The Vineyard Reunion – Part 1: After Forty Years

Philip had gone grey in the best way. That was the first thing Diane noticed.

She stood at the edge of the lawn in a sage-green dress with a glass of white wine, watching guests drift between long tables strung with lights. The wedding was in a vineyard in the hills, a lazy golden afternoon with bees in the lavender. She was sixty-one. She had come with a gift and no expectations.

Then she saw him by the barrels, in a linen jacket, listening to someone's speech with that same tilted head. He looked up, and recognised her, and his whole face changed.

"Diane Fraser," he said, crossing the grass. "It cannot be."

"Diane Marsh, now. For my sins. Or was. I'm Fraser again."

"Philip Hale. Unchanged."

"You're very changed."

"Better or worse?"

She considered. "Better. Dangerous."

He laughed, that warm remembered laugh. They had been twenty-one together, a long hot summer of an old camper van and a stack of books and a promise that had faded the moment the autumn term began. They had never spoken of it again. Forty years of marriages, children, careers and one funeral each, and here he was.

"I thought of you," Philip said, quietly. "More than I should have."

"I thought of you." She smiled. "Less than I should have, and then too much."

They sat at the end of the long table through the speeches, and the dancing, and the cake. Neither of them left. When the band began a slow song, he held out his hand.

"Dance with me?"

"I'm out of practice."

"So am I. We'll be terrible together."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Late Light.