by Kay Lyons
My flower, how I miss you. I wait impatiently for the moments I can see you. For the long day to end so you return from school and I can catch just a glimpse of your beauty. To see my heart walking toward me for precious seconds. Even though we dare not speak aloud in public, I see the love in your eyes and I am humbled.
The letter was signed Your prince.
Holland exhaled slowly and battled the lure, knowing she shouldn't continue reading something so private but unable to stop herself. She carefully returned the letter to the tiny paper envelope and retrieved another one, praying for forgiveness.
My flower, you looked so beautiful today. You wore yellow and stood in the sunlight of your mother's window and I watched from outside, barely able to draw breath. You were light and beauty in a dark world. I miss you. I pray for the moments we spend together when we hide away from prying eyes. I pray for the day we can be together.
One after another, Holland read the pages. The first eighteen of them were from a man very much in love, but the last four…
Holland lifted her hand to her mouth when she unfolded the next letter and scanned the delicate feminine writing.
My prince, it has been less than a day since they came and took you away from me. I am heartbroken, sickened by this cruel world. I have not eaten or slept. I cry constantly. The pain is unbearable. I can't imagine what you're going through. What they will do to you. Return to me as soon as you can, my love. I will wait for you always. Your flower
What? Where did he go? Who took him?
Holland flipped the envelope over but there was nothing to tell her what she wanted to know. She kept reading but it was much of the same. The letters written but never sent. Full of fear, worry, anguish.
Why won't you write to me?
Are you alive?
I dream of you and pray you are safe.
Oh, the news! The news is so terrible. I do not believe they are treating you well, otherwise you would be able to contact me. My heart, where are you? Please, hear me calling you.
Holland hesitated before lifting the last letter. Uncertain she wanted to know what it said because there were no more to follow. Her hands trembled, her muscles tense from the emotionally charged statements.
My prince, it has been a year since I've seen or heard from you. My broken heart has not yet healed but my father insists I marry because I have turned eighteen. You were my first love, my only love. Mine will be a marriage of convenience, a business transaction born of old men in suits craving power and connection. Bane, Bane! I hate the name Bane! They know nothing of love. My father does not understand my sacred vows to you whispered in the light of the moon, but I know wherever you are, you feel my anguish. You feel my love. I remember your kisses. How you made me ache with longing for you. Where are you, my prince? My beautiful prince.
If you can come for me before May third, please, my love, do. We will run away together and keep going until we find a place that will accept us. My love, my love, where are you? My heart is forever yours. I do not wish this marriage. I do not want it. I am tempted to run away but where would I go? Still, I do not want to be tied to a man I do not love. My prince, please come for me. Please, save me.
"Holland?"
Max's heavy footfalls thudded across the floor as he rushed toward her.
"What's wrong? Why are you shaking?"
She sniffled and lowered the hand held to her mouth out of her shock. She blinked and forced a smile, feeling silly and yet completely wrecked. "I shouldn't have read them. I'm sorry."
"Read what? Where did you get that?"
She shook her head and sniffled again, lifting and waving the letter she held. "From a hidden drawer in the back of the desk. They're heartbreaking."
Max knelt on the floor beside her, reaching for the letter she held.
"My prince?"
"They're mostly from him. But the last few are from her because he was taken somewhere by force and she writes to him in her grief. Do you know anything about these? Who wrote them? Read them in order," she said, quickly flipping the stack to hand to him one by one.
Max quickly read through the letters, the silence between them growing. "Max?" she asked once he'd finished.
"My grandmother," he said, his voice low as he waved the last letter in the air. "That's Nan's handwriting."
"Oh." The air left Holland's lungs in a rush. It hurt to think of the woman writing such passionate and loving letters to someone only to have lost him. "Who was her prince?"
"I don't know."
Holland gathered up the letters and the ribbon tying them. "Max… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have read them but when I found them… I'm sure it's disconcerting. Especially the part about your grandparents' marriage."
"Yeah."
"I'm sure she grew to love your grandfather with time."
"Yeah. I mean, I hope so. But reading these makes me want to know more about how things came about between her and my grandfather. Where and when those took place."
She leaned against the wall behind her. "I'm sure. I want to know more about the boy. Who was he? Where did they take him and why? What happened to him? I have so many questions."
"Me, too." Max stood and held out his hand to help her up. "I say we go find out."
Chapter 5
Max wasn't sure what to think as he and Holland walked through the house. His mind ran the gamut from wondering if his grandmother had taken part in an illicit affair to thinking maybe he was wrong and the handwriting wasn't hers.
They found his grandmother in the living room, a thick book open on her lap. "Nan?"
She pressed a finger to the page as though to hold her place and looked up at them with a smile. "Hello, dear. I didn't hear you come home. Holland, Sally said you were taking photos of the desk. Did you get what you needed for the auction?"
"Uh, yes. I did."
"Nan." Max lifted the letters he'd taken from Holland to carry and watched as his grandmother's gaze lowered. She looked confused for a moment before the color left her face.
