by Jo Watson
“Darcy,” he whispered, softly.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“She loved that stupid bloody horse,” he said, with a small smile. “It was the dumbest mare I’d ever met!” He let out a small laugh.
I caught Mike’s eye and we shared a tiny smile.
Abe stopped laughing and looked very serious again. “When did Edith pass?” he asked.
“The twenty-fifth of June, last year,” Mike said.
Abe nodded. “I felt her go,” he said softly, quietly, almost to himself.
I felt a breeze at the back of my neck and I turned around and looked behind me. The window was closed.
We sat in silence for a while as Abe ran his fingers over the handwriting on the envelope, over and over again.
“I think I’ll have that tea, after all.” He stood up and slowly walked out of the room.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I whispered to Mike.
Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. Would you be okay?”
“No,” I replied. “Should we be worried about him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
We sat and waited for what felt like hours as the kettle boiled. Finally, he came back in holding a cup of tea in one hand and a small box in the other. He passed me the small box and sat down with his tea.
I looked at the box in my hands and slowly took the lid off. When I saw what was inside, the tears started streaming down my face. I reached in and pulled the pile of letters out. He’d kept all her letters, too, and they looked just as worn as hers did, as if they’d also endured a lifetime of reading and rereading. Something at the bottom of the box caught my eye. It was a photo. I pulled it out and found myself looking into Edith’s face—her laughing, happy, joyful face.
“It’s the only photo we have of ourselves together,” he said softly. “My cousin took it for us, and he had to get it printed in secret, so no one would ever see it.”
I clutched the photo between my fingers and bit my lip hard, to stop my tears turning into sobs.
“Oh, don’t cry, young lady. There is nothing to cry about. What you’re looking at, there, is the happiest day of my life,” he said.
I held the picture out for Mike. He took it and I could feel his emotions from where I was sitting.
“That was taken in the summer of 1948. God, I remember that summer as if it were yesterday. I can still smell the sea air and hear the screech of the cicada beetles in my ears. They make everything so loud and alive. It was one of those sticky, humid summers, when all the ladies complained that their hair was always ruined.” He smiled. “Edith used to hate what the humidity did to her hair, the way it curled up like it did. I thought she looked like a doll, though. Those big curls and green eyes, and she used to get these freckles, like a spray of stars across her nose . . .” He chuckled softly to himself. “She hated them. But, to me, she was the loveliest girl I’d ever seen in my life, and I just knew, from the moment I laid eyes on her, that I was going to love her. There was nothing not to love about her. But . . . the country didn’t want us to love each other, that’s the truth.” He got quiet and thoughtful for a while. “I . . . I haven’t spoken about any of this for a very, very long time.”
“When did you last speak to Edith?” I heard myself asking.
He smiled at me—a strange, faraway smile. “Just last night. I speak to her every night, and, sometimes, if I’m lucky, she visits me in my dreams. But that hasn’t happened in a while.”
I smiled back at him and our eyes locked for a while; that spark that she had painted all those years ago was still there, but it was dimmer.
“Last time I saw and spoke to her was on the seventh of September, 1949. We were at the cove together. We used to go there sometimes, because no one else did. There was an old town legend about the cove being haunted by the ghost of a pirate, or something. Everyone was too afraid to go there, except us.” He smiled again and looked thoughtful. “Edith used to say we were fools to go there! ‘Fools in love,’ she used to say. That was a quote from her favorite book.”
“Pride and Prejudice,” I added.
He nodded. “ ‘Fools in love forever,’ she would say . . . How wrong she was. Her father caught us there together. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw us. There was so much hatred in his eyes, and disgust. As if he had seen the most disgusting thing and he was going to be sick.” He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to remember everything. “He screamed at us. Told us he would have me arrested for this. ‘You’re going to rot in jail, boy,’ he said. And then he started dragging Edith away. I tried to stop him, but Edith begged me not to. She begged me. She told me to run.” Abe stopped talking, but kept his eyes shut, as if he was at that moment in time.
