“I told you that her master beat her, so you assumed that he’d killed her. Like your master when he killed Quinn. But that’s not the truth.” She met Jack’s gaze. “Mary had bruises on her neck and on her face. She had bruises everywhere. She told me her master never left her alone.”
He closed his eyes.
“I suspected there might be more going on than she was telling me, but there was nothing I could do.” The words came faster and faster, rolling through the crumbling barrier. She told Jack about the conversation David had overheard, how Winny had gone through the blizzard to find Mary, but Mary wasn’t there. “I was so scared that I went up to the farmhouse and asked her mistress. She told me she’d sent her away.”
“Why?”
“She was pregnant.”
Jack took a step back, his lips slightly open.
Winny thought back to that winter and into the spring, how she’d waited for months with no news. “Her mistress called her the most awful names and accused her of being with a Home Boy, but I knew the truth. Jack, the reason I was able to find Mary in the first place was that our mistresses were sisters. I found that out by accident. Once I heard about Mary being pregnant, I ran home and told my mistress what Mary had said about her master. She told her sister.” She paused, the memories bittersweet. “In the spring, after the baby was born, my mistress drove me to see Mary. She looked so much better, Jack. She told me that ever since I told my mistress about her master, her own mistress was kinder to her. She even promised her husband would never go near Mary again.”
Winny’s breath caught in a sob. “The last time I saw Mary, she told me she would be all right, now that she was safe from him. She said she would be fine. And I believed her.” She took a shaky breath. “That’s when I asked her where her baby was. Oh Jack, the pain in her expression was so different then. So much deeper. She told me that after she had her son, the nurse took him away. They never let her see him, Jack. She never touched her own son.”
He dropped his gaze. Maybe he understood now, how hard it had been to keep the secret. Why she hadn’t told him.
If only she could shield him from the rest of the story. In her mind, she reached for the bricks again, buckling under the rising tide, but she couldn’t protect him forever.
“A few weeks later, my mistress brought me into her house, which she’d never done before. She told me to sit down, then she…” She closed her eyes briefly, transported back. “She told me Mary had hung herself.”
When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her, frozen in place.
“She gave me a letter that Mary had written to me before she died. In it, she asked me to do two things.” She stared at him, willing him to understand. To forgive. “The first was to never, ever tell you about what she’d done. She said knowing the truth would kill you, and neither of us could bear to hurt you. So I kept her secret to myself all these years. Just like she’d asked.”
A tear trickled down Jack’s cheek, but he didn’t make a sound.
“The second thing she asked me to do in that letter was to find her son and raise him like my own. If anyone asked, she wanted me to lie about his father, to do whatever it took to keep him from growing up in an orphanage. She couldn’t stand to think of him repeating the lives we had lived.” She looked at her hands, remembering the night she’d held Mary’s letter to the flame of her lantern. “I destroyed the letter. I didn’t want anyone to ever have to see it but me. Especially not you.”
“But why?” he asked after a moment. “Why did she… do that if everything was better?”
“Because her master came back.”
His fists clenched so hard she saw the whites of his knuckles. “And he is…?”
“Locked away, Jack. Like I said before. The Mounties threw him in jail.”
His nod was almost imperceptible.
A strange sense of ease filled Winny for the first time in years. She could see clearly that Mary’s story had broken Jack’s heart, but Winny’s burden was so much lighter now that it was shared with him.
“So now you know,” she said, suddenly tired. “Everything I did was because she asked me to do it. Billy’s not my baby, Jack. He’s Mary’s. But I’m his mummy, and I love him more than anything in the world.”
Jack scrubbed his hands over his face. He looked ten years older than he had before. “He looks just like her,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, but Jack, he looks just like you, too. It’s been so hard, not knowing if you were out there, if you were dead or alive or if I’d ever see you again. And every time I looked at Billy, I saw you both. It was the sweetest kind of torture. One I was prepared to suffer for the rest of my life.”
thirty-five JACK
Jack nodded at the bartender then downed the whisky shot in one gulp. He hung on to the burn as it lit up his throat, but it was over too fast, so he lit a cigarette and inhaled slow and deep. He lifted his finger and a fresh glass was set in front of him.
He couldn’t remember if he’d thanked Winny for finally telling him the truth. He should have. He knew he’d grabbed his hat and coat then gone to the door. He’d said something about how she needed sleep and he needed a drink.
God. Every time he thought of his sister he wanted to cry, and every time he imagined her life on the farm he tasted bile. When he remembered that Mary’s master was already locked up, safe from Jack’s reach, he pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt. He wanted the man let out so he could kill him with his own hands.
They’d been no more than children when they’d been shipped over here as chattel. Trusting, innocent, and vulnerable, just like Billy was now. They’d been treated as less than human, and Quinn and Mary had died as a result of that. The bitterness Jack felt was a constant edge, scraping at his heart until it hardened to stone.
