When the phone rang

Colin ‘Corky’ Yates lived alone; alone enough for a ten-year-old boy. Since his mother’s death two years earlier, dinner was prepared by the housekeeper, and he spent his evenings doing homework, listening to the radio, and waiting for his father.

Corky didn’t mind. He just missed his mum.

One evening, while doing his homework with the radio on, he paused as the announcer signed off, “If you have a problem, get in touch with Doctor Parkham, on …”

He jotted the number down.

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Return Match

            When she’d entered the church, she’d felt trapped. At the altar just one thought: I don’t want to marry. But it was too late. She couldn’t let the crowd down, nor Colin, her boyfriend since schooldays.  She blamed herself for her negativity, swore her vows emptily, and walked out of the chapel on Colin’s arm displaying a forced smile to the many pairs of sugar-sweet eyes offering her love. But there was no love inside her and she left Colin six months later.

            That was a decade ago. Here she was again, in a registry office, no ostentation, just the two of them and a witness. Did she love Tim? The question whispered gratingly, as the woman registrar studied her with, she fancied, laser-like insight.

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