Opening the fridge door a little Jack stopped, for a moment, and looked directly at Jane.  He smiled. A sight she hadn’t seen for a long time.  He looked as if he’d discovered the way home after being lost for a while.   Putting the coffee cups carefully on the table amongst the papers he picked up some papers from one of her organised heaps.  “We must contact this lot first thing tomorrow……..” Noticing her broadening smile, Jack stopped and quickly looked at the papers and then at Jane again – checking for the joke. What, what is it? Why are you grinning like a Cheshire cat? You’re making me nervous.”

“Welcome back” Jane laughed “I can see you’re going to take over.  My turn at running our affairs didn’t last very long did it? It’s so good to see you looking forward, even to just calling the bank tomorrow.”

“We’re both going to do the organisation from now on, just like we did, years ago, when we carefully collected the savings stamps from the Co-op.  We saved them to help pay for our next big purchase.  We used to laugh as we stuck the stamps in the book on a Friday evening – watching our savings grow; such good days!”

Sitting together for what remained of the afternoon Jane looked carefully at her husband.  She felt such a familiar and happy love for him.  To be able to share, even bad news, meant more than anything to her.  Her Jack looked tired and pale, but when he placed his hand over hers it was like a ‘home-coming’ for her heart.  Later when he stood behind her whilst she showed him their finery advertised online – he gripped her shoulders and kissed the back of her neck. “Jane do you remember our first January together; it snowed heavily and we’d to take our old green mini to the garage behind the bus station?” Smiling Jane replied “Of course, we got stuck trying to get onto the forecourt and you had to push. You looked so funny covered in snow.”  “Yes, but do you remember why we were going there?” Before she could say anything more Jack continued. “It was the Co-op garage and we were going for tyres.  You’d about twelve books of stamps in your bag to help pay for them.

The two of them laughed at how they had simply moved from Co-op stamps to internet auction sites. They would survive this, not as in the past with the excitement of youth; this time they’d apply all their love and wisdom, most importantly they’d do it together.