Millie can’t rid herself of the fury. There was Beatrix’s anger at her, for forcing her to go, and Millie’s own at Reg, for not wavering when she pleaded. Let me go with her, she said. And then, later, in the middle of the night, neither of them sleeping, nor touching, staring up at the dark ceiling: Let’s just keep her here. We’ve got the shelter and the Underground. We can go to my parents in the country. I can keep her safe, she whispered again and again. I will keep her safe. But Reg’s mind was made up.
She has never thought of herself as an angry person. Emotional, yes. Stubborn, absolutely. But now she is overflowing with sorrow and rage. She can’t imagine a time when she will forgive Reg. She knows she will never forgive herself. Over and over she revisits the ballroom, the final moments, the warmth of her daughter’s cheek.
She pinned the label the man handed her onto Beatrix’s chest. It was a hot day but Millie’s hands were icy cold and so she rubbed them together, again and again, before tucking one inside the top of Beatrix’s dress to guide the pin in and out. The label had a long number on it, in addition to the name, and Millie memorized the number, thinking she would need to know it forever. She thought that it might be the only way she could locate her girl. On the way home from the ballroom, she became frantic when she could no longer be sure whether the final number was a three or a six.
The night before, Millie had washed and cut Beatrix’s hair in the small kitchen, a towel underfoot. Beatrix was in her underwear. Millie brushed the wet hair out before cutting, marveling that the thick strands almost reached Beatrix’s waist. It was then, when Millie turned Beatrix around to comb out the front, that she realized that her breasts were beginning to bud and that when she saw her again, she would have changed. She would no longer be a girl. And there was that fury again, but it was in her hands now, so without thinking, she chopped off her daughter’s hair, cutting it just below the chin, locks of hair falling to the floor, the scissors slicing, the white towel turning brown, Beatrix crying. She cut the thick, dark bangs in a severe line across the middle of her forehead. It was the haircut she had given her, every three weeks, when she was a little girl.
Now she can no longer sleep. She lies in Beatrix’s bed, curling her body into a ball. She tries to imagine where her girl is, in the middle of the Atlantic. Is she hungry? Is she alone? How frightened she must be by the deep water that wraps itself around the ship. The rocking waves. That vast sea. Millie smells a curl of the hair, tucked into a small glassine envelope, hidden in the middle of her book.