[This is a post for The Time-Traveler’s Wife Summer Read-Along – please add your link to your Summer Read-Along post in the box below, leave comments and join in the conversation!] ‘Goodness, Clare, why in the world would you want to marry such a person? Think of the children you would have! Popping into next week and back before breakfast!’ I laugh. ‘But it will be exciting! Like Mary Poppins, or Peter Pan.’ She squeezes my hands just a little. ‘Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it’s always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to…

It’s hard being left behind. The opening words of The Time-Traveler’s Wife sit heavy in my heart. As I explained in a previous post, I’m usually the one leaving on a jet plane – heading off to international conferences, navigating my way on various modes of transport to trawl through university library archives. I am never the one left behind. Until tomorrow, that is. Tomorrow my most special people will be held tight in my arms. I’ll breathe in the scent of their hair. I’ll brush my cheek across their cheeks. I’ll feel the swell of their inhale and exhale as it reverberates through their frames. We’ll cry, we’ll kiss…