Because of the near death experience, Marcus decided to try and repair his previous relationships and stand up and be counted in his children’s lives. This meant that he did not have as much time for Kathleen as he should. But at 3.15 every week day afternoon, she knew that Marcus would walk through the door, envelope her in his arms and kiss their baby daughter Louise-Maree on the cheek.

Kathleen was very lonely, she lived for those precious few moments at 3.15pm, but she needed to make a decision. To wait forever while Marcus sorted out his life, or to move on and find someone that would love and cherish her 24hours a day. Either way, Marcus would forever be in her heart. How would she ever forget him, when every time she looked at those precious blue eyes of her baby girl, she thought of him.

Over the ensuing months Marcus’s visits became less frequent, but their moments of unbridled passion where becoming more urgent and wild, it was as each of them where thinking, this maybe the last time, this moment in time will have to last for ever.

Finally Kathleen could take it no longer, their lovemaking took her to the brink every time, she yearned for more and more, Marcus’s visit where becoming less regular, and the time spent in these visits was becoming shorter and shorter. She decided that she needed to confront Marcus and make him make a decision.

On that fateful day Kathleen took her stand, she demanded that Marcus decide as to where he was going in his life, she laid her feelings out for him to see. Marcus got down on his knees and begged for more time, he profoundly declared his love for her. He wanted Kathleen to wait a couple more years until his other children had grown up and then he would be free to live a life with Kathleen that she so thoroughly deserved.

Kathleen was devastated, she was still a young woman, she had put herself on hold for this man, no-more, she decided that after this one last night of passion, she was going to ask Marcus to move on, so she could live her life and seek happiness, not live a life of loneliness.

The following morning Kathleen told Marcus that she and her daughter could no longer live this way, she asked Marcus to never attempt to contact her again. He was quite welcome to visit their daughter at a prearranged time and place, but as far as any relationship between herself and Marcus, that was now over.

In his heart of hearts Marcus knew that he was not treating Kathleen the way that he should, he sadly retreated from her life. As the door closed for the last time after Marcus, Kathleen said to herself why is that ‘the one who got away is always the one who got away with your heart?

Kathleen felt movement in her womb, in that moment she realized that she was pregnant with Marcus’s second child, for one fleeting second she thought about chasing after Marcus and taking back her words, but she straighten her back, determined to get ahead in life.

After a long and painful labour, Jean-Luc was born, he was the image of his father, as Kathleen nursed the infant on her breast, she looked at him and said I now sit in the ashes of my life, wondering what it might have been like, had he not walked out, or if I had taken the time to stop him.