Dear R
I said I had nothing to give you but words. They are all I have and I'm afraid they're not enough.

When I was little I would sit in my nanna's kitchen and watch the rain pour down outside through the high window above the sink. It wasn't set low enough to see anything but the sky. She would tell us to look for a patch of blue - enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers because then we would know that the rain would soon stop and the rest of the day would be fine. We could go out to play and she could hang her washing on the line. The old twin tub would be swishing away in the corner, that warm soapy smell filling the room and she'd tell us about how back in her day if you didn't get your washing on the line by 10am, the neighbours would think you slatternly and tittle-tattle about your tardiness. You always pegged your smalls beneath a sheet because you didn't want all and sundry seeing those - not when you had to look them in the eye at church on Sunday morning and say "Peace be with you."

I slip into the past again to escape the present.

I watched the sky then, I watch it now.  I'm starting to doubt that the blue will ever come. These are the darkest clouds I have ever seen. You called it the perfect storm. You left and I didn't know where you'd gone. I'm so afraid that one day you won't come home.

Over twenty years I have watched this thing chase you. You are tired of running. Maybe it's time to turn and face it, to finally name what it is that hunts you down. I promised to stand side by side with you - for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. It's the one promise I have always believed in, the one I will keep.

Lx