.
Over the following year, May’s difficulties increased.
