PROLOGUE

They say, don’t they, that it is better in retrospect to have loved fully once in your lifetime than never at all.

Yet, after the storms that stole my love that fleeting November night had moved on a little further away from town, and the rains that had followed had at least subsided, I still couldn’t bring myself to indulge in the things that were mine before he came along. Of course, those things in time became his too; they brought us closer, were things we shared in our togetherness and relied upon when we were apart. Strong black coffee with half a teaspoon of sugar, in the morning and just before bed, I had to abandon. Sleeping all night long with the tiny light flickering in the hallway, (it was shaped like a ladybug) I had to turn it off and instead endure the darkness. And my favourite of all these things – stopping bySinatra’son my way to work for a breakfast cinnamon bun was no longer something I could allow myself. It was almost as if after he was gone, those parts of my soul that were jigsaw reflections of parts of his were dormant, like a snoozing volcano or a cloud, reluctant to let go of the lining of snow that burdened it.

Possessions turn into obsessions; they make people cautious, and I don't care for them. People, on the other hand are fundamental - without them there would be nobody to love and nobody to be loved by in return. Needless to say that the one person who saw me when I felt nobody, the one person to not care that I was broken - because isn't everybody? - was taken from me, as if I am undeserving and unworthy. 

Am I forgetting something? I feel like I'm forgetting something. Perhaps you can help me remember, perhaps you might know?

Perhaps, through your insight, you might help me let go? 

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Bridget is 28 and moved to the island of Giant's Causeway just over a year ago. Little more than half a year later, two weeks before her marriage, her love goes with the trawler men of the village to write an article on modern day fishing businesses, and the boat doesn't return that night, or the next night, nor has it showed up by the following October.

Helena is German and long-haired and young yet wise beyond her years, and is staying with her Grandmother on the east side of the island. She speaks perfect English and instantly befriends Bridget - the two are pole opposites but, as things on the island start to get out of control, they start to realise just how strong a pair they can be.

A tale of warming new friends and the challenge of letting old ones go, can Bridget and Helena lead the rest of the island to safety, or will those bridges they built over the Giants crumble just like that winter the ice froze that charmer of an Irish Sea?

updated Feb 3 by scampii091