ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS
PARIS
NOVEMBER 2001
There wasn’t a person in that apartment not floored to see Laurel standing in the doorway. Even Annie, who’d called her in the first place.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” Laurel said, face beating and hair chaotic around her. “But you don’t go running off to foreign countries without telling me.”
Laurel ranted on for several more minutes, sounding like a top candidate for Strictest Mom on Earth. But Annie understood it was for show. Mostly Laurel lit into her daughter so she didn’t have to acknowledge the other people in the room.
“I left you a message,” Annie pointed out. “So I did tell you. And what choice did I have? And, P.S., I’m an adult.”
“This is not like you, Annabelle. What were you planning to do? Sleep in some strange man’s apartment?”
“He’s not a strange man.”
“Well, we’re both a little strange,” Jamie tried to joke.
Laurel closed her eyes. Around them the apartment creaked and sighed. Annie felt Gus quaking behind her.
“Well, now I finally get why you’re so anti Eric,” Annie said. “Charlie? The dead soldier? He was my dad?”
“He was. And I am not anti Eric. I’m pro you.”
“These past few weeks,” Annie said. “I thought you didn’t want us together because we didn’t know each other. Then I thought it was because you were afraid I’d lose him. You had me questioning everything—me, him, whether we should even be together. But now I know. It’s not that you were afraid he’d never come home. You were afraid that he would and I’d marry him anyway.”
It couldn’t have been clearer if she’d written it out, or engraved it on a luggage tag. Laurel didn’t love Charlie when she married him. She left with him out of guilt. Or nostalgia. Or because she’d loved him once.
Oh, her mother had tried. Laurel tried her hand at a bohemian Parisian lifestyle, but she couldn’t make it stick. She was forced to act like an adult from a young age, after losing both parents, and then losing Charlie the first time. Responsible adult was how Laurel behaved, “doing the right thing” her default mode. Laurel’s character and her personal history were too ingrained to overcome.
“Annie,” Laurel said, eyes avoiding Gus as if he were the sun. “Whatever you think right now, you’re wrong. You don’t know the whole story.”
“So where is he?” Gus asked.
Annie whipped her head in his direction and was surprised to find a different man standing there. She thought of Gus as tall, broad-shouldered, and strong. But he suddenly appeared thin, anemic almost. She wondered if he was ill.
“Where is Charlie?” he asked.
The muscles in Laurel’s neck rose as she strained to keep her head from turning.
“Please warn me if a third member of this esteemed family is going to show up,” Gus said. “I can’t do that again.”
“Not bloody likely,” Jamie mumbled. “Mate, he’s dead.”
“He’s dead?” Gus said, gaping. “When? How? He’s dead?”
For real this time was the question hanging in the air. But Gus did not dare ask it.
“January 1980,” Laurel said and at long last turned in his direction.
Gus jolted when her eyes landed on him. What must they look like to each other? As though they’d aged thirty years in one day? Or did they seem exactly the same?
“Pru,” he said in a whisper.
“Wait a minute,” Annie said. “He died when I was a baby? You made it sound like you left him.”
“I did,” Laurel said. She pulled her gaze away from Gus. “I left him when I was pregnant. I was alone when I had you and then I came here. Perhaps you two gentlemen remember the baby who was with me, though her hair is much better now, in that she actually has some.”
“Bloody hell,” Jamie muttered.
“So Charlie was gone?” Gus said. “When you came back?”
“He was alive but we were not together.”
“Listen, folks,” Jamie said. “I have a brilliant scheme. Annie, you come with me.”
“No way,” she said. “I’m staying.”
Annie wanted to see how this was all going to pan out. Not to mention, she had about a million questions to ask.
“Sorry, little lass,” Jamie said. “You’re coming with me. We’ll enjoy a glass of wine or three, let these two long-lost chums reconnect.”
“I want to know—” she started.
“And you shall know.” Jamie took her hand. “But they need to know first.”
While Annie’s mouth remained open, he led her down the hallway and through the front door. As it closed behind them, she heard her mom let out a small cry.
“We’ll give them an hour,” Jamie said. “It’s the least we can do. After all, they have a lifetime to catch up on.”