ALICE CHOSE NOT TO TRAVEL with Elizabeth. Elizabeth invited her, of course, and would have been glad to share a train carriage with her for the eight-hour return journey to Porthsennen. Elizabeth would have liked her company, would have welcomed Alice into her cottage, given her a chance to share her father’s past. But Porthsennen and the memories Elizabeth had created there with Tom belonged to them, and it seemed that Alice was happy to let them rest along with her father, now that the funeral was over. The memories that had kept Elizabeth in Porthsennen for all these years were from a different life that belonged to Elizabeth and Tom. It was a life that never really began, yet had never really ended either.
They did travel together to the funeral home, a small Georgian building with strange Gothic lights on the wall and an atmosphere of library quiet inside. They knew Tom’s wishes, and so Alice asked permission from Elizabeth to keep a small measure of the ashes, all that now remained of the man they had once loved so much. Elizabeth had no idea whether Tom would have thought it a pleasant or a macabre idea that a small part of him would end up on a mantelpiece, and she herself couldn’t think of anything worse than keeping him there, watching over her like that. Even the knowledge that he was in the green pot sitting on the table before her was almost too much. But she gave Alice the permissions she sought, and then helped her choose a small wooden heart, engraved with the word DAD on the front. For her that was enough, just a small piece of him left, to take home to Brian’s house when she moved in next week.
“I can’t believe it took this to get us to realize how we felt,” she said to Elizabeth while the funeral director was off organizing the paperwork.
“Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us appreciate the treasures in our own lives,” Elizabeth said. Alice agreed, nodding. The shuffle of paperwork continued from the other side of the table as the funeral director filled out the necessary documents. They were nearly done, could almost see the line being drawn under this latest chapter. Not quite the last, but near enough.
* * *
Brian drove them the short distance to Paddington Station, and Alice insisted on escorting Elizabeth inside while he waited on the side of the road. Kate had already returned to her life in Truro a few days before, a husband and two children who needed her there. Elizabeth was going to visit next week; how she had missed her grandchildren and their noisy brand of company. This time the ticket machine posed no problem for her, and with the ticket in her hand, she walked with Alice toward the gates. The travel bag, now heavy with Tom’s ashes, cut deep into her fingers.
“You will keep in touch, won’t you?” Alice asked as they watched the train pull in. Everywhere around them people rushed about; Elizabeth wouldn’t miss that at all. But she would miss Alice. They had spent close to three months together. It had been Alice who had hand-delivered Tom’s final letter in the hours following his death, just as he had instructed.
“That would be nice,” Elizabeth said, trying to conceal her surprise. Elizabeth had expected that perhaps Alice would have liked to move on, not have a constant reminder of this small slice of life they had shared. “You’ll be welcome in Cornwall anytime.”
“And you with us. You’re going to have to come back anyway, in about eight months’ time. Without Mum and Dad around, somebody is going to have to be a grandparent to this baby.” Elizabeth didn’t know what to say, and when she tried to speak, the lump in her throat trapped all the words she could think of, her eyes shooting to Alice’s tummy.
“You’re pregnant?”
“I only found out a few days ago and couldn’t wait to tell you. We’re family now. I guess in some way we always were.” Alice reached forward and hugged her.
“That’s such wonderful news.”
“Well, I’m forty-two, so let’s not count our chickens. But I want this. Always did, I think.” The announcement for the 10:03 for Penzance boomed over the loudspeaker; it would be departing in two minutes, right on time. “Will you be all right with him?” Alice asked, looking down at the bag containing the pot of ashes. Elizabeth nodded. “Try not to lose him this time, eh?”
Elizabeth pushed through the gate and lugged the bag onto the train, taking her place in the window seat. Waving to Alice as the train pulled away, she was comforted by a smile that confirmed for Elizabeth that it wouldn’t be the last time she saw her.
Alice’s words lingered with her throughout the journey, the uneasy responsibility of seeing a final wish come to fruition. Would there be anything worse than failing him now, losing him on the train? Elizabeth traveled with the pot on her lap, cursed the weight of his ashes for giving her sore knees as they coursed through the southern countryside. After her arrival in Penzance, a taxi delivered her to Porthsennen. It felt like a lifetime that she had been away, the village changed during her absence. And as she approached her quiet cottage, the sound of the waves a welcome chorus, she noticed that all the roses in pots on the steps were dead.