Winny might just be the one thing in this world that was keeping him human. She was a lifeline for him. And what about Billy? What was Jack going to do about that little boy? Every time he looked into Billy’s eyes, he saw Mary, and it was just as Winny had said: a sweet torture. One he was more than willing to live with. Could he step into Billy’s life and become a father to him? He didn’t remember his own, and he hadn’t liked most of the fathers he’d met since then, but life kept throwing him curveballs, and maybe this one he’d be able to catch. Maybe, with Winny and Billy beside him, he could become the father he’d never had.
He paid the tab, strode into the night, and headed to Jeffrey’s. Tomorrow, he decided, he would go back to Winny, his one true home.
* * *
“Hey, Billy,” Jack said, after the little boy opened the door. “Is your mummy home?”
Billy regarded him him warily.
“I won’t make her cry. I promise. What I want is to make her happy.”
Billy thought about it. “All right. You can come in.”
Jack tightened his jaw against the swell of pride he felt for the boy. Mary would have loved her son so much. He already did.
He followed Billy into the living room where Winny was sitting, mending something blue. She looked up, her beautiful brown eyes awash with love, and guilt swelled in his chest. She’d opened her heart to him, and he’d run off. Again. He didn’t deserve that love.
“I’m sorry, Winny.” He moved toward her, unsure. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey!” Billy cut in front of Jack and wrapped his arms protectively around Winny’s neck. “He said he wouldn’t make you cry, but you’re crying already.”
She patted his back, still watching Jack. “I’m okay now. These are happy tears. I think everything will be all right now. Why don’t you go play in your room so Jack and I can talk?”
Billy gave Jack one more warning glare before leaving them alone, and Jack felt a fresh pang of grief. Mary had looked at him that way so many times.
“Winny,” he said, kneeling at her feet. “You’ve been a rock, staying strong for all of us for so long.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you
before.”
“I understand why you didn’t, but I’m glad you finally did. Now there are no secrets between us.” He took her hand, pressed it to his lips. “Right?”
“Right. Those were all there ever were between you and me.”
“I don’t want anything to ever come between us again, Winny. Never.”
“Never.”
“Because the last few weeks, I’ve been a wreck without you. Life has made me into a hard man, Winny, and I know I’m not a lot of fun to be around anymore. You’ve seen it, I’m sure, because you see everything. You always have. But when I’m with you, the anger seems to go away. You’ve always had that effect on me. When I’m not around you it’s like I can’t get past it.” She was watching him through kind, liquid eyes that saw into his soul. “I remember your face so clearly from that morning they ripped us apart the last time, when I was forced to leave you behind. The way you looked at me, Irish, that has never left me. I’ve been eaten up for years for not finding you sooner.”
He looked down at her little fingers, twined in his. “I have always loved you. I was just too young and stupid to know it. Now I can’t imagine living without you.”
“Oh, Jack. I love you, too. I always have.”
“I promise, Winny, that I will never leave you behind again.” He hesitated. “That’s… that’s if you want me.”
PART – four –
thirty-six WINNY
— Present Day —
We got married two months later,” I say, reaching across the table and sliding the trunk toward me. “Jack didn’t see any reason to wait, and neither did I. We were actually going to do it even sooner, but Jack got a letter from Edward.” I frown and dig in the trunk, feeling for the brittle old envelope. “Wait. I still have it in here.”
I pull it out and hand it to Chrissie. She opens it cautiously as if she fears the yellowed paper might crumble to dust in her hands.
“He’d been wounded and they were shipping him to Toronto.”
“ ‘Jerry threw some shrapnel my way a month or so ago,’ ” Chrissie reads, then she grins, “ ‘and I caught it with my face. I’m all right now, but I’ll warn you, I’m uglier than ever.’ ”
A look of wonder comes into Jamie’s eyes. “He would have been just a few years older than I am now. We could have hung out together.” He pauses. “I can’t imagine being him. Going to war, I mean. We have nothing like that these days.”
“We’re pretty lucky,” his mother agrees.
Jamie stands then comes around to see the letter for himself. “Did he make it home safely?”
I smile, happy to be telling this part of the story. “Jack wrote right back and asked him to be his best man as soon as he felt up to it, and he made it to the wedding.”
“What about Charlotte? Was she still there? Or did she have to get back to England to see her mother?” Chrissie asks.
“By the time all her paperwork was done, she decided to wait until after our wedding to go. In the meantime, Jeffrey proposed.”
She beams. “This is all so romantic!”
“The timing worked out well. A few weeks before the wedding, we both quit our jobs at the hospital, but I’ll admit that was bittersweet. We’d wanted to be nurses for so long, and we loved our work. Of course when we started, we weren’t thinking about getting married.”
“That’s so silly that you couldn’t be married and still be a nurse,” Chrissie says.
“It was a different time. Wives and mothers were expected to stay at home. They changed the rules in the fifties when they started running out of nurses. They asked us to come back, so I did.”
Jamie chuckles. “Some girls at my school say they want to be nurses, but there’s no way they’d choose one or the other.”
“No, I can’t imagine women these days agreeing to those rules. Things are different now, and in a good way. I guess men finally realized we’re just the same as they are,” I say, “only prettier.”
On the counter behind us, Jamie’s phone rings, but he ignores it. “Did you go back to England with Charlotte?”
