Afterwards

I never expected to find them there; it had been too long. All the same, I had to walk the familiar path, to pass through the gaping doorway, to negotiate what remained of the passage. I hardly knew where I was heading, and I was almost surprised to find myself in the shell of my father’s study.

I sat for a long time, dry-eyed, unaware of the cold, not knowing what I had sought, but only that I had not found it between those bare walls. The empty space smelt only of clean sea air, and held no ghosts.

I don’t know how long I would have stayed if Stephen hadn’t found me there. He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes.

“They’re still here,” he told me gently, tapping my brow. “They always were.”

And at last I found them, and in his arms, I wept.

A response to this week’s VisDare … for the photoprompt and to see the other responses, do please follow the prompt