Chapter X opens on a day brushed with sunlight and sea breeze, yet Mrs. Mortimer feels the weight of solitude. Dressed in the subdued shades of mourning, she and her son Johnnie appear almost misplaced amidst Brighton’s color and laughter. Years have passed since she chose to leave Natterley, not merely to be nearer to George’s office, as she had written, but to create distance between her heart and its unresolved past. Proximity to work was the shield; emotional survival was the cause. Her life has grown quiet, shaped around Johnnie and routine, yet memory remains unquiet. Each footstep by the sea echoes with the voices of choices once made in silence. Her calm presence on the bench hides the inner dialogue—regret dressed as reason, love hidden under duty. While children play and waves lap the shore, her thoughts stay tethered to what was never said.

As she sits watching the promenade, her stillness masks a growing unease. A couple approaches, and instinct draws her attention to the man’s walk, his carriage, the careless glance he casts at his companion. It isn’t until they are closer that she sees more than coincidence—she sees resemblance. Her body stills, her eyes narrow just slightly. That familiar tilt of the head, the rhythm in his steps—it unsettles her. Something about him brushes against memory like a whisper. He could be the age George once was when the world felt full of decisions still waiting to be made. The woman beside him, young and effortlessly cheerful, seems unaware of the subtle drama unfolding in Mrs. Mortimer’s gaze.

He looks toward her, briefly, without recognition. The glance holds no weight for him. But for Mrs. Mortimer, it lingers, stirring a thousand things left unspoken. She does not speak, does not move. Hope, though never declared, flickers in the brief space between recognition and ignorance. When he turns away, the silence grows loud in her chest. It’s not pain, exactly—more like the ache of being forgotten by someone who never really knew you. In that moment, surrounded by movement and laughter, she becomes stillness itself, a marker of time paused and untouched.

Johnnie sits nearby, playing with stones, unaware of his mother’s fragile stillness. She watches him too, wondering what memories he will carry into adulthood. Will he someday sit by the sea and search passing faces for the shape of someone half-remembered? Will he understand that love is not always loud, and that sometimes letting go means never having been noticed at all? These questions hover like mist over the ocean—thick enough to feel, but impossible to grasp. She knows the world will pull him forward, far from this quiet bench and her silent reflections. And so, she says nothing. She lets him throw his stones into the surf, watching each splash as if it could erase a moment or restore one that never truly formed.

As the couple disappears into the crowd, Mrs. Mortimer remains seated, eyes trained on the emptiness they leave behind. There is no tear, no sigh—only the soft tightening of her mouth, the barely perceptible shift in posture. She is alone again, yet more than alone—she is displaced. Not in space, but in time. Her mourning is not just for a husband or a past life, but for the version of herself who once imagined endings to stories that never got their middle. Around her, Brighton continues with its usual charm. Children laugh, gulls cry, and the carousel spins without pause. But Mrs. Mortimer stays still, not waiting, just remembering.

The story closes with no grand reunion, no revelation or apology. What remains is a woman who knows that not every story ends with closure—some simply stop. She has loved, she has let go, and she has carried on, even when memory pressed against her like salt in the sea air. And that, in its own quiet way, is its own kind of triumph.