It was strange. And yet so right. He stopped in front of this one certain house, he went to the front door, he took out the keys and he opened the door with them. He had never guessed that he would ever have keys to this door. That these would be his keys. And that he was allowed to enter the house whenever he wanted to.

But now, he was living here. He had left his own house, this building that had been his home, but then hadn't been anymore after the death of his first wife and his daughter. When he had been there, he had spent all the time in his basement. Never really looking into the other rooms, except for the kitchen. And even that had happened once in a blue moon.

Maybe it had been about time to leave this old live behind, to forget the pain and only keep the happy moments in his heart.

She had given him the chance to do so. She had asked him to move in with her and he had taken the offer. The offer to start a new life.

His life had changed, in every possible way. In his new home, with the woman he had fallen in love with so many years ago. The woman who had left him. The woman he had met again, who had become his boss three years ago. The woman who had conquered his heart again.

The woman he had now lost for good.

His mind went blank when he looked around. Red and brown as the dominating colors in this house warmed it even during the coldest day in winter. The wooden sculptures and chattels, the bouquet of fresh wildflowers, the small seat on the right, the big grandfather clock; the furnishing was well thought out in every detail.

Though he had felt home in this house from the first moment he had set a foot into it, it now all felt cold and unfamiliar. It wasn't the same anymore, without her coming out of her study when he opened the front door, greeting him with an embrace and a kiss. It wasn't the same now that there was no faint music playing in the background when in the evening, they had stopped in the nearly dark hall on their way upstairs, with him pulling her to him and swaying slightly to the soft tune.

Not because he was a dancer, but because he had taken every opportunity to hold her in his arms.

He would never hold her again. But he would hold the memories close to his heart.