The Memories We Keep. Buffy Andrews

      

      By day BUFFY ANDREWS is a journalist at the York Daily Record/Sunday News, where she is Assistant Managing Editor of Features and Niche Publications and social media coordinator. She also writes a blog, Buffy’s Write Zone, maintains a social media blog, Buffy's World and writes middle-grade, young adult and women's fiction. Living in south-central Pennsylvania with her husband, two sons and wheaten cairn terrier Kakita. She is grateful for their love and support and for reminding her of what’s most important in life

       The Memories We Keep

      Buffy Andrews

       Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental..

      HQ

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      www.harpercollins.co.uk

      This eBook edition 2021

      First published in Great Britain by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

      Copyright © Buffy Andrews 2021

      Buffy Andrews asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      E-book Edition © 2021 ISBN: 9781472054838

      Version date: 2021-04-16

       In memory of Mom and Dad, who bought me my first violin and taught me to always follow my dreams – and my heart.

      Contents

       Cover

       Author Bio

       Title Page

Copyright

       Dedication

Movement 1: Despair

       Movement 2: Journey

       Movement 3: Hope

       Extract of The Moment Keeper

       Want More

       Acknowledgements

       Endpages

       About the Publisher

Movement 1

       Despair

      She went to his grave every day. It was like breathing. Automatic. Something she did without thinking. It had become routine. Not in a bad way. Not like when she recited the confession in church, saying the words but not really paying attention to what they meant. But routine in the way that if she didn’t go, her day wouldn’t feel quite right.

      Once, she tried not coming. She almost got through the whole day, too. But when she closed her eyes that night, she saw him – his four-year-old head a tangled mess of red curls and his eyes, the color of the Caribbean, clear and bright. He beckoned her. Whispered for her to come. He needed her. Next thing she knew she was on her knees in front of the small granite grave, her floral cotton nightgown bunched up around her.

      She didn’t know she had company. Didn’t see him staring from a few graves away. Normally, he came when the day was closing its eyes. But today was an exception. Today, he was there before the morning could finish its yawn. He had to be at the airport by eight.

      He watched her slender fingers dance across her chest, making the sign of the cross. Her flaming red hair licked her back like a rolling fire. He wondered if she had a temper. Isn’t that what they said about redheads? She didn’t look like the temper type. She looked more delicate. Maybe it was her pale skin, or that a violin case lay open beside her.

      It was the music that first drew him near. Her sweet notes drifted like snowflakes and he felt like a boy, wanting to capture them on his tongue to savor forever. When he followed the musical trail, he found her playing a lullaby. Sweet and flowing with a tinge of sadness. Her eyes were closed and she swayed as if she were lulling a baby to sleep, her bow tickling the violin strings.

      For a moment, he felt guilty. Watching her meant he was not where he promised he’d be. He told Camilla that he would visit her every day and for nearly two years he had kept that promise. But the music, it was so beautiful that he couldn’t help himself. It pulled him like a magnet and when he found her playing, he was afraid to breathe for fear he would miss a note.

      He was familiar with the grave at which she kneeled. He figured most people who came to the cemetery were. It was hard to miss. A holiday didn’t pass without something special tethered to the tomb, which was in the shape of a teddy bear. At Christmas, there was a small tree, trimmed in tiny teddies and plastic baseball ornaments. And at Easter, a basket full of colorful plastic eggs and an inflatable blue bunny. He never stopped to look at the name on the grave, but he knew it belonged to a child, her child.

      Damn, he thought. The alarm on his cell phone beeped, reminding him of his flight. For a few breaths, he had forgotten about his trip. He found it odd that he could forget something so important even for a second. After all, it’s all he had been thinking about. This trip could change his life.

      The woman jerked to attention, startled by the phone’s beeping. He nodded and she nodded back, her rosy lips slipping into a lazy smile. He turned to head to his car, parked on the narrow road that snaked through the century-old cemetery.

      She slipped her bow into the holder and tucked her violin into its blue velvet cradle. She latched the lid, picked up her musical soul and headed to her car. She turned – she always turned – one last time, her heavy