Digging Deep Ezen

I WATCH the flurries of snow dancing in the glow of lanterns, frosting the ground with silver.

 I hadn't been looking for love when the wind tore my umbrella from my hand in the churchyard, where Mum and I had taken flowers for Dad.

"Got it!" the dark-haired stranger said, catching it.

"Josh," he went on, handing it back.

"Annie and May," Mum said. "Thank you."

Maybe I'd have forgotten him if he hadn't found me crying for Dad on the old bench overlooking the lake a week later.

"Annie?" he said, sitting down beside me.

"It's Josh. We met last week. I -" I tried to still my tears but failed when I saw the kindness in his eyes.

He didn't talk, but I did.

How easily my words tumbled out.

"Your dad sounds like a great guy," he said.

"C'mon, let me walk you home."

I didn't argue.

So we walked in silence, till I remembered my manners and asked what he was doing in our village.

"Contract work at the estate house.

"Restoring old damaged stone - lintels, archways - rarely is anything beyond repair.

"Sometimes things just need to be rediscovered.

And you?" he asked.

"Do you work here?" I told him about my job in London and my sudden return to support Mum.

How my career now seemed so unimportant, and how lost I felt.

"Working through it sometimes helps," Josh said. "Finding some project that helps shift your thinking." The silence settled around us as we walked.

"It may be the wrong time to ask," he said, as we stopped at the gate of my family home, "but I'd love to see you again, Annie." He glanced nervously across the wild garden, once Dad's pride and joy.

I followed his gaze, suddenly seeing the overgrown bushes, the colonisation of weeds.

There wasn't much I could do about the heartache Mum and I were both experiencing, but . . .

"You're right about working through things," I said, with a rush of determination.

"I'm going to tackle this garden.