For Dexter, the second anniversary of Emma’s death wasn’t a painful as the first one. When the deli closed for the day, he decided to spend the evening alone. He wanted to look through Emma’s books and photographs. He was going to keep some of them. He was going to keep some of them. He was going to give some of them to her parent. The others were going to her friends.
So in the evening, he sat with Emma’s things around him. He thought about the previous anniversary and he remembered a strange thing. A few days after 15th July last years, he’d re received a kind letter from Ian Whitehead. ‘When Emma left me, I hated you,’ he had written. ‘I wanted to die. But after a few years I met someone else and my life changed. And now I’m happy again. We have three children. I know how you must feel without Emma, Dexter. And I know that she loved you very, very must. I used to think that you weren’t good enough for her. But none of us was good enough for Emma. And we have to go on for her. Please take care of yourself.’
After that letter, Dexter and Ian had spoken on the phone a few times. But they both knew that they weren’t going to meet again.
Dexter spent a lot of the evening looking at Emma’s old photos. He found some which Emma had taken on Arthur’s Seat97 in Edinburgh. One of them had been taken by someone else and showed both Emma and Dexter.
‘Shall I come to you?’ she said. ‘I can get a taxi.’
‘No, it’s all right. I just wanted hear a friendly voice,’ Dexter told her. ‘I’ll be fine now.’ And soon, he felt much better.