I wont give up his home
“Why have you come?”
Valerie stood in the doorway, arms braced against the frame, as if she were guarding entry not just into the room, but into life itself.
“Hello, Mrs. Prescott,” Anna replied, using the formal way shed always addressed her.
“I asked you, why?”
Anna didnt answer right away. She glanced at the doormatblue with a white borderthe one shed bought years ago in a Boots sale, when she and Mark were freshly moved in. It was still there, scuffed around the edges, but not discarded. Like so much else.
“May I come in?” she offered quietly.
A silence, long enough to suggest both resistance and resignation. Valerie didnt budge at first, but finally she stepped aside without a word and headed to the kitchen. That counted as an invitation, in its own way.
Anna closed the front door softly behind her. The hallway smelled familiar, but not quite as before. Gone was the sharpness of Marks tobacco from the jacket that had always hung here, left side, by the hats. Now only a faded dressing gown and a knitted bobble hat lingered there.
In the kitchen, Valerie clattered the kettle on the hob, hands busy with purpose, even if she had no intention of making tea for them both.
“I saw the light on in the window,” Anna started. “I was passing by.”
“At ten at night?”
“The bus was late. I waited at the stop.”
Valerie set the kettle down and turned. The look she gave Anna was one of wary distrust, but not rejection. Not wholly.
“Better take your coat off if youre in.”
Anna shrugged out of her coat, at first hanging it over the left-hand peg, under the bobble hat, then shifting it to the right.
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Valerie poured two mugs of tea without asking if Anna wanted one. She nudged the sugar over, eyes fixed on her own hands. Small, habitual movementsactions people carry out automatically, because thats simply how things are done. A guest at your table, even now, summoned gestures even when your heart wasnt in it.
“How have you been?” Anna asked after a minute.
“Alright. As ever.” Valerie cupped the hot mug in both hands.
Anna noted Valeries hands. Spotted, bony, betraying the years. They gripped the mug too tightly for alright and as ever to truly ring true.
“I wanted to talk,” Anna said.
“About what?”
“All sorts, really.”
“About paperwork?” Valeries tone fell somewhere between accusation and resignation.
Anna hesitated. “Thats not the only reason.”
Valerie sipped her tea. The cup hit the saucer with a clink that might mean nothing, or everything.
“See the solicitor about the rest,” Valerie said. “Ive said all I have to say.”
“I know.”
“Then why repeat yourself?”
It wasnt a question, not really, and Anna didnt try to answer as if it was. She lifted her tea, tastedtoo hotput it back.
Rain tapped and swept at the windowdrizzle, a proper English autumn, neither soaking nor brisk, just hanging in the air. The light in the lamppost outside swung, making its shadow flicker across the sill.
Anna knew this kitchen intimately. She knew thered be old batteries and spare stringjust in casetucked in the left drawer, because Mark always kept everything. Always thought things might, just, have another ounce left to give. The bucket under the sink stood ready for leaks every autumn. There was a slim gap behind the fridge, where a fifty-pence coin had rolled once, and she and Mark and his son Alex had spent half an hour trying to fish it out, laughing at the hopelessness.
Alex. Three months.
“I brought over some jam,” she said after a while. “Plum. Its in a bag by the door. I wasnt sure if youd noticed.”
Valerie looked aside, down the hall, then back at the table.
“I noticed.”
“You like plum jam.”
“I used to.” She paused. “I do.”
That accidental slip, past tense to present, was like a small surrender.
Anna thought she understood. She too sometimes spoke about Mark in the presenthalfway through a sentencethen stumbled, lost her thread, wishing she hadnt started at all.
“I heard you were thinking of visiting Tamara in Devon,” Anna said.
“I was. Havent got round to it yet.”
“Whats holding you back?”
Valerie offered a vague wave of the hand. “Bits and pieces.”
Anna watched her for a moment. There were no bits and pieces, and both knew it. There was the flat, empty and waiting. The fear of coming back to nothing. Maybe, too, the fear that Tamara would pity her. Valerie couldnt bear pity.
“Mrs. Prescott…” Annas voice softened. “Im not here about paperwork. Honestly.”
“Honestly,” Valerie echoed, and Anna couldnt decide if she believed her, or was just repeating the word.
