Samantha

Havermouth, Four and a Half Years Before

At least, Aislen thought as she dressed, she did not need to ask herself what she would wear to the funeral, most of her clothing was in the right color. She dressed slowly staring in the mirror at the darker patch on the floor behind her.

Bianca, Helena and Christine had all pitched in to clean up from the miscarriage, scrubbing the blood from the wood and remaking the bed in clean linens so that by the time she returned from her overnight stay in hospital, the stain was the only evidence of what had happened. She had been acclimating to the patch on the floorboards in the weeks since, gradually hardening her heart until she could look at it without crying.

The little cardboard box of ashes sat on the bedside table, the only other remnant of the little life that she had never wanted to grow, that she had intended to give to someone else… You would think that she would feel relieved not to have to continue with the pregnancy, she thought as she