MargenI gave my son my favourite novel the day he left to study away. I had read it so many times that the pages fell open by themselves at my favourite bits.
He came back at Christmas and handed the book back, embarrassed: he hadn't got past chapter three. “Sorry, Mum. I haven't had time.” I told him it didn't matter, that he'd read it one day, and I put it away without dwelling on it.
Years later, tidying the shelves, I found it again. I opened it out of curiosity. On the page where chapter three begins, exactly where he had stopped, there was a folded train ticket from that first journey home, with the date written by hand.
He hadn't gone on reading my story. He had started his own, and had kept it inside mine, for me to find when he could no longer bring himself to tell me.