“I know youre still angry at me.”
“Im not angry.”
“Alright.”
“I just dont understand,” Valerie said, and this time something real crept into her voice, almost against her will. “I dont understand how you can move on like this. Its only been half a year. You… youre already managing. And Im still here.”
Anna bit her tongue, refusing to offer You misunderstand or Youve got it wrong. She simply sat.
“Ive seen you,” Valerie continued. “Lydia next door did too. Said you were in a café in August. With someone. On Church Street.”
“That was a colleague. We were working on a project together.”
“A colleague,” Valerie repeated, echoing, suspicious.
“Yes.”
Valerie got up, wandered to the window, staring at the rain and the shifting lamp outside.
“Alex loved you,” she said without turning. “You do know that? More than I think you realised.”
“I did know.”
“Im not sure you did.”
Anna gripped her mug, a tension fluttering inside her. She knew if she spoke now, shed say something regretful. So she kept quiet.
“I dont think youre a bad person,” Valerie said, still to the window. “I really dont. Youre younger, youre only forty-two, youve got your whole life. Im sixty-eight. And I only ever had one son.”
“I know.”
“And now hes gone. And you come round with jam.”
Cruel words, if they hadnt been so baldly true. Anna almost felt gratitude for that clarity, though shed struggle to explain why.
“I dont know any other way,” she said, voice unsteady. “I never know what to do with words. I had to bring something. Its harder to turn up empty-handed.”
Valerie turned, studying her quietly.
“Had you been crying? Before you knocked?”
“A bit.”
“On the stairs?”
“Yeah.”
Something in Valeries face shifted, just slightly. She came back to the table, sat.
“Were both a right pair of fools, arent we?” she said. For the first time that night, it rang honest and whole.
Silence hung in the kitchen. The rain at the window became heavier, a proper English downpour now.
“Tell me, then,” Anna said. “About the will. What, exactly, bothered you. Not through a solicitorjust tell me.”
Valerie looked surprised, caught off guard. As if no one had expected her to speak for herself, only to listen to everyone elses explanations.
“Its the flat,” she said. “Marks flat. His father and I saved for it years, scrimped every penny. Eight years, all told. We wanted Mark to have somewhere of his own. He lived in it; you lived in it too. Thats not the issue. But it was his flat, and on paper now…”
“On paper, it passes to me,” Anna finished.
“You never married.”
“We lived together six years.”
“I know.” Valerie folded her hands, looking at them. “But I cant shake the feeling hed want me to have a say. He wouldnt want to cut me out of it.”
“He wrote the will himself, Mrs. Prescott.”
“I know he did,” she whispered. “Perhaps it was right. Perhaps not. At first, I was angry… Now Im not angry. I just dont understand.”
“What dont you understand?”
“Why keep it, if you dont plan to stay? You told Lydias daughter you might move out, said it was too much on your own. Why keep hold?”
Anna considered.
“I said that in July, when everything felt impossible. I honestly dont know what Ill do yet.”
“If you sell,” Valerie said, hesitant but firm.
“Im not planning on selling.”
“If you do, though…” Valerie insisted, “youd tell me first, wouldnt you? Not some stranger. Me?”
Anna realised then that this was the heart of itnot the flat, not the money, but this: to not become a stranger. To have the right to know, to preserve even a fragile thread to her sona thread running through Anna, who had lived in Marks home, cooked in his kitchen, known him differently than a mother, but just as truly.
“Id tell you first,” Anna promised quietly.
Valerie nodded once, refilled her tea.
“Have you eaten today?” she asked, changing the subject.
“This morning.”
“This morning,” Valerie repeated, rising to open the fridge without another word. “I made noodle soup. Want some?”
“I do, yes.”
As Valerie warmed the soup, Anna watched her back. She thought about how, in another life, things might have been different: family get-togethers at a cottage in Devon; Christmases shared rather than managed; the odd Sunday phone call just to chat. Or maybe not. Maybe theyd always have had this careful distancetoo different to be close, not different enough to be indifferent.
The soup was goodsimple, unadorned. Carrot, onion, a few bits of noodle, a hint of parsley. The sort of meal cooked not for visitors but for yourself, when you just need something warm.
“Its good,” Anna said.
“Dont lay it on,” Valerie replied.
