of those odd phenomena that happen when someone dies and in your desperation to claw them back from death you project them everywhere. Someone with the same haircut across the room makes your heart skip a beat, or a person crossing the street with the same stride stops you in your tracks and, for one tiny moment, your heart leaps with the connection. For that one sliver of a second you think there’s been a mistake and that the person you miss more than life itself is still alive. Then the cruel pain and weight of your mistake brings back the anguish in such a staggering way it threatens to engulf you and it is as if it all just happened yesterday.
Catching her breath, Sophie drew closer to the picture. It wasn’t just projection. It was uncanny. The woman’s stance, height and trim figure, with the elegant swan neck, was so familiar to her. Her head was turned to the side so that Sophie couldn’t see her face, just her head in profile, but this person could, very easily, be a member of her family.
Then something else struck her. The woman was wearing a tight A-line skirt and a jumper that Sophie could see under her unbuttoned coat, and on the lapel of the jacket was a piece of jewellery that also felt familiar to her. It looked a lot like her family crest. Sophie had always thought the brooch an ugly thing, with a stag’s head and gangly antlers. But it was very distinguishable and this was a very similar, if not the same, piece she had seen many times on her great-grandmother’s lapel in photographs.
Sophie looked at the woman again, the way her chin was cocked to one side, just as her mother would do when she would ask a question. Was it possible it could be her great-aunt Caroline? Sophie took stock of the Hamilton females. On her grandfather’s side, there had been three children alive during the war. Her great-uncle Tom, her great-aunt Caroline and her grandfather, John. The boys had been young but Auntie Caroline had been in her mid-twenties during the war, so this could be her. Sophie’s grandmother and John’s wife, Bessy, would know for sure. Maybe she should call her and ask. How excited would she be to know there was a photograph of her late sister-in-law in the museum?
All at once, someone grabbed Sophie from behind and she jumped, so lost in her thoughts. She spun around, and Matt was in front of her, grinning. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many exhibitions I’ve been in,’ he spluttered, out of breath. ‘So sorry I’m late, Soph. Did I miss anything exciting? Did Jonathan make it through the speech without you holding his hand?’
He was being light and playful, which was his way of avoiding the fact that he was over an hour late. Sophie didn’t respond to his lively banter, hoping her coolness would alert him to the fact she was angry.
He noticed the chill straight away. ‘I’m sorry, Soph, seriously I am,’ he continued. ‘Don’t be angry with me. You wouldn’t believe how busy it’s been at work. The US exchange dropped like a stone this afternoon, and everyone in the office was panicking. You know how we are affected with Brexit and all these international concerns.’
‘I imagine that for some reason the problems with the stock market meant that somehow your fingers were unable to text me, then?’ The hurt was evident behind her tone, but her response colder than she’d wanted to sound.
He held up his phone. ‘Battery’s dead,’ he stated, sounding sheepish. ‘I meant to charge it before I left the house this morning and I completely forgot. It ran out about three hours ago and I haven’t got my charger with me, so I’ve been winging it, which is why I couldn’t find you in here. Though, I have to tell you, there’s a wonderful exhibition about Anne Frank down the hall that I think you’d love.’
She shook her head. This pattern was becoming familiar to her. When they had first got together, he’d always been so dependable, almost too dependable, wanting to see her as much as possible; now he was always late, with some excuse for why he couldn’t make it on time. Sophie was in her late thirties and Matt hadn’t been her first relationship, but she had been very focused on her career up until they’d met, and their shared desire for success had