who: Oliver and Verity Wood where: Glasgow, Wood Estate when: evening, 12 April 2004 what: Coming together again.
Although Oliver had barely left Verity's side since receiving the Mungo's Owl over the weekend, the couple still hadn't breached the tender subject of Verity's miscarriage. Oliver had, as a good husband should, attended to her every need. Probably beyond help and right into annoyance at times, there was hardly a moment in which Oliver was not sat eagerly by Verity's bedside, holding her hand.
The news of Eddie's death and Verity's miscarriage had changed something in him. Oliver was gentle again, doting and understanding. To any greater man Verity's condition wouldn't have mattered and it was no prideful moment for Oliver to privately admit that it did, in fact, matter quiet a lot to him. But that was something he was going to have to get over himself. Together though, at some point, they had to talk about what had happened to Verity and to their marriage.
The time finally came two days after Verity had returned from St. Mungo's. It was evening, approaching bedtime, when Oliver put down the book he was reading and turned to Verity laying next to him in bed.
'I want to recite to you a poem,' he said out of the blue but not uncharacteristically. Contrary to the athletic stereotype, Oliver was well versed in the fine arts, though, memory wasn't his greatest asset. However, years of his grandmother beating cooking and life lessons into her favored grandson ensured he remembered at least a few things.
'My grandmother used to recite it to me when I was a lad. It goes:
Nae day sae dark; nae wüd sae bare; Nae grund sae stour wi' stane; But licht comes through; a sang is there; A glint o' grass is green.
Wha hasna thol'd his thorter'd hours And kent, whan they were by, The tenderness o' life that fleurs Rock-fast in misery?
'It's supposed to remind us to look on the bright side. Guess the bloke who wrote it spend the last fifteen years of his life laying in some bed unable to get up,' he ended a little awkwardly.