Welcome back to Holding On.
Last time, the kitchen filled with warmth — rain against the windows, laughter threading through the clatter of plates.
Around that table, Emma’s idea began to take shape: a book to gather what remained, to stitch the stories of Ralph and Lily into something that would last.
Now, the weekend has come, and Rachel climbs the attic ladder into the hush of the past. Dust. Lavender. Boxes marked in her mother’s hand — the careful order of a life once lived.
It’s a chapter about inheritance — what we keep, what we pass on, and how the smallest touch can make memory live again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The attic smelled of dust and old lavender. Lily’s sachets still held.
Rachel climbed first. The rungs creaked — a doorway between dust and memory.
The bulb overhead cast a muted glow, revealing neatly labelled boxes along the eaves.
Emma’s head appeared through the opening, sketchbook tucked under one arm.
“Wow. Nana kept all this?”
Rachel brushed her palms on her jeans. “She labelled the world so it wouldn’t slip.”
Emma pulled herself up, scanning the rows: Christmas Decorations. Family Keepsakes. Photos.
“Where do we start?”
Her mother’s handwriting — precise, unmistakable.
“The photo boxes,” Rachel said.
Emma knelt, lifted a lid, laughed — Lily and Ralph, wind-blown, laughing into spray.
“Mum, look! Was this Scarborough?”
“It was. Every summer. Your grandad swore he hated beaches; she never believed him.”
“I wish I could’ve seen them like this.”
Rachel nodded. The photo’s edges warmed her fingers.
Her fingers snagged on something soft — crochet against cardboard.
She drew out a baby blanket: frayed edges, colours faded. She paused at its weight.
“What’s that?”
“One of Nana’s.” Rachel spread it across her knees. “She made one for every baby. This one’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“She started it the day I told her. ‘It has to be perfect.’”
Emma lifted it to her face, searching for Lily’s scent.
When none remained, she folded it carefully and set it aside.
She found a slim envelope marked Holiday 1975 – Royal Albert Hall.
Inside lay a concert programme, a ticket stub between its pages.
“Your Nana loved Barry White,” Rachel said, smiling. “Dragged your Grandad to London, seven months pregnant.”
“He’d have hated the crowds.”
“Oh, he did. But he never told her no.”
Emma studied the cover art — Barry in spotlight — and slid the programme atop the photo stack.
“We should show Grandad. Bet he’s got stories.”
“He always does. Let’s take a few.”
The hospice room held the hush of late afternoon, sunlight thin across Ralph’s bed.
Emma slipped in, arms full of photos and the programme. “Grandad, I brought you something!”
Ralph stirred, smiling before he opened his eyes. “What’ve you got there, love?”
Rachel followed with two mugs of tea. “She raided the attic. Couldn’t wait to show you.”
Emma held up the beach photo. “Mum says this was Scarborough. Did you really hate the beach?”
“I didn’t hate it,” Ralph said. “Just the sand in my shoes — and the seagulls. Every time I bought chips, they’d drop in like a heist crew and nick the lot.”
“Nana dragged you there anyway?”
“Every summer. ‘Sea air’s good for the soul,’ she said.”
“She never gave you much choice.”
“Not when her mind was set. Once it was blowing a gale. I said, ‘Lily, it’s a storm.’ She tightened her scarf: ‘A little wind never hurt anyone.’
A wave soaked us to the knees.”
Emma laughed. “What did she say?”
“‘Now we’re part of the sea,’ she said. She could turn a soaking into a story.”
Rachel smoothed the blanket on her lap, her hand tightening on its edge.
“She always made things,” she said — and left the rest unsaid.
“She did,” Ralph said. “She were the heart of it.”
Emma reached for another photo, but Ralph rested a hand on hers. “Not just yet, love. Let’s stay there for a minute.”
Emma nodded, a quiet smile flickering in place of words.
“She was,” he said. “And so are you.”
Rachel watched the way he looked at Emma — familiar, tender.
She looked away.
The three of them sat quietly: the blanket across Rachel’s knees, the programme peeking from the pile beside the tea mugs.
The light held its breath around them.
Tomorrow, Rachel thought, they’d bring the rest — let him tell the bits they’d missed.
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