“It is, honestly.”
Valerie ate quietly. She spoke, eyes on her bowl: “He looked for you at the hospital, you know?”
Anna stopped, mid-spoon.
“What?”
“In April, when you were away at that conference, he was admitted for tests. I was there with him. He kept asking when youd be back. I said I wasnt sure. He kept hoping maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next.”
Anna put her spoon down.
“I returned the day after I found out.”
“I know.” For the first time, Valerie looked at Anna. “Im not blaming. I just wanted you to know.”
“Why?”
Valerie shrugged, “I suppose so someone besides me would remember.”
It felt honest. Annas mouth had gone dry. She reached for tea. It was cold now.
“He never said he was scared,” Anna managed. “I thought he took things as they came. That hed prefer if I wasnt fussing.”
“He hated being fussed over.”
“Exactly. I thought I was helping.”
“Maybe you were,” Valerie said, collecting the bowls. “Maybe you werent. No way of knowing now.”
The silence lingered, heavy and real.
Anna helped carry the dishes to the sink, unasked. They washed up together, side by sidea familiar, everyday action that somehow felt more important now, though neither said so.
Later, back at the table, Valerie brought over a tin of biscuits. The plain sort that gathers dust at the bottom of the tincheap, ordinary, from the local corner shop.
“Lydias telling me I should join a club, you know,” Valerie announced. “Theres a watercolour class for pensioners on Thursdays at the community centre.”
“And do you want to?”
“Not sure. Feels a bit daft, really.”
“Why daft?”
“At my age?”
“At your age, its exactly right,” Anna said, gently.
Valerie raised her eyebrows. “You sound like a social worker.”
“You sound like youre a hundred.”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Exactly. Not a hundred.”
Valerie bit into a biscuit and chewed thoughtfully.
“I was always busy. Colin, then Mark. Work, house. One day, thered be grandchildren But here I am. I dont know how to just be. Painting with watercolours is just be. Not sure I can.”
“Maybe thats worth learning.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Hard to say too,” Anna replied softly. “Its hard for me as well.”
Valerie looked at her closely. “Dont tell me youll join a club too?”
“No. But I have to learn somehow. I have friends, work, everything. But when I come homeI never know what to do. I sit and imagine hell walk in, say something silly, and everything will make sense again.”
A shared pause.
“He was good at talking nonsense,” Valerie chuckled.
“He was.”
“Hed waltz in and say Mum, when I was a kid, I thought stoats were just little stools.’ What sort of thing is that?”
“He told me elephant is zaan in Mongolian, and it sounds like youre full of yourself.”
Valerie laughed. It was short and surprised, as if she hadnt expected to laugh ever again.
“Lord, where did he get these things?”
“He read a lot.”
“Since he was five, never without a book. I had a job dragging him away from the table.”
“He showed me a photo once,” Anna remembered. “At the old cottage. Hes about eight, sat on the porch with a book, while all the other kids run wild.”
“I remember.” Valerie stared past Anna, past the window, into the spaces only memory can reach. “Colin had his vegetable patch there. Up at sunrise, till late. Mark would just read. I used to think, what a child. Later, I gave up worrying.”
“What did he read at eight?”
“About captains, about the sea. He never saw the sea until he was sixteen. Even then, he stared at it and said it seemed smaller. Its not like in the books, he told Colin. It seemed bigger there.'”
Anna smiled. Shed heard a different version from Mark, similar enough in essence. She wondered if either was strictly true.
“He used to talk about Colin a lot,” Anna said. “He missed him.”
ColinColin Samuel Prescotthad died six years before, just before Anna and Mark met.
“Yes,” Valerie said simply. “He did.”
“You miss him too?”
“Every single day.” Valerie said it with a kind of acceptance that had no bitterness now. “You get used to it, but you still miss them.”
“No contradiction there,” Anna agreed.
They lapsed into companionable silence.
“Tell me about Mark, as a boy,” Anna finally said. “He never liked talking about his childhood.”
Valeries gaze sharpened. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to. While I can.”
There was a touch of firmness to Annas words, an edge perhaps unfair but honest.
Valerie was silent a full minute. Then she got up and disappeared into the sitting room. Anna heard the shuffle of boxes. When Valerie returned, she was clutching an old shoebox, the sort youd save on a high shelf for years, unwilling to throw away.
