Cartoon fox and hound with roses on a thigh

The ovens ticked awake at half three, same as ever, and Mr Okafor still swears the left one runs hot. I have set your rolls on the marble where you left them, the ones with the owl stamped into the crust, because the flour merchant's boy finally learned which end of the peel to hold. Nobody has complained yet, which is not the same as saying they liked them.

You asked me last week why I kept the cracked oval frame above the bin, the one with the little winged owl on top. It held the photograph of the two of us outside the mill the summer you tried to sell that stolen trout to the vicar. I was the fox who pretended not to be fond of you. You were the hound who never once noticed I was pretending. Fourteen years of that, and the frame still has a fleck of your ear caught in its corner.

The pink roses on the shelf came up from the cuttings you pushed into my coat pocket, wrapped in a damp sack, with no note at all. I did not thank you properly. I am thanking you now, in the only way that gets read before the shop opens, with the lamp still hissing and the back step cold under my paws.

Come by before six. The back door is on the latch, the good cup is on the hook, and I have kept a cob warm for you under a clean tea towel. If you are late I will eat it myself, and you know how I feel about that.

Yours, as ever, Ruby