Heart and key tattoo design in pink pencil

I went back to Alder Street last night, after the man from the estate agents had gone and the lamps came on along the canal. The front door still has Dad's brass key in the lock, the one with the bow shaped like a heart that he filed down himself the winter you broke your wrist. I stood there for ten minutes with my hand on it, wondering if it was rude to take it out before the new people had their own. In the end I left it. Some things should stay in the door until somebody else turns them.

Walking back past the bus shelter on Crown Street, I passed the florist's with its shutter half down and buckets of dark pink stock still outside. Someone had dropped a ribbon, a long purple strip curling on the wet pavement as if it was waiting for a parcel. I picked it up. I thought of you, because you always wanted the ribbon off every present before the paper came off.

I have his tool box now. Under the bench there was a tin of old drawings, mostly bits of filigree he sketched on the backs of invoices, hearts with curls inside them like the ones on his clock. One sheet had a key drawn beneath a heart, a ribbon looping off its shank, and the name 'Maren' written small along the bit. I have no idea who Maren was. A customer, maybe. Or a joke he never told me.

Ring me when the trains are quiet. I'll be up. The tin is on the kitchen table and the kettle is on.

Love, Jo