“These were his,” she said, opening the lid. “I sorted through them in September. Some I gave away. Some I kept.”
Inside, there were exercise books, a few tiny toys, scribbled drawings. Anna picked out an exercise book, opened it. Childish handwriting, awkward and earnest. “Mark Prescott, Form 2.”
“Good Lord,” she whispered.
“Exactly how I feel,” Valerie murmured.
They turned the pages together. Valerie told stories; Anna listened. How Mark tried to learn to do a headstand at six and went around with a bruised forehead for a week. The time he smuggled a cat home, which Colin disapproved ofuntil he didnt. The cat left after two years, and Mark solemnly declared it was his right to move out. How, at fourteen, Mark announced hed be a programmer, because programmers work in slippers.
“He did work in slippers,” Anna recalled.
“A promise kept,” Valerie said.
It was almost midnight before Anna checked her watch and realised the hour.
“Ill have to go. Last bus soon.”
“Stay,” Valerie said, almost startled by her own words. “You can have the sofa. Ill get you some sheets.”
“I couldnt possibly.”
“Couldnt possibly what?”
Anna glanced at her. Valerie stared off, as if the offer had escaped unsupervised.
“Alright,” Anna said. “Thank you.”
As Valerie made up the sofa, Anna washed the mugs. She stared into the black window, at the golden glow reflected from the kitchen, at her own uncertain silhouette. Three months ago, a night like this would have been unimaginablesoup, exercise books, “stay.”
She thought, in passing, how after loss, the ties that bind outlive paperwork and wills. Theres a kind of healing, found in presence, whether you bring jam or not, just sitting and hoping that, given time, something fragile will settle into something you can carry.
Who knows if it would settle. But tonight, some small thing had shifted.
The guest room was the same one Anna and Mark had slept in, on their rare visits. The sofa sagged slightly at one end, still covered by the plaid blanket Valerie always called brown, though it was closer to burnt orange. Anna lay down, questioning everything. On the shelf: Colins books, faded, battered”Tess of the DUrbervilles”, “The Good Soldier”, a history volume. Among them, a slim volume quite unlike the rest. Anna sat up and read the spine, “Letters from Nowhere”. Unfamiliar. She opened it, leafed through. In neat blue ink, Marks handwriting: “To Mum on her birthday. Read slowly. Love.”
Anna closed the cover gently. Put it back on the shelf. Sat in the dark a while, thinking of those words.
Behind her, Valerie moved around, quiet save for a creaking board, a click of the bathroom tap. Life, continuing against the odds: small, everyday life.
In the morning, Valerie was making porridge. Anna, sleepy-eyed, found a bowl and a glass of orange juice set in front of her, no need to ask. Outside, a damp grey October morning, pavement glossed with rain, trees stripped nearly bare.
“What time do you start work?” Valerie asked.
“Ten. Ill be on time.”
“You will, its not far. Youre taking the underground?”
“Yes.”
“Third stop along, if I recall?”
“You remember?” Anna sounded surprised.
“Mark mentioned it,” Valerie said briefly.
Anna spooned porridgesalty, with butter, exactly as her mother had made when Anna was little, before Anna switched to sweet. That taste now seemed like something precious returned.
“I want to show you something,” Valerie said. She placed an envelope on the table. “Found it when I was sorting things. From his university trainingthe only army, reallyhe wrote to me from there. Just so you know he could write like that.”
She handed Anna three closely-written pages. Anna read, slowly, just as Marks note on the book had asked.
Mark wrote of standing at dawn, seeing only fog and an old willow outside the barrack. Everything shifts, he said, but the willow stayshe liked the thought of something staying put. Wrote about missing home, missing his mothers baking, longing for quiet.
Anna asked quietly, “Can I copy it? Or take a photo? Just for me.”
Valerie looked at her. “Keep it,” she said finally. “For good. I dont need it now.”
“No, its yours.”
“Anna…” It was the first time Valerie had used her name. “Take it.”
Anna tucked the letter back into the envelope and into her bag. There was nothing to say, really.
They washed up together. This time it felt more coordinateda small step beyond simple routine.
“You ought to see Tamara in Devon,” Anna said. “The house will still be here when you get back. Tamara, I suspect, wont always wait.”
