Unsigned

The separation papers had been lying on the kitchen table for a week, squared neatly beside the fruit bowl. Neither of them had picked up the pen.

'One weekend,' Marc said on the Thursday. 'The cottage. Like the old days. Then we sign.'

Anna agreed mostly because she was too tired to argue.

The cottage was exactly as they remembered it: damp, crooked and wonderful, with a wood burner that took an hour to light and a view of the hills that made you forget your own name. They were awkward with each other at first, polite as strangers. They walked separately. They read in separate rooms.

On the Saturday a storm knocked out the power, and the only warm room left was the one with the wood burner. They sat in front of it under the same blanket because there was only one, and started, hesitantly, to talk. Not about the house or the money or who would keep the car. About the things they had stopped saying. About how lonely they had both been under the same roof.

Marc cried, which he had not done in front of her in years. Anna held him, which she had not done in longer.

The kiss, when it came, was clumsy and salty and nothing like their first. It was better. They made love on the rug in front of the fire, slowly, relearning each other, and fell asleep there with the storm still blowing.

On Monday morning, back in their kitchen, the papers were still squared neatly beside the fruit bowl.

Anna picked them up, looked at Marc, and put them in the drawer.

'Let's leave them there a while,' she said.