Chance encounters and life changing events are at the heart of these 19 stories. Paul believes he will never recover from the death of his wife until he meets one of her former friends. Despite his daughters’ anxieties, a relationship begins to develop. The grandfather in the title story reluctantly tells his grandson how he lost an eye in the battle of the Somme. A soldier involved in the D. Day landings makes a promise to his friend. Grace, living in a residential home, struggles to separate present from past experience. All the stories in this collection draw you into the lives and emotions of those involved and make you want to keep reading. “That eye, boy . . . it tells a story.” “It’s staring up at me from the bottom of the glass. Through the water. I look up at him, at the empty socket the eye occupies every day. Like part of the right hand side of his head has been scooped out. t doesn’t scare me. I’ve never known him any different.”
