by Gillian Taber

Created on: June 15, 2009

Fiona sat back on her heels and studied the box. It really had been the last thing she had expected to find in the loft and it had thrown her badly. Coming back to the house, where she had spent a childhood filled with tears and anger, had been hard enough. Finding the box wasn't just a shake-up but a tectonic shift.

She hadn't spoken to her mother in forty years, had almost cheered when the phone had rung and informed her of the sudden death. She had struggled to sound upset as the doctor had droned on about aneurisms and strokes, how nothing could have been done and that there had been no time to call her to the bedside. In her head she had had an image of herself arriving at the hospital with a bottle of champagne and balloons printed with 'See you in hell'.

Her shock at realizing that the house on Fernley Road was now hers had been almost endless. She couldn't understand why the woman who had given her life and then made it a misery would have willed it to her. Stepping through the door had been like opening a time capsule, so little had changed.

Fiona stared at the box. A cheap, cardboard leftover from some grocery store and closed with yellowed, peeling tape. How long had it sat in the loft? She had no way to know and felt an unwelcome twinge of sorrow at the thought. She would never be able to ask her mother those questions now.

A faint sound, as she'd moved the box in an attempt to look behind it, had alerted her to its contents. A single 'huff' that had been achingly familiar and sent her mind reeling. Now, trying to prepare herself, she ripped off the dried tape and flipped open the panels on top of the box. The sight of that brown plastic lump brought tears to her eyes even though she had known it would be there from that single huff. She reached into the box and brought out Bosun, her tears streaking through the dust on his saddle-backed form.

Bosun had been her constant companion for three years, his chewed off nose and sausage shape laughable but beloved. His brown plastic body and molded ears had followed her on all of her adventures. He'd been her dog, her sausage dog and she'd loved him with a passion she had rarely experienced since. Cradling in her lap, trailing his string leash through her fingers, she found herself travelling back along her mind's timeline, back to the moment when Bosun had disappeared from her life.

At the age of seven and two months into junior school, she'd spent an evening frantically searching the house for Bosun.

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