"Bill, Dear I'm confused." Lottie asked brushing her apron, adjusting the third mug for tea. "Who is this woman again, and why is she coming to my house?"

Lottie was not averse to guests, she had just accepted that her front door was permanently open these days, the house bursting at the seams, but Bill had been so casual, so flippant, so offhand about this guest. There had been lots of moustache twitching when this was broached.

Of course he got the full inquisition as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Didn’t even get a chance to sit down.

Bill had just sent the last of his children off. John was mercifully out on his own accord. Ruth away as a maid. He had surprised Joe and Pearl (and everyone else) with train tickets to spend a day in Scarborough to make up for their lack of a honeymoon. And now Kate had been given Bill’s beer money to take Anne Ward out to see the Magic Lantern show in Silver Street.

He took his time, pulled out a chair slowly. Sat down. Twitched his moustache again. Made a low rumbling noise as he sighed. “I didn’t want to say it in front of the bairns. My sister, Jane, is in Whitby. She would like to meet you.” There. It was out. He wished that was all he had to say for the rest of the afternoon. He feared it wasn’t.

Lottie blinked and took a breath as if about to say something, then she stopped and scowled.

"What took her so bloody long?" she blurted. With raw opinion in the open, the truth continued to flow from her mouth

"The nerve of the woman, it's been twenty feckin' years, and now she shows up? Ye don't even like those people, ye never talk of those times back then. Why now? What is she these days, the Queen of Sheba?"

Bill flinched under her outburst. He wished she would just keep her mouth shut. What did she really know, anyway?

He laid his hands on the table and stared at his thumb. "Well, I'm the one that ran off, innit?" he pointed out. He spotted a small hangnail beside his thumb nail and began to pluck at it. "Me old man is dead." He plucked away with steel intensity.

Lottie's rant abruptly de-railed.

"Oh Bill. I'm sorry luv." Lottie answered softly. She placed a calloused hand over Bill's, pausing his fidgeting. In all the years she'd known him, Lottie believed Bill to be the strong and silent type. But obviously he was human, he did have feelings. "Was it sudden?" she asked, silently recalling how her own relatives had kept death waiting out of spite.

Bill's fingers stopped, then moved out and over her hand to hold hers between his. He avoided looking at her but his hands gently squeezed hers in gratitude. "She wrote to me before. Told me 'e was sick. Och, I just didn't know what to do with it, Lottie. Yer man's a coward. I kept thinking, maybe I'll go next week. Maybe I'll go next week. I just couldn't. And what with everything goin' on. I suppose it's better. I would 'ave only brought pain and chaos into their lives. 'E wasn't a bad man, ye know. 'E deserved to die in peace." His chest felt like it was about to explode.