Our 30th Anniversary

15th April 2026. My lips curve faintly at the calendar that hangs awkwardly on the wall. I don't bother to straighten it. She always likes the house looking perfect, so I leave it crooked for her to spot. Instead, I admire the red pen circling today's date.

Our thirtieth anniversary.

When people realise how long we've been together, they always ask us what the key to a long and happy marriage is. Maeve would always say, "Separate duvets and selective hearing." Then she'd laugh at her own joke before anyone else could. And her hand always managed to find mine, squeezing it with all her might. I'd roll my eyes and tell them the truth, that nobody else makes a Sunday roast quite like she does.

The kettle behind me whistles sharply, and I turn quickly to take it off the hob. I grab two freshly cleaned mugs from the drainer and place them in front of me. A 'world's best father' mug and her favourite yellow mug with daisies on it, which had now faded, sat beside each other.

I pour the boiling water into both mugs, calling out absent-mindedly. "Tea's ready, Love."

My attention shifts to the roast in the oven. The mouthwatering scent fills the kitchen instantly. Lamb with rosemary and garlic, her favourite. I smile, eager for her reaction, and even more for her to admit I've finally outcooked her. And that it has only taken me thirty years.

I can't contain my smile as I hear Maeve upstairs getting ready, humming badly to some eighties song while probably searching for some earrings she misplaced. Again. I chuckle to myself.

Ding.

"Perfect timing," I mutter aloud. The lamb comes out beautifully. I plate everything carefully. Potatoes, carrots glazed with honey, and green beans, I have somehow managed to overcook. That will definitely lose me a point. But we'll laugh about it.

I place both plates on the table and walk back to grab the mugs. As I walk back to sit them down, I see her strolling in the dining room. And her smile still catches me with the same force it did thirty years ago. I can't help but get emotional.

I whisper, not wanting to take my eyes off her. "Happy thirtieth anniversary, my sweet angel."

Her eyes are glassy as she holds back her emotions. She sits down in the chair I pulled out for her earlier. "It's beautiful, Thomas. And it smells good enough to eat."

Then Maeve laughs. And oh my God, her laugh. It's the kind of laugh that makes strangers turn around and smile without knowing why. Then her whole body joins in. Her head is tipped back, eyes still watering as she clasps her hands together.

It's all I want for the rest of my life. To see her smile and hear her laugh. I'd do anything to make her the happiest woman alive.

Knock Knock.

Suddenly, the door rattles. My brows furrow as I glance over at Maeve. I place both mugs down. "Are we expecting anyone?"

"Didn't Axel and Willow say they were popping in later?" She says gracefully.

I smile at her softly before walking towards the front door and opening it. My children, Axel and Willow, stand outside with pitiful smiles. Neither of them speaks immediately. Despite them both being in their late twenties, they still look like the mischievous little twits they once were. And Willow looks exactly like her mother.

"Hi, Dad," Willow says hesitantly, stretching her arm out to hand me white daisies. Her mother's, my wife's, favourite flowers. "Happy Anniversary."

I grin and let them in. "Thank you, Wills, your mum will love these."

I catch the tight press of her lips as she looks over to Axel, who's staring at the dining room and quietly observing the two food-filled plates. He turns around slowly, his eyes looking exactly like Maeve's. A soft hazel that warms his face, yet they fill quickly with tears. He tries to blink them away. "Are you expecting someone?"

I shake my head and stride past them into the kitchen. The smell of lamb still lingers, but I focus on the dinner, soon to go cold, and ignore their worried looks. I take the empty vase, fill it with water, and arrange the flowers inside.

They take off their coats in silence and drift toward the table. The house feels full again, alive as it used to be, with heavy footsteps and constant chatter. Except now my loud-mouthed children are cautious adults. And for a moment, I resent them for it.

Willow speaks my name again softly, and I turn to face her. That's when I catch Axel picking up his mum's mug, and I snap too quickly. "Don't touch that, Axel. That's your mum's."

"Dad-" He pauses and stares at me.

"Put it down!"

"It's been over a year."

And the sentence lands like a slap—a verbal assault. My stomach twists so sharply I have to grip the edge of the counter to steady myself. The room suddenly feels too warm, too small, and the thick stench of rosemary and garlic now turns sour in the back of my throat.

