CHAPTER 19

LONDON

MAY 2019

We sat in silence after Penelope and Precious had left the room. Then Arabella jumped up. “Who wants to watch the sunset? It’s my first night in the country in ages, and the sky is crystal clear.” She held out her hands to me. “Come on, Maddie. I promise you’ve never seen anything like it. Bring your camera.” She looked beyond me to her cousin. “You, too, Colin. When was the last time you watched a sunset?”

Colin drained the rest of his glass and set it on the mantel. “Not since university,” he said matter-of-factly, an odd note to his voice. He turned to his father. “Dad? Would you like to join us?”

“Thank you, but I’ve got correspondence I need to see to. You go ahead.” James looked at his watch. “Best hurry—the sun sets in about forty-five minutes. The best place is up on the chalk ridge, which is a decent walk from here. Take torches so you can find your way back. It’s only a crescent moon tonight.”

After running upstairs and quickly changing into jeans and a sweater, I followed Arabella and Colin through the house, grabbing flashlights from the kitchen before heading out through the door to the back garden. The scent of flowers weighted the air with a lightness that almost made me forget the look on Precious’s face when she’d turned away from my scrutiny, the sense I’d had of a pen being held over paper, a story with no ending.

But it did end. It had to. Every story had a final act, a place under which the words “The End” could be written. I’d lived my entire adult life on that premise, on the knowledge that some endings were known before the stories even began.

Tonight, there had been something about the way Precious had said sweet dreams. Something almost challenging, a hook thrown into water to see what might be caught. Not that it was an unusual sentiment. I recalled the same handwritten words on the back of Graham’s RAF photograph. Maybe that was what was niggling at my brain, the sheer coincidence of two things that shouldn’t have been related.

Beside me, Arabella stopped, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Brrr. How did it get so cold? I’m afraid I don’t have a jumper.” She looked genuinely disappointed. “And if you wait for me, you’ll miss the sunset.” Flicking her hand at us, she said, “You two go on. Take pictures so you can show me what I missed.”

George and Charlotte, who’d apparently been cooped up during dinner, were eager to escape captivity. “Keep them out of the cowpats,” Arabella warned before swiftly retreating, leaving Colin and me alone.

The dogs leapt and bounded around us like gnats, making me grin despite myself.

“Don’t worry—we haven’t let the cows on this hill for a bit so the grass can grow.” Colin looked down at my Keds. “It’s a gentle hill, but it might be slippery. Are you all right in those?”

“Probably not,” I said, slipping them off, then rolling my socks inside them so that I was barefoot. In response to his blank expression, I explained, “Growing up, I only wore shoes to school, church, and birthday parties. It might be mostly a Southern thing, which means there’s a whole mess of people missing out. There’s just something magical about grass under your bare feet.” I looked pointedly at his loafers. “You should try it.”

He hesitated for only a moment before he took off his shoes and placed them neatly next to mine. “It is nice. A bit cool, though. Won’t my feet get cold?”

“Don’t worry—you’ll get used to it. Your toes will be too happy to complain.”

“Come on, then,” he said, indicating a path leading from the garden to a grass slope interspersed with trees. He whistled to the dogs, who immediately began trotting in our direction.

We walked in silence, the dogs panting as they raced past us and then circled back when they reached the cow gate ahead, prancing impatiently as they waited for Colin to open it. I kept replaying our conversation in the kitchen, hearing Colin’s words about the photo of the boy in the stroller on his desk who wasn’t him. I wanted to ask him who it was but couldn’t find the right words, words that would show an indifference I no longer felt.

“I’ve been making inquiries regarding Eva Harlow,” Colin said, breaking the silence.

“Oh. Great. Have you found out anything?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing. I did find her on the roster of models at House of Lushtak from nineteen thirty-nine through the end of March nineteen forty-one. Then she disappears. Absolutely nothing—from death notices to hospital and marriage records. It’s like she never existed.”

“But we know she lived with Precious—did you check the building’s history?”

“I tried to. There aren’t any tenant records for Precious, because my grandparents owned the flat.”

