Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

Do you think of her, do you still catch yourself listening for her footsteps, for her voice, for the sound of her breathing at night, because I do, all the time. I still think that one day I might wake and she will be there, next to me, again; there will have been some wrinkle or pleat in time and we will be back to where we were, when she was living and breathing.

Agnes looks at him and he looks back at her. She wants, more than anything, to stretch this moment, to expand the time before he knows, to shield him from what has happened for as long as she can. Then she gives a swift, single, downward nod.

and she feels the pull towards him that she always does and always has, as if there is an invisible rope that circles her heart and ties it to his.