The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

face still grey with exhaustion and stress.

      Amina also looked stressed. The effort of making dinner had been too much for her. She had no energy left.

      Rob sank to the floor and started playing with Danny, forming a makeshift road for his fire engine, pretending the TV remote was a police car, conducting races, making the little boy laugh. Doing what he’d done before...

      * * *

      It nearly killed her. He was doing what she’d seen him do so many times, what she’d loved seeing him do.

      Now he was playing with a child who wasn’t his.

      He was getting over it?

      Get over it. How many times had those words been said to her? ‘It’ll take time but you will get over it. You will be able to start again.’

      She knew she never would, but Rob just might. It had been a mistake, coming back here, she thought. Connecting with Rob again. Reminding themselves of what they’d once had.

      It had hurt him, she thought. It had made him hope...

      She should cut that hope off right now. There was no chance she could move on. The thought of having another child, of watching Rob romp with another baby... It hurt.

      Happy Christmas, she thought bitterly. This was worse than the nothing Christmases she’d had for the last few years. Watching Rob play with a child who wasn’t his.

      She glanced up and saw Amina was watching her and, to her surprise, she saw her pain reflected in the other woman’s eyes.

      ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘Amina...?’

      ‘It’s only the backache,’ she said, but somehow Julie knew it wasn’t. ‘Henry, the safe... Could you check? I need to know.’

      ‘I’ll do it in the morning,’ Henry said uneasily but Amina shook her head.

      ‘I need to see now. The television...does it work?’

      ‘We have enough power,’ Rob told her. ‘But there won’t be reception.’

      ‘We don’t need reception. I just need to see...’

      ‘Amina, it’ll hurt,’ Henry said.

      ‘Yes, but I still need to see,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Henry, do this for me, please. I need to see that they’re still there.’

      * * *

      Which explained why, ten minutes later, Rob and Henry were out on the veranda, staring at a fire-stained safe. The paint had peeled and charred, but essentially it looked okay.

      ‘Do you want to open it in privacy?’ Rob asked, but Henry shook his head.

      ‘We have nothing of value. This holds our passports, our insurance—our house contents are insured, how fortunate is that?’

      ‘Wise.’

      ‘The last house we lost was insured too,’ Henry said. ‘But not for acts of war.’

      ‘Henry...’

      ‘No matter. This is better. But Amina wants her memories. Do you permit?’

      He wasn’t sure what was going on but, two minutes later, Henry had worked the still operational combination lock and was hauling out the contents.

      Papers, documents...and a couple of USB sticks.

      ‘I worried,’ Henry said. ‘They’re plastic but they seem okay. It would break Amina’s heart to lose these. Can we check them on your television?’

      ‘Of course. Julie and I can go to bed if you want privacy.’

      ‘If it’s okay with you,’ Henry said diffidently, ‘it’s better to share. I mean...Amina needs to...well, her history seems more real to her if she can share. Right now she’s hurting. It would help...if you could watch. I know it’ll be dull for you, other people’s memories, but it might help. The way Amina’s looking... Losing our house. Worrying about me. The baby... It’s taken its toll.’

      ‘Of course we can watch.’ It was Julie in the doorway behind them. ‘Anything that can help has to be okay by us.’

      * * *

      The television worked. The USB worked. Ten minutes later they were in Sri Lanka.

      In Amina and Henry’s past lives.

      The files contained photographs—many, many photographs. Most were amateur snaps, taken at family celebrations, taken at home, a big, assorted group of people whose smiles and laughter reached out across distance and time.

      And, as Julie watched her, the stress around Amina’s eyes faded. She was introducing people as if they were here.

      ‘This is my mother, Aisha, and my older sister Hannah. These two are my brothers. Haija is an architect like you, Rob. He designs offices, wonderful buildings. The last office he designed had a waterfall, three storeys high. It wasn’t built, but, oh, if it had been... And here are my nieces and nephews. And Olivia...’ She was weeping a little but smiling through tears as the photograph of a teenage girl appeared on the screen, laughing, mocking the camera, mischief apparent even from such a time and distance. ‘My little sister Olivia. Oh, she is trouble. She’ll be trouble still. Danny, you remember how I told you Olivia loves trains?’ she demanded of her son. ‘Olivia had a train set, a whole city. She started when she was a tiny child, wanting and wanting trains. “What are you interested in those for?” my father asked. “Trains are for boys.” But Olivia wanted and wanted and finally he bought her a tiny train and a track, and then another. And then our father helped her build such a city. He built a platform she could raise to the roof on chains whenever my mother wanted the space for visitors. Look, here’s a picture.’

      And there they were—trains, recorded on video, tiny locomotives chugging through an Alpine village, with snow-covered trees and tiny figures, railway stations, tunnels, mountains, little plastic figures, a businessman in a bowler hat endlessly missing his train...

      Danny was entranced but he’d obviously seen it before. ‘Olivia’s trains,’ he said in satisfaction and he was right by the television, pointing to each train. ‘This green one is her favourite. Mama’s Papa gave it to her for her eighth birthday. Mama says when I am eight she’ll try and find a train just like that for me. Isn’t it lucky I’m not eight yet? If Mama had already found my train, it would have been burned.’

      ‘Do you...still see them?’ Rob asked cautiously.

      Amina smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘Our house was bombed. Accidentally, they said, but that’s when Henry and I decided to come here. It’s better here. No bombs.’

      ‘Bush fires, though,’ Rob said, trying for a smile and, amazingly, Amina smiled back at him, even as she put her hand to her obviously aching back.

      ‘We can cope with what we have to cope with,’ she said simply. She looked back at the television to where her sister was laughing at her father. Two little steam engines lay crashed on their side on the model track, obviously victims of a fake disaster. ‘You get up and keep going,’ she said simply. ‘What choice is there?’

      You can close down, Julie thought. You can roll into a tight ball of controlled pain, unbending only to work. That was what she’d done for four long years.

      ‘Would you like to see our boys?’ Rob asked and her eyes flew wide. What was he saying? Shock held her immobile and it was as if his voice was coming from the television, not from him. But, ‘I’d like to show you our sons,’ he was saying. ‘They’re not here either, but they’re still in our hearts. It’d be great to share.’

      No. No! She wanted to scream it but she couldn’t.

      ‘Would you like us to see them, Julie?’ Amina asked shyly, tentatively, as if she guessed Julie’s pain. As she must. She’d lost so much herself.

      ‘We