Even the memories he did not want to remember were burned into his brain. His brother’s pale and gaunt face, as the cancer ate away at his organs; his carers helping him with food and to get to the bathroom.

  He felt guilty. He should have been there. Logic dictated there was nothing more he could have done to help, he had his own life to live, but that did not help with emotion.

  He travelled to see him and spoke to him as often as possible. He could hear Marcus’s laugh when he would sit in the chair by the window. Henry sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the picture of them as cadets, Marcus a couple of years older.

  Tears streamed down his face as he reflected on the unfairness. 3 years later, gene therapy had become widely available and if Henry could have the genetic markers then Marcus certainly would have. He felt cheated. It was meant to be Henry and Marcus against the world. Forever.

  Life seems to have a way of pulling the rug.

  As he was walking up to the graveyard, Henry thought: thirty years had passed, but the ache was as raw as the day he’d first received the news. Was it the implant’s fault, preserving his brother’s face in perfect, unyielding clarity? Or was it something older, something in the marrow of grief itself – a refusal to let go, or perhaps the knowledge that some losses never truly fade?

  Sometimes he wondered if the technology was a blessing or a curse. Would the pain have softened by now, blurred at the edges, if he’d let memory do its work? Or would he have found himself here anyway, staring out at the clouds, feeling the same old ache?

  “How you doing, bro?” were Henry’s first words as he approached his grave site. Every year, same words.

  At least today, it was a nice bright spring day, with the sun shining, its warmth allowing Henry to sit on the grass next to his brother’s grave. The grass was slightly long but well kept and felt like a lush, soft carpet.

  “I always feel foolish. I mean you are gone and I am still here, but I hope that at least part of you is there to hear me.”

  He then spent the next hour just talking in generalities, at times imagining Marcus responding as though they were having a conversation.

  “I finally found someone. Her name is Yoshimi, she’s Japanese. I would have liked for you to have had the chance to meet her. I think you two would have gotten on. She is nice. I like her.

  I miss you, bro. Is it arrogant of me to feel this grief?" I mean, you have lost everything and here I am making this about me. I hope you don’t hold that against me. Anyway, I better go and say something to mum and dad.”

  Henry made his way to their graves, and spent time talking with them. Unfortunately, he could not conjure up the same images as his brother. He wondered if it was simply the years, or the different ways grief had marked him, that made their faces so hard to summon. Maybe it was because Marcus had been young, his death sudden and shattering, whilst his parents’ passing, after long lives, had come as no surprise. Some losses left deeper scars than others.

  No answers came.

  A couple of hours did not feel like long enough to honour their memory.

  He stood, the warmth of the sun on his back, the grass cool beneath his feet, and let the silence before turning away.

  Every year, the ritual felt both necessary and cruel, a way to remember, but also a reminder of all that was lost.

  All the way back to the train station, Henry could not help but keep looking back at towards the graveyard, all the way past Marcus’s house.