I stare at the steam curling from Maeve's untouched tea, watching as it fades thinner into the air.

Over a year. More than three hundred and sixty-five days since the hospital room. More than two years ago, with the hospital visits and the treatment and the-

I remember that day vividly. I specifically remember the exact design of the blanket over her legs. Yellow with little white daisy flowers, she asked for it just after she painted on her mug the week before. I remember pretending not to hear the machines changing rhythm. I remember her hand tightening weakly around mine.

And I remember lying to her.

"You'll be home by Friday. And I can make you that lamb roast that you've been wanting."

Maeve looked so impossibly small beneath the white sheets that night, yet she still had that sharp look to pin me into place, and I could tell that she saw straight through me. She still managed to give me that famous smile of hers, the one I fell in love with.

"Thomas," I almost didn't hear her whisper, "you have to let me go."

"I can't." I straighten abruptly from the memory, my jaw tightening. "I can't let your mother go."

The room falls dead silent. Willow presses a trembling hand over her mouth as silent sobs spill from her. Axel looks away quickly, and he exhales deeply with frustration. But neither of them says anything.

"I keep thinking," I whisper, "that if I stop setting her place…if I move her clothes, or put her mug away…" I close my eyes to hide my tears, but they fall anyway. My palms press into my eyes. "Then she'll disappear."

"Dad…"

"And I can't imagine a life without her in it."

Axel shakes his head, and I catch a glimpse of his shaking hands before he hides them. "You don't have to let her disappear," he says, voice cracking. "But this isn't healthy. Let us help you, Dad."

Let us help you.

I want to refuse immediately. Children should not be helping their parents. It should be the other way around. The answer rises at the back of my throat like bile. I don't need help. I'm fine. I'm managing.

"We're not asking you to forget her," Willow speaks up softly. "We can't either."

Her voice breaks on the last word.

And I finally look at my children properly. Really look at them. Willow's mascara is smudged beneath her eyes, and Axel's beard has more grey in it than I remember. Grief has carved itself into all of us, some more quietly than others. And shame stabs painfully in my chest.

Because whilst I've been preserving Maeve like a sacred thing, my children have been learning how to survive without their mother. Alone. And they lost me in the process.

"I didn't realise…" My throat closes, and the words barely squeeze out. "I didn't realise how much I'd shut you both out."

My son stands in front of me, smiling pitifully. "We miss her too," his face crumples. "Every day."

"Mum was my first phone call whenever anything happened." Willow laughs weakly through her tears. "Didn't matter if it was good or bad, and I still reach for my phone sometimes before I remember."

Axel sniffles, huffs a small laugh and then nods. "I still send photos to her email."

And then, something inside me breaks. No, not breaks but softens. My arms instinctively reach for my children, and I pull them toward me clumsily, and they cling onto me like they did when they were young. For the first time in over a year, grief no longer has me trapped inside alone.

And through blurred vision, my eyes drift toward the dining table again, toward Maeve's untouched plate, where the food has gone cold.

"Oh, look at you three," And there she is. Not really. But for one fragile moment, I can see her perfectly. Maeve sits in her chair with her hand wrapped loosely around her mug. The warm light softens the lines of her face and catches the sparkle in her hazel eyes. She looks younger somehow, healthier, as she did before the hospital visits and the non-stop treatments.

Then she laughs under her breath and shakes her head as if we were being ridiculous. I can almost hear her teasing tone. "Falling apart over roast lamb."

Maeve's eyes lock with mine one last time, filled with so much love that it steals air from my lungs fiercely. And finally, I understand everything she's been trying to tell me.

Love does not disappear when someone leaves. It lingers everywhere. It crowds the kitchen when I am cooking or burning dinner. It's in my children, who carry her eyes and smile, spreading her love.

Maeve rises slowly from the table as she smooths the wrinkles from her skirt. Her hand rests gently on the back of her chair, and her gaze drifts across to us one final time. She memorises us the same way I have spent the last year memorising her. Then she smiles again.

Without a word, she turns and leaves the dining room. The ache stays, and maybe it always will. But my children cling to me, holding on tight. And for the first time since I lost her, I don't reach after her shadow as she goes.

Instead, I hold on to what she left behind.