I sat and watched him, and waited for him to continue telling the story.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “So, I did. I ran.”
“Did you ever see her again, after that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I got a letter from her, after that, but I knew she hadn’t written it. As soon as I read those words, I knew her father had forced her to write it.” He stopped talking and looked down at his hands in his lap. He was wringing them now. “That photo was the happiest moment in my life, and that letter I got from her was the saddest and most terrifying. I knew how much trouble she was in. I realized just how much me loving her put her in danger. We’d always known it was dangerous to love each other, but, until I saw it, I guess a part of me didn’t want to believe it. And that’s when I left town. I left without saying goodbye to her, because I knew that, if I saw her again, I wouldn’t be able to go. I needed to remember her as I’d seen her for the last time, if I was going to be able to go; I needed to remember her father dragging her off by her hair. I left to keep her safe—to keep myself safe, even . . . Our love was a crime. She could have gone to jail. Her entire life could have been ruined. So, I came here on a ship. I was seasick the whole time, but it still felt better than being lovesick.”
“She never knew you were here,” I said softly. “Why didn’t you tell her where you were?”
“I wanted to keep her safe. I was worried what her father might do to her. He was a very angry, controlling man, even under normal circumstances. Edith was terrified of him.”
“And you never saw her again?” I asked.
He smiled again, but this time it was completely forced. I could see he was struggling with his emotions. Struggling to keep them all contained. “I did go back to Willow Bay, years and years later. I went back to the house and . . . I saw her.”
“You did?” Mike asked.
He nodded and looked distant. “She was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.” He paused for the longest time. “Some women really do glow when they’re pregnant.”
“Oh God.” I held my chest, as my heart ached. “She didn’t love Ian like she loved you, though—she didn’t. She says so in the letters,” I said to him.
He looked down at the letter in his hands and smiled. “I know that now. Thank you.”
I gasped for air and then couldn’t fight it anymore—I started crying, proper tears. Mike took my hand and squeezed it tighter than I’ve ever been squeezed before.
“It could never have lasted,” Abe said thoughtfully. “Our love was a crime. We loved each other in the wrong time and place. It could never have been, unless we ran away and built a house in the middle of a forest somewhere.” He smiled a little. “We used to talk about that sometimes. Try and imagine what our lives would be like if we could be together. Towards the end, it was getting so hard to see each other. Sometimes, we wouldn’t see each other for a whole month. Our only communication was the letters we wrote. But even getting the letters to each other was becoming harder and harder. We would write them and leave them in secret hiding spots, hoping that the other person would be able to get to it. It was the only way we could communicate with each other.” Abe looked
at the two of us. “Are you married?” he asked.
I was crying too much to answer.
“No.” Mike spoke for us.
“If you meet someone that you truly love, don’t ever let them go. No matter what,” Abe said to us. “Fight for it. Fight as hard as you can. We tried to fight for it, but it wasn’t a battle we were ever going to win. But at least we fought.” He paused and looked forlorn for a while. “I didn’t fight for my wife,” he said quietly, almost under his breath. “I never loved her the way I should have; I couldn’t love her like that. She divorced me and I didn’t fight for her. It’s for the best, though; she found someone who really loves her, like I loved Edith . . . Everyone deserves to be loved like that. Even if it’s only for a short time.”
Then his demeanor changed a little and he looked back at the pile of letters. “Looks like I have some reading to do. And I don’t have all the time in the world to do it.” He started arranging the letters on the table, with his shaking hands.
“Aren’t you going to ask him?” Mike whispered to me.
I shook my head pointedly.
He looked confused. “Ask him,” he urged, under his breath. “Ask him about your book.”
I shook my head and jumped out of my seat. “We are going to go now, Abe. So you can read these letters in peace.”
“Wait!” Mike jumped up, too. