A gap of love

The past

They went upstairs to the fourth floor, and the man opened the front door of his apartment and stepped inside. Mia followed him, and inside she saw the apartment was spacious, and well-decorated. It was then that she noticed it was quite a homely home, with touches of a feminine mind. She wondered them if the man was married, or even had kids.

There were three bedrooms, two of them were open and Ryan turned to them.

"I have two spare bedrooms, one has a bed. The other I use for storage."

Mia saw the locked bedroom door, and assumed that was his bedroom.

"Is that your room that you share with your wife?"

Mia asked.

Ryan said nothing for a moment, and looked at the locked door, and gently touched the finger where he once wore a wedding band.

"Yeah, I used to share the room with her."

Mia smiled.

"Is she out or something?"

Mia sensed something was not right, and thought perhaps he was a divorcee maybe.
"Are you divorced?"

Ryan swung his head.

"Widow."

Ryan slowly touched the finger he used to wear his wedding band on, up to about a year ago when from his friends and family's advice, decided to move on and take the ring off.

It had been five years since Claire's death, from Cancer. Ryan hadn't moved on, and for the four years following her death he always wore his wedding ring. He never lasted long on blind dates set up by his friends or family, he didn't seem interested in moving on and starting dating again. Only a year ago did he even begin to move his thoughts away from her, and to his life as a whole. They had never had kids, and had been married for ten years. As the Cancer worsened, they were unable to have kids.

Mia swallowed hard.

"I'm so sorry."

Ryan smiled, half-heatedly.

"Not to worry, right the shower and toilets are in there. I'll get you a towel, and you can use that. The kitchen is in there, feel free to anything in the fridge."

Ryan extended his hand out to Mia.

"I'm Ryan, by the way."

Mia smiled, and shook his hand.

"Mia."

Slowly the handshake ended, and smiling Ryan took her into the spare room. There wasn't much inside, except a made bed and one chest of drawers near the window.

It was all she wanted, from kindness of this man. Ryan left her in the room, to put his things away and get changed into his house clothes from his suit.

She took off her denim waist-coat and put it on the bed in a folded pile.

Slowly she sat down on the bed, and looked out of the door of the room to see Ryan going into the room that had the door shut. She thought back to his wedding band, how he touched where he once wore his wedding ring.

The door shut behind him, and after a moment Mia decided to go into the lounge and see the rest of the house she was allowed to see.

Walking into the lounge, she saw a large flat-screen television positioned on the wall, and a coffee table between a small sofa and a lounge chair.

Her eyes wandered, and she saw the walls of the lounge seeing framed photographs, and even certificates. She walked over to inspect them further, and saw the photographs were of a raven-haired woman with blue eyes cuddling up to Ryan, or in loving poses together.