I married my high school sweetheart at 73 — after his funeral, his lawyer knocked on my door and said: “You walked right into his TRAP.

I watched him hear it. Seventy-three years old, in a bed on Dunmow ward, having just told a woman he would be there as long as she needed.

And he laughed. He actually laughed, and said something about that being a stupid thing to say.

And I laughed too, because that is what you do.

And then I went home and had seven days.

And on the second of those days I looked up his house.

The note.

One side, the twelfth of March, 2025.

Which is three days after the first time he asked me.

Because he asked me twice.

And I have never told anybody that either.

The first time was the ninth of March, in the evening, and he did it almost exactly the way he did it the second time.

And I said: “Let me think about it, love.”

And he said of course.

And the thing I said at seventeen, which is in the first line of this and which I have never set out properly.