**Diary Entry**
Im William, sixty-one this year. My wife passed eight years ago, and since then, life has been a quiet, hollow thing. My children visit when they candropping off groceries, leaving bundles of pounds in envelopes, rushing off before the kettles even boiled. Their lives move too quickly for an old man like me.
I thought Id grown used to the silenceuntil one evening, idly scrolling through Facebook, a name stopped me cold: *Margaret Ashford*.
Margaretmy first love. The girl Id vowed to marry at eighteen. She had chestnut hair that caught the sunlight and a laugh I still heard sometimes in dreams. But life pulled us apart. Her family moved to Manchester without warning, and before I could even protest, she was wed to another.
When her face appeared on my screensilver threads in her hair but that same soft smiletime crumpled like old paper. We began talking, reminiscing over cups of tea, then meeting in quiet cafés in Bath. The years between us melted away as though theyd never been.
And so, at sixty-one, I married her.
Our wedding was modest. I wore a tweed jacket; she chose a cream lace dress. Friends joked we looked like sweethearts from a wartime romance. For the first time in years, my heart felt light.
That night, after the guests had gone, I poured two glasses of sherry and led her upstairs. A wedding nighta joy Id assumed was lost to time.
Then I noticed themscars. One near her shoulder, another along her wrist. I paused, not at the marks themselves, but at how she stiffened under my touch.
Margaret, I said gently, did he hurt you?
She went still. Her eyes flickeredfear, shamebefore she whispered, William my name isnt Margaret.
The room turned to ice. My pulse roared in my ears.
What do you mean?
Her hands trembled. Margaret was my sister.
I stumbled back. The girl Id carried in my heart for decadesgone?
She died, the woman said, tears spilling. Young. Our parents buried her quietly. But everyone said I resembled hermoved like her, spoke like her. When you found me online, I I couldnt resist. You thought I was her. And for once, someone saw *me* the way theyd always seen her.
The floor seemed to tilt. The woman before me wasnt Margaretjust her echo, wearing her memory like a borrowed coat.
Anger surged, then ebbed. As I looked at hersmall, shatteredI saw not deception, but a lifetime spent unseen.
Who are you, then? I asked, voice rough.
She lifted her face, raw with grief.
My name is Eleanor. And all I wanted was to know what it felt like to be loved. Just once.
That night, I lay awake beside her, torn between mourning the girl Id lost and pitying the woman whod taken her place.
Love in old age isnt always kind. Sometimes, its a crueltyproof that even after all these years, the heart can still shatter.