"Violet? Are you all right?"
Holland rushed to his grandmother's side and lowered herself to the edge of the couch beside her.
"I'm fine, dear. I just wasn't expecting… Where did those… The desk? That's where I put them. I hid them so long ago I couldn't remember where I'd put them. I searched and searched. I thought Leland had found them, destroyed them."
Max moved closer to them, handing the letters over to his grandmother's outstretched hands. "Nan, we have questions."
"You read them?"
"I'm sorry," Holland said. "It's my fault. I found them and I was so curious that I read the first one and then… I sincerely apologize, Violet, but I couldn't stop. They were so beautiful. So full of love."
Max hefted a club chair up and moved it closer to the couch, settling across from his grandmother. "Nan, who was he? When was this?"
His grandmother stared down at the letters, her hands shaking as she smoothed her fingertips across the surface of the one on top.
"Many, many years ago."
"Nan, come on. We're adults here. Granddad is gone. What's the story behind those?"
"I've brought your tea," Sally said. "I'll leave this and get more cups."
The woman left the tray on the coffee table and returned to the kitchen. Moments later she was back again, her gaze curious as she spotted the letters. "Mrs. Bane, are those…?"
"Yes. Oh, Sally, Holland found them."
"We've looked for those for the last three years. She'd given up hope," Sally said, alerting Max to the fact that Sally had kept silent about yet another family secret.
"Who are they from, Nan?"
"Aki. His name was Akihiro Tadashi. He and his father were our gardeners. We met in 1941, when Aki was seventeen. Oh, what a wonderful year we had together. We would sneak away and picnic by the lake. Read poetry and talk for hours, dreaming…"
Nan's expression shifted, changed to a faraway look and place where she was
no longer in the room with them but… him.
Max stared at his grandmother, waiting for her to continue. "Nan?"
"It was such a wonderful year," Violet whispered again, her eyes filling with tears.
Sally poured three cups of tea and lifted one for Violet but his grandmother shook her head. "No, thank you, dear."
"May I stay?" Sally asked. "Hear the story again?"
"Of course. We've been together a long time," Violet said to him. "And Sally has been by my side through so much."
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," the woman stated softly, moving to the second club chair closest to Holland.
"Nan? What happened?"
"Aki wanted to study medicine. He was so bright, and he knew so much about herbs and plants because of his father. I loved him the moment I saw him. He said he fell in love with me just as quickly. I'm not sure that's true.
"My parents didn't fare well during the Depression but continued to live the lifestyle they were accustomed to in the years following. It wasn't long before they faced complete ruin, and by then my heart was taken. These," she said, her wrinkled hands smoothing over the letters on her lap, "were from him. Are what's left of the many, many letters he sent to me. One a day, for the year we were together. Aki made me laugh, brought me flowers. Made me perfume from the petals. We knew my family wouldn't approve of me marrying the gardener's son, so we planned to run away together."
Holland stretched out a hand and covered his grandmother's.
"He sounds like a very special young man."
"He was. He was my prince."
A smile lightened the severity of his grandmother's features, softening the lines and wrinkles.
"That's what his name meant. Shining prince. But while we made plans and dreamed of the future, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The war changed everything."
Holland sucked in a breath, her eyes filling with tears. Max watched her, charmed by her response as much as he was by the sight of her sitting on the floor sniffling after she'd read the letters. Holland had a huge heart, one she should probably protect more, but at the moment, he was glad that she didn't, because it distracted him from yet another family scandal hidden by the years that had passed since.
"The Japanese population was concentrated mostly out west. But everyone knew about Aki and his father working for us, and the officials came and took them away. The camps in the Midwest weren't ready yet, so they sent them all the way from Virginia to California. That morning Aki was there with me, and the next moment, he was gone. I didn't get a letter from him that day. I never heard from him again."
Max heard Sally sniffle and glanced at her to see her wiping away tears. Holland's eyes glittered but she didn't let them fall. Her response touched him. Made her real. Vulnerable. Lured him in a way most women her age didn't because they were all about games and manipulation. "I always thought you and Granddad were happy together."
Nan pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her blouse and dabbed at her eyes. That done, she lifted her head and gave him a steady stare.
"Oh, Max. We were as happy as we could be with one another. My father… He caught me writing a letter to Aki after he was taken. He was horrified and told my mother I was to be married off as quickly as possible. He said it was to prevent the shame of my relationship with Aki from being known, but I knew it had far more to do with the business deal my father attempted to make with the Banes. I begged for news of Aki because my father had political connections in California. He refused to help me. But the next day, he came to me and said Aki had been killed in an accident at the camp not long after his arrival.
"I was so despondent I didn't care what happened to me after that. The marriage arrangements were made without my input. I stood there in silence while the justice married us. I don't believe I actually said 'I do,'" his grandmother said, her tone holding a puzzled note. "But it was done, and I started a new life with Leland."
Max met Holland's gaze, recognizing the softness in her eyes as a combination of pity and empathy and heartbreak for his grandmother.