“She called last week,” Valerie admitted. “Said Im rude not to visit.”
“Then you should go.”
“Well see.”
“Mrs. Prescott…”
“Well see, I said.”
Anna hung the tea towel up.
“I can visit again,” she said. “If you dont mind. Not often. Sometimes.”
Valerie turned off the tap, drying her hands, looking into the sink for a long, motionless moment.
“Do,” she said softly at last. “Ill make soup.”
“With noodles?”
“Or would you prefer barley?”
“Noodles are good.”
“Alright then. Settled.”
Anna got her coat on. Valerie walked her to the door. In the hallway, Anna shrugged on her coat and swung her bag over her shoulder.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“Go on, youll be late,” Valerie said, eyes slipping past Anna towards the morning stillness.
Anna reached for the door, paused.
“The book Mark gave youon the shelf. Have you read it?”
“I started. Im reading it slowly.”
“He told you to.”
“I saw. He always knew me.”
Anna nodded. Opened the door.
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Valerie echoed.
The door closed behind her. Anna lingered a moment, listening. Only after a long pause did the lock click, as though Valerie, too, had needed a moment to stand and listen.
On the landing, it smelled of damp and fresh paint. The light on the stairs flickered, but didnt go out. Anna descended slowly, hand on the rail.
Outside: same grey October, people rushing to work, pigeons strutting with purpose along the path. All ordinary, all familiarnone of it connected to the night before, and yet, somehow, all of it woven from the same life.
As she walked to the underground, Anna pondered: reconciliation isnt a single moment, a tidy solution. Its not a realisation that everything will finally be different. It is, perhaps, only thissoup, an exercise book, a night on a sofa, a tea towel, a letter folded at the bottom of your bag.
She couldnt tell what would come nextfor her or Valerie. They werent simply mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, nor mere acquaintances, nor friends. Something harder to namea connection built from shared memory and a mutual love for someone gone. Thats not reason enough for intimacy, but not enough for estrangement either.
The envelope lay in her bag. Shed save it for the evening, to read at home, when the light was good.
At her stop, Anna pulled out her phone and sent Valerie a message: “Got to work fine. Thanks for breakfast.”
The reply came twenty minutes later, as Anna was hanging up her coat at the office: “Youre welcome. I put the jam in the cupboard.”
Anna smiled. She tucked away the phone, shed her coat.
From the corridor, laughter echoeda kind that comes, incongruously, from nowhere. Through the window, a patch of white-grey sky. Anna thought, maybe by evening it would clearperhaps not. October was always unpredictable.
On Friday evening, three days later, Valerie phoned. Anna was just reheating her supper, nearly missing the call. She answered on the third ring.
“Im off to Devon,” Valerie said with abrupt finality. “Saturday morning.”
“Good,” Anna replied.
“For ten days.”
“Good.”
Pause.
“Hope you dont mind me calling.”
“Not at all. Im glad.”
“Well then.” Pause. “Anna…”
“Yes?”
“On the shelf, in the spare roomthe book Mark gave me. Take it next time, would you? It was his. Its his to go with you now.”
Anna, spoon in hand, dinner bubbling on the stove, felt suddenly steadied.
“Alright,” she said quietly. “I will.”
“Right. Id best get packing.”
“Have a safe trip.”
“Thank you.”
Another short pausethe kind thats comfortable, not empty.
“Goodbye,” said Valerie.
“Goodbye.”
Anna turned down the heat on the hob. Looked out the windownight now, streetlights ablaze.
Somewhere in Devon, Tamara was waiting, probably already making plans for what to serve with tea. Somewhere on a high shelf in a spare room was a book, inscribed “read slowly” and “love.” Somewhere in a cupboard, in an unfamiliar kitchen, a jar of plum jam.
And that, perhaps, was what finally remains. Not what the solicitor records. Not the square footage, not the legal papers. This: jam in someone elses cupboard, a letter in an envelope, a stray sentence spoken at the wrong moment, hitting home all the more for it.
Anna picked up her spoon and stirred her supper, understanding at last: the most lasting legacies are not what were handed as inheritance, but what we offer, quietly, over timepresence, memory, and the simple return, again and again, to the places where love once lived.
