Life is full of things you don't see coming. Walking along the High Street, thoughts of what to cook for dinner on my mind and there he was, right in front of me, Mark Henderson. 'Good Lord, Emma. It is you, isn't it?' The same half smile that still invaded my dreams. 'Yes, hallo Mark,' I mumbled, too late to dodge past him. He hadn't changed much even after all this time, I would have known him anywhere. He advanced and I was pinned against the wall. No escape. 'This is a surprise, didn't dream you would still live round here.' 'Obviously not and what are you doing, visiting someone?' I asked knowing it wouldn't be his parents, they had moved away ages ago. 'Oh no. I'm back to stay. Bought a new house in Park Avenue.' 'One of those five bedroom ones, goodness me you must be doing well.' 'Yes, I'm in banking in the City. We had a flat in the Barbican but decided a rural lifestyle was more for us and where better than the old home town.' I tried to stay where I was but the conversation had flung me back in time and the past rushed up to meet me. I couldn't stop the memories crowding my mind. Months of golden passion, him promising commitment. 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' he'd said. Us fumbling in the back row as the stars on the screen showed how it should be done. His face above mine, the taste of his skin. Love then had been really something, a fire inside I could now only wonder at. Both seventeen and him impossibly handsome, black haired and green eyed. But my love was sure footed and secure, his as I was later to discover, was ephemeral and fleeting. 'If we go the whole way it will seal our love, bind us together.' His words not mine and of course I had believed them. An older friend of his lent us the keys to his flat while he was abroad. So I relented and we feverishly explored each other's bodies. What miraculous joy only first love can bring. I tended the garden we had planted with patience and care and in return he seemed to do the same. Then, the shock that someone who had promised so much could deliver so little because without a word he had gone. His parents, red faced with embarrassment, tried to explain his betrayal. 'There was a sudden offer of work abroad and he thought you were getting too demanding,' his dad explained. 'Something about needing to find himself too.' I was stunned. He hadn't said a word, not a clue as to what he was up to. How could he have deceived me so expertly. His feelings hadn't even skimmed the surface of the depths mine had reached. Love had overwhelmed me while he had just been satisfying his basic needs. I had a lot to learn. No chance even to beg him to stay. How could I when there was just an empty space where he had been. 'You should try and get out a bit more,' was my parents' response as I sank into a deep gloom. Then Ian had pulled me out. Looking back I could see he'd always been there waiting but thinking he had no chance with me. He wasn't daring or handsome, not like Mark, but his kindness and comfort healed me when nothing else could and I soon realised that I could trust him with my life. He would never leave me on a whim. So, shortly after Mark had gone away, Ian and I were married, without any fuss, in the local register office. The grand white wedding with half a dozen bridesmaids that I had planned disappeared along with my innocence. 'I know how much pain you're in,' Ian had said. 'If you let me look after you, I'll never let you down.' So I had and he hadn't, let me down that is, and for twenty years the garden we planted grew full and fertile. So why then was I now feeling so fragile. How could Mark Henderson still cause tidal waves in my emotions. 'Are you married, do you have any children?' His words tugged me back to the present and I could see he still had no concept of the anguish he'd caused me. 'What? Oh, yes to Ian Harris. You must remember him and we have three.' I replied. 'Lucky you, we can't have any.' Stranger that he now was I was embarrassed at this sudden personal revelation and, 'Oh, dear, how awful,' was all I could manage in response. 'Yes, a side effect of something I caught in the Far East, I was very ill that's why I came back to England, it left me completely sterile. We've been trying IVF for the last year but no luck so far.' His mouth drooped and I almost felt sorry for him. 'Why the big house then?' I blurted out. 'Just in case we succeed.' I nodded and replied that I hoped he would be lucky. I couldn't help smiling though as I realised that of course any child conceived through IVF could never truly be his. Ian had long been wanting to go into partnership with his brother in Scotland and suddenly it seemed like the perfect time to go. I would move out of Mark鈥檚 life as easily as he had moved out of mine and he would never know about Ben, who鈥檚 imminent appearance had been the reason for my hasty marriage twenty years before and who had declared many times that he had no interest in ever finding his real father, the man who had treated his mother so badly. That thought brought a sudden, unexpected taste of a revenge I had never looked for but oh, how sweet it was. | 