"Max, it's no secret that your grandfather and I… struggled. He was photographed the world over with beautiful women, but we came from an era when divorce wasn't accepted like it is today."
"You wanted a divorce?" Max asked.
"No. At least, not at first. I tried, Max. Truly, I did. But when I found out about your grandfather's indiscretions, I thought of Aki and the love we shared. And I wondered… did my father lie about Aki's death?"
Nan turned her head to look at Holland. "Wouldn't you wonder, my dear? Do you think my daddy lied?"
Max watched as Holland struggled to form a response. She glanced at him, her teary gaze saying all the words she couldn't.
"I'm not… Oh, Violet, I don't know. Maybe… Maybe we could find out?"
"Could we?" Nan asked.
"What?" Max stared at Holland, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"It's a simple search. Maybe we could find records of Akihiro's presence in one of the camps? Or of the life he had afterward if…? There has to be records. The internet holds a lot of answers."
"You know how to do that, dear? Could you?"
"No. Nan… this is a bad idea. The letters were sweet but it's over. That life is over."
"Maximilian, I just want to know what happened to him."
"What good can come from it? And if the press somehow found out you were looking for some long-lost lover?"
"Max," Holland said, her tone shocked.
"No," he continued, ignoring all their looks and shocked expressions. "All of my life there has been one scandal after another. Why would you cause another one now?"
"It's a simple search," Holland said.
"I don't want her getting any more upset about this than she already is. We shouldn't have read the letters. Shouldn't have brought them to her attention," he said, shoving himself to his feet because he couldn't sit there with all three women looking at him like he was the one who'd imprisoned Akihiro all those years ago.
"Max, I may have forgotten where I hid the letters because of moving them so many times, but I've never forgotten them or Akihiro. After my father caught me writing to Aki, he searched my room from top to bottom and destroyed nearly all of them because I hadn't hidden them well enough. As soon as he left my room, I took the ones I had left and swore he'd never find them. Then I married, and I was terrified Leland would do the same. But you can't destroy love. Not when it's real. And nothing my father did or said ever changed how I felt about Aki."
Max stalked across the room to stand at the windows. He stared out at the water, wishing he was on a boat floating somewhere out there where scandals and secrets and greed weren't a reality. "Nan, you were teenagers. What you felt—both of you— it was more than likely hormones."
"Said like a man who has never been in love," Nan said, her tone thick with accusation and far too much awareness. "I know the difference between love and infatuation, Maximilian. And after all of these years, I want to know what happened. I have to know. That's actually the reason I hired Holland. Your father and uncle control my estate and would never condone my hiring someone to search for the truth. The money from the silver—gifts your cheating grandfather bought from his mistress to aid her life in Paris and brought home to me so I could be thankful for them, will go far to pay the fees."
"You can't be serious. That's what all of this is about?"
Nan lifted her chin, staring at him as only a woman with her age and wealth and determination could.
"It is. And until such time as I can afford to hire that professional, Holland can help me. She knows what it is like to lose the man she loved. You'll help me, won't you, my dear?"
Max turned in time to see Holland split her attention between his grandmother and him, and Max silently willed Holland to refuse.
"I-I… I'll do what I can."
"Thank you, Holland. Max? You'll help her?"
Max bit back the comment he want
ed to say and settled for a hard twist of his head. "No way. You're on your own with this," he said as he stalked out of the room.
Minutes later he stood in his grandfather's study staring unseeingly at the contract he'd brought home with him earlier from the last round of negotiations, aware of the exact moment Holland entered.
What was it about her? Available and some not-so-available women tended to throw themselves when the Bane name was involved, but Holland wasn't throwing herself at him. If anything, it was the opposite. Especially since she'd agreed to the very thing he didn't want her to do.
"You hurt her, you know. Walking out like that."
He grimaced at the guilt he felt because he'd seen his grandmother's face as he'd left the room and knew Holland was right. "Giving her those letters was a mistake."
"How can you say that? Did you see her face when she realized what they were? Her reaction? Besides, from the sound of it, she'd already made her up mind to search for him and come up with a plan to make it happen."
Maybe that was true, but finding the letters had definitely added another layer of incentive where his grandmother was concerned. Then there was the debate of whether or not to inform his father and uncle. What would they say if they knew of their mother's plans?
Holland gripped his arm, urging him to face her. She stared up at him with her soulful brown eyes, her gaze searching his face.
He did his own bit of looking, learning the feminine angles and planes. The curve of her lips and cheekbones. Her features weren't perfect by society's standards, but to him they formed a face and a body that called to him as a man. "What good can come of finding him?"
"Everything."
"I don't agree."
"Max, you do remember that you're the one who wanted to take the letters to Violet, right?"
She had to point that out? "Regrettably."
"No, no regrets. Did you see her? She lit up the room when she talked about him. That kind of love is priceless."
"All the more reason to protect her from getting hurt again. At least now she can believe he's alive or dead or whatever she wants to believe, but once she knows for sure one way or the other, what then?"