“We talked about it, but Jack and I didn’t want to go back to a place that didn’t want us in the first place. Besides, we didn’t have much money.”
“But you had each other,” he says with a wink.
“We did. For over sixty years. It wasn’t always perfect, but we loved each other. We knew each other inside and out.”
“Tell me about your wedding,” Chrissie probes.
“I have some photographs,” I say. “Somewhere in here.”
My fingers close around the old, black leather album, and I place it on the table. The years have not been kind to it, and I can see it is falling apart. A few photos fall onto the table when I open the cover.
“I could scan those for you, Gran,” Jamie says, sorting through the loose ones. “Then we’ll always have a copy. We won’t have to worry about them getting faded and ruined. I might even be able to add them to the online ancestry registry.”
“The what?”
“I put our family tree online in a special website. I can show you later.”
“You were so pretty!” Chrissie says, reaching for a picture. It had been taken outside City Hall on my wedding day, but it feels like yesterday.
“I like your suit,” Jamie says. “Very dapper, the way your hat is angled over one eye.”
“Dapper, eh? Charlotte dressed me that day. I was so excited I could barely tell the difference between gloves and boots.” My gaze passes to Charlotte, and though the photo is in black and white, I still remember how stunning she was, dressed all in pink and glowing on Jeffrey’s arm. Charlotte died a long time ago, but that dear girl will never truly leave me.
“She’s gorgeous,” Chrissie says. “So was she already married to Jeffrey in these pictures?”
I nod, studying Charlotte’s joyful expression. “It was a lovely day.”
“You look so happy,” Jamie says, pulling out another photograph. It’s me, laughing about something Jack has said.
“That was the happiest day of my life. The sun was out, the flowers were blooming, and I was marrying the most wonderful man in the world.”
I take the picture Chrissie’s holding, of the four of us standing there—Charlotte and Jeffrey, Jack and me—and my crooked old finger caresses Jack’s face. He looks proud as a peacock beside me, tall and handsome, wearing his army dress uniform. That was the only time I ever saw him wear it.
“Gran’s right, Jamie. You look just like him.” Chrissie leans in for a closer look. “That is your exact expression when you win a soccer game.” She picks up a different picture, one where Jack is giving the camera a cocky grin, his arm around my waist. “I totally see you in him.”
Jamie studies the photograph, a half smile rising. “I am pretty handsome, aren’t I?” He taps the picture, indicating a tall man behind Jack, his face swathed in bandages. “Who’s behind him?”
“That’s Edward. Remember he’d been hit by shrapnel? He came back from the war forever changed, with a terrible scar covering half his face. We were so lucky to have him with us that day. I had Charlotte, and Jack had Edward. All that was left of our little family.”
Only two people had been missing that day, and I recall so clearly the heavy weight of their absence. As we’d listened to the justice of the peace talk about our future, Jack and I were both aware of Mary and Cecil standing with us. Mary’s eyes would have sparkled with joy—as Billy’s did the day we told him Jack would be his father.
“These are so beautiful,” Chrissie says. “I love seeing the faces behind the names.” She turns a page. “Look at you two. So in love.”
“That’s my favourite picture of us. Jeffrey took it. It felt silly to pose so intimately, but he gave strict instructions: ‘Just put your arms around each other, and put your foreheads together. Forget we’re even here.’ As soon as I saw the finished photographs, I had to admit he was right. Jeffrey always had a good eye
for beautiful things.”
The truth was, no one ever had to force me to stare into Jack’s eyes. Looking at the photo now, I’m transported back to that moment, when it was just me and Jack, and no one else. Back then it had felt as if I was losing myself in the most wonderful way. I was so sure I would never be alone again.
Jamie turns the page and spots a photograph hidden behind another one, so he digs it out. It’s the only photo of Billy I have from that day. We’d wanted more, but we didn’t want him to find them and ask difficult questions. In the picture, he stands at my feet. Jack is behind us both. His right hand is on Billy’s shoulder, and his left is on my waist. I can still feel it there.
Jamie cocks his head at me. “So where’s Billy now?”
thirty-seven WINNY
— 1944 —
It was impossible for Winny not to look around the restaurant table and see the missing faces. Then her gaze went to Edward, laughing at something Jeffrey had said, and she was overcome with gratitude that he was there. But Cecil should have been beside him. And Mary should have been beside her. She knew they were all thinking the same thing.
After the meal, the old friends sat and talked of the many lives they had lived, of their joy and grief, marvelling at how far they’d come. How life constantly changed, and how it had changed them. After all the fun and celebration, not to mention the wine that had come with dinner, Winny found herself sinking deeper into her chair and missing bits of the conversation. A little later, she felt Jack’s cheek pressing against the side of her head.
“Ready to go home, Mrs. Miller?” he asked softly.
They would be staying at Jeffrey’s that night, because everyone had convinced them they needed one evening free of parental obligations. But as the two of them walked together toward Jeffrey’s house, Winny couldn’t help thinking about Billy, curled up in his bed with no good-night hug from his mummy. Then they walked into Jack’s room, and Billy became the furthest thing from her mind.
The Forgotten Home Child Page 26