“I hold you responsible for those,” she said as she heaved the bag into the cottage, kicking the deadheads that had fallen from the steps. “And Francine. Last time I’ll ask her to water anything.” All was quiet as she closed the door behind her. And in the dark of her living room she was hit by a smell, something she hadn’t noted in a long time: the sea, tobacco, and heat. Tom. He must have been there with her all along, she had just never realized.
She set the bag down on the table with a thump. Cookie chirruped from the settee, but didn’t bother to get up, although she was glad to see that Francine had managed to keep him alive. Next to her she saw her mail, with it a small box with her name and address on it, a London postmark. Tom’s handwriting, if she wasn’t mistaken. Taking a knife from the kitchen, she opened the edge and popped open the top. Inside was a small terra-cotta pot, and the remains of a dead crocus.
“You didn’t forget,” she said as she lifted it out. Attached to the side was the wish.
2018: I wish this year that you would come back to me. That is all I want now.
Even though the flower was dead, she set the pot in the center of the table and made a cup of tea. Unsure what to do, uncomfortable in her own life, she sat on the settee to drink it with her eyes on the ashes, stroking Cookie’s head. “I don’t suppose there’s any reason to put this off, is there?” she asked of herself. So after taking a thick wool coat from the stand, and placing Tom in a satchel that she had found in the cottage when she first moved in, she opened the door. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
Forced to walk against the breeze, she strode up the path that would deliver her to the old Mayon Lookout. With careful footing she stepped out onto the rocks, the path even more precarious than she remembered it to be. It was farther than she usually went nowadays, but it didn’t take her long to find the small hollow in the rock that had been formed over thousands of years, and in which she had shared her first kiss with Tom. Her body still fit the mold as she slipped inside, and as she lay down she said to herself, “Close your eyes. Make a wish,” imagining that she was still able to feel his warm hand on the back of her head.
As she gazed skyward, she saw the most lucent smudge streaking through the sky, just as it had before. In places it was silver, in others purple with lights coming from within. She thought of Tom, and how she hoped he was in heaven, if such a place existed, and that if it did there was no place closer to him in the world than right there on that rock. Gazing briefly at her tattooed wrist, she smiled. Her breath caught in her throat as tears pricked her eyes. She could almost sense him looking at her. She brought a fingertip to the corner of her eye, brushed the tear away as she rose to her feet.
“Don’t go anywhere, eh?” she told Tom as she set the satchel down. Until then the only light was that of the automated lighthouses flickering in the distance, but from her pocket she pulled a small flashlight. The beam shone bright, and she set off for the nearby rocks, hoping she could find what she’d come here for. And sure enough, without too much effort, she did. The space was tighter than she remembered, but her fingers soon felt the quilt just where she had left it all those years ago, along with the book that had once belonged to Tom. The quilt was damp, but in the low light it didn’t seem especially damaged. The book had taken a battering. The paper was wrinkled, soft and brown about the edges. Parts looked barely readable.
“I was wrong about one thing,” she said aloud. “It was never really over, was it? Not for either of us.” The quilt was almost too big to fit in the satchel, even once she’d taken Tom’s ashes out, yet she managed to stuff it in along with the book and slung the bag over her shoulder. She hoped both would dry so that she might hand them down to Alice. It seemed only right that they go to her. Kate had another family, linked to the man who raised her. “We have loved each other for a lifetime, Thomas Hale, just as you promised we would. You did keep your promises, after all. Now I will keep those I made to you.”
The green pot was heavy as she picked it up, fiddling a fingernail at the seal. It took a while and required her to hold the flashlight with her teeth, but soon enough she had it open. It took only a moment for the wind to pick up the uppermost ashes, licking them upward into the night sky. It was a struggle to hold the pot above her head, yet as she did, she watched the contents gradually escape, creating a silver arc that traveled up toward the stars. And just a moment later that was it. Done. She waited there a while, watching the light from Wolf Rock flicker across the sea. Then she turned to walk away, glancing back at the water only at the last moment. “I’ll be home soon,” she said, her voice breaking as she took the first steps in the direction of the cottage. For the first time in her life she felt ready for whatever came next, because finally, after fifty years of waiting, all her wishes had come true.