Living with Shadows (50 page)

Slowly, Kate got to her feet and brushed down the front of her coat to remove the specks of soil. Looking around, she spotted a youth several yards away leaning against a headstone with a spade in his hand. He nodded at her and she realised he was waiting for her to leave.

As she walked along the path towards the gate she thought about her own life, the people closest to her, and how much she cared for each and every one of them. She thought about Ben, everything they had been through with him, and how he was managing to turn his life around, to stand on his own two feet just as Jim once said he should. He was happy working for Jim and it was plain to see he was off the drugs. Sam and Alex were expecting a child, and her mother had decided to sell up and move into sheltered accommodation. She and Jim were slowly mending bridges, so much so that it seemed likely they would attend Louise’s christening together.

Things were going well for once. But after all they’d been through Kate couldn’t help thinking the shadows were never too far away. She remembered someone once telling her that life is like a wheel. Sometimes we’re at the top and everything’s fine, but we can never stay there. As soon as we start to think things have never been better, along comes a change of fortune that sets the wheel in motion and sends us hurtling to the bottom. Then comes the struggle to climb back up, providing there’s the will to start again.

One thing Kate had learned from this whole sad episode is that we can’t make people see the world from our perspective. Ultimately, our fate is in our own hands and the choices we make define the kind of life we end up with.

She reached the cemetery gate and looked back along the path through the patchy grey mist to where a youth was shovelling soil into a grave, and she wondered whether he gave a thought to the life of the person lying in that flimsy wooden box.