“And when she returned to London in the seventies, she moved back in. I wonder why she didn’t find a small flat, since it was just her. Maybe it was so Eva could find her after all those years away.”

“Curiouser and curiouser, I’d say,” Colin said, his thoughts matching mine. “I’ll see what I can find in the Devon records—Precious said Eva’s father was a doctor and that both her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Those details should help narrow it down. We have an intern at the office to make phone calls; she can see if there are any newspaper accounts of the accident, that sort of thing. It’s a long shot, but at least it’s a shot.”

The hill had become steeper, and I found myself breathing more heavily. Even the dogs had slowed their pace, although Colin continued with his long strides, slowing down only when he realized he was in front of me.

As we reached the crest of the hill, the light in the sky began to shift, and we stopped with the dogs to admire the view. On the south side of the slope, shadows were beginning to cover the bright green patchwork fields; on the north side, a dense forest claimed the landscape. And in the distance, beyond more rolling hills, the shapes of London’s skyline projected dark shadows into the horizon like greedy fingers claiming the sky.

Colin pointed toward the trees. “Some of the yews in the forest are over five hundred years old. When I was a boy, Nana would take me for walks and tell me what a particular tree had witnessed in history, depending on its girth.” He fell silent, pondering his next words. “Nana said she wished they were time capsules, that she could peel back the layers of bark to relive parts of her life. I never asked her which parts. Perhaps I should have.”

Our eyes met. “Perhaps. Although I think you’re running out of time. Arabella says her doctors feel as if she doesn’t have much longer, yet except for the pallor of her skin, she seems perfectly fit to me.”

He sucked in his breath, then let it out slowly. “That’s why it’s so hard to believe. She has congestive heart failure, and it’s getting worse. She doesn’t want to be resuscitated if anything happens, so yes, we’re running out of time to reunite her with Eva or at least let her know what happened to her friend. And regardless, my father would like to learn his uncle’s fate. But even he seems reluctant, as if the reason why Graham was never mentioned is because his parents were keeping something dark and sinister from him.” He paused, his eyes staring steadily into mine. “What is it about all of our pasts that we’re so unwilling to confront?”

I looked up into the purpling sky, like a bruise on the day to show it had been lived and survived. It might have been the fading light, or maybe the brandy made a confession seem less rash. “It’s odd, but when I think of my past, I see it as a younger version of myself. The me I can’t quite forgive for making so many mistakes.”

I felt him waiting and turned to meet his gaze. He said, “But, Madison, all of your mistakes have made you who you are. And from what I can see, you’re rather wonderful. Except for your inexplicable aversion to going home to a place you apparently love and a family who adores you.”

“You think I’m wonderful?” I hadn’t meant to say that, but his words had taken me by surprise.

“You have your moments.”

I looked away. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, and confused by the rush of blood to my face, I breathed in deeply, the air redolent of spring and growing things and the soft fug of barnyard animals. “I do love the smell of a farm,” I said, eager to change the subject. “Pretty much in the same way I love the scent of the south Georgia swamps. I guess it’s like loving the sound of bagpipes—you’re either born with it or you’re not.”

“So you like the sound of bagpipes, do you?” Colin smiled reluctantly.

“I do. I can’t tell you where I’ve heard them, but I have often enough to know. There’s just something—I don’t know—majestic about them. Haunting, almost. And you?”

“I’ve lived in Great Britain my entire life, so I’ve heard my share of bagpipes. And yes, I do enjoy them. I don’t believe one is allowed to be British and not at least give a show of liking them.”

The distant sound of a cow lowing rolled over the hills, making me nostalgic for something I wasn’t aware I was missing. “How could you ever leave such a place?”

When he didn’t answer, I looked up to find him watching me closely. “Because I know it’s always here. It’s where my childhood memories live, good and bad all mixed together.” A shadow passed behind his eyes, the kind I saw behind my own. He looked away, as if aware he’d given away something he hadn’t been ready to share. Turning to me again, he added, “But that’s what makes it home.”

I stared at him in the gathering dusk, feeling the tiny night insects brush against my cheeks. “Home is a place that lives in one’s heart, waiting with open arms to be rediscovered.”

He tilted his head slightly. “What incredibly intelligent person said that?”

I smiled. “My aunt Cassie. She’s right about most things.”

“She’s certainly right about that.”

I thought about what he’d just said, about home being a mixture of good and bad, and remembered the photograph of the boy who wasn’t Colin. “The photograph on your desk—the one of your parents with a little boy who looks like you. But it’s not you.” I let the unasked question float in the night air, unseen, its weight heavy between us.

Colin regarded me in silence for a long moment before turning away. Looking up, he pointed to the first stars appearing in the ceiling of sky above us. “In the winter, Gemini and Orion are visible. I’ve spent many a frigid evening with my telescope on this very spot.”

I followed his gaze to the pinpricks of light above us, the brandy and the wide-open sky making me dizzy. “When I was little, I was afraid of the dark, so my mama told me that the stars were little cracks in God’s curtains he’d use to keep an eye on us at night. After that, I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

“She sounds like a very smart woman, too.”

“I come from a long line of intelligent women. If I didn’t look exactly like my aunt Cassie, I would think I was adopted.”

“You’re right, you know.”

I looked at him in surprise. “About what—being adopted?”

He smiled, his teeth bright in the gathering darkness. “About going barefoot. I rather like it.”

I gazed out over the fields. The vanishing sun had begun to tuck the hills into shadow blankets for the night, the light loosening its hold on the day and shifting from gold to purple. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, not wanting to disturb the silence.

“It’s not the first sunset we’ve watched together,” Colin said close to my ear, and I realized he’d moved to stand next to me.

“It’s not?” I turned my face, his own near enough to touch.

“At university. Arabella arranged for a group of us to view the sunset from Headington Hill Hall, and you and I were the only two who showed up.”

“I’m not sure I remember,” I said, although that wasn’t completely true. I didn’t remember the scenery, but I did remember him standing next to me, carrying my camera bag.

“You tried to kiss me,” he said.

I looked at him, recalling it clearly now. “No. You were the one who tried to kiss me.”

And before I could register that he was smiling, Colin leaned toward me and pressed his lips against mine. I was too startled to pull back right away, too aware of how nice it felt, appreciating the warmth of his mouth on mine, his hands gently resting on my waist, the dusky air that settled on our shoulders and seemed to push us together. The kiss deepened, and I found myself responding to him, to his touch, to the perfect melding of two bodies embracing. I was about to stretch my arms around his neck and pull him closer when I realized what I was doing and stopped, stepping back so quickly that I nearly lost my footing.

“I’m sorry. This . . . No. I can’t. . . .” I couldn’t formulate the rest of my words, no longer even sure why I was telling him no.

“Is it because of me? Or because you believe yourself to be living with a death sentence?” He didn’t look away, holding my gaze and forcing an answer.

The intimacy of the falling dusk and the taste of his lips on mine made me brave. “It’s not you.”

He sucked in a breath. “Good.” He paused a moment, considering his words. “I’m not trying to make light of what you’re dealing with, but I’ve done a little reading to understand all of this a bit better. Surely you know that having the gene doesn’t mean your life is guaranteed to be shortened or left unlived.”

I watched his face in the gathering gloom, doing my best to ignore the warmth in my chest his words had created. I’ve done a little reading to understand all of this a bit better. As if he truly cared. It was possible that he did, but only because he didn’t know the full story. I shook my head as if to erase his words. “But it might be. And then I’d be putting the ones I love through the same trauma we went through when my mother died. I can’t do that to them. I won’t do it.” I stepped back, needing to create space between us. “You couldn’t understand.”

His arms fell to his sides, his blue eyes reflecting the last light of day. He didn’t speak right away, and when he did, it wasn’t what I was expecting him to say.

“The little boy was named Jeremy. He was my twin brother, and he died of leukemia when we were nine years old.” He picked up my flashlight, which I’d dropped on the ground, and whistled for the dogs. “Come on. Best use your torch. If you twist an ankle, I doubt I could carry you all the way back, and I’d hate to have to leave you out here all night.”

With that, he flicked on his own flashlight and led the way, the dogs loping alongside. I trudged along behind them, the darkness nipping at my heels and chasing me down the hill.