He held my hand for a long time before he let go. I did not go into that station for many years, and when one day I did, I walked in and memory came at me, swift as a punch. The smell of a busy London train station, coffee and food and perfume and people, display boards blinking their train times, the bright shops and the escalators. My body stalled, by itself, on its own. I stumbled. So visceral, so deep, was the tidal rush of memory and regret, and loss, and longing for what could have been.
