The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

Living, now, had become not simple existence that one took for granted, but a bonus, a gift, with every day that lay ahead an experience to be savoured. Time did not last forever. I shall not waste a single moment, she promised herself.

I need my privacy too. To be myself. To live alone.”

His opinions were both liberal and practical, and though he told her that he voted Republican, he seemed deeply concerned with the problems of the Third World.

“Don’t forget those things,” Sophie told her. “They are all part of the person that he was. It is good to remember the bad times as well as the good. After all, that is what life is all about.”

Nothing was ever so bad once you had accepted it.

It was good. And nothing good is ever lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of one’s character.

I would like to be young again. To be able to watch it all happening.

“There is only so much each man can do in his lifetime.” “True. But it is hard not to be greedy. It is human nature always to want more.”

She remembered him smiling, and realized that time, that great old healer, had finally accomplished its work, and now, across the years, the face of love no longer stirred up agonies of grief and bitterness.

I have come full circle, she told herself, and wondered what had happened to all the years. It was a question which, from time to time, caused her some anxiety and left her fretting with a dreadful sense of waste. But now, it seemed, the question had become irrelevant, and so the answer, whatever it was, was no longer of any importance.

“I’m not even certain that she believed in God.” Mr. Tillingham, still smiling, shook his head, reached out his hand for the door handle of his car. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. She may not have believed in God, but I’m pretty certain God believed in her.”

And in this life, nothing good is ever lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours forever.