A STACK OF mail awaited Emma a week later as she took Tubby for a walk. The envelope on top was from Olivia.
A mix of excitement and trepidation filled Emma. Olivia’s letters had become increasingly morose, no longer bothering to mention the books she’d read or the activities of the farm.
Emma had asked to visit again on many occasions, but each time Mrs. Taylor wrote back with a swift rejection, citing the melancholy that had fallen over Olivia after Emma’s departure at Christmas.
A vise squeezed at Emma’s chest, comprised of a mother’s guilt and the perpetual longing for her child.
Emma slid open the envelope to find this time there was no preamble or begging or even sentiment. There was only one sentence.
I want to come home.
Something about the bare simplicity of the statement made the hairs prickle at the back of Emma’s neck. A mother’s intuition, one she had learned long ago to heed and one that sent her rushing to the train station to procure a ticket to Chester for the following day.
That night, Emma lay awake, eyes staring into the oppressive black, that single line repeating in her head on a loop.
I want to come home. I want to come home. I want to come home.
Emma squeezed her eyes against the pressing weight of the darkness, then took her own advice and set her tears free. For all the months that had passed since she’d seen her daughter, for what the rift of separation might cause in their relationship, for the depth of Olivia’s hurt.
The air raid siren began its infuriating wail.
Emma put a pillow over her head, though the thin layer did little to drown out the shrill cry.
God, how tired she was of it all. The ration, the wretched sirens, the hovering threat of danger, the constant exhaustion that never abated when there were so many shifts to take on at the canteen, and scarves to knit, and food to cook, and...and...
Olivia.
Whatever stores of energy Emma had clung to these many months finally ran dry. She lay beneath the pillow, breathing her own hot, stale air, and ignored Mrs. Pickering’s hammering on her door and Tubby’s yelps.
They finally went away, and moments later the air raid siren stopped as well, leaving a silence behind that was as thick and tangible as the darkness surrounding her.
A hum pricked at the innermost parts of her ear, through the muffled batting of the pillow. Emma’s pulse jumped even as she lifted the pillow from her head to better make out the sound.
The drone of engines—not the steady whir of British planes, but the rhythmic throb of German aircraft.
Emma jolted from bed and out of her flat, rushing down the stairs so fast, she nearly fell. Framed against the face of a nearly full moon was a formation of planes so great in mass, she could not see where they ended in the night sky.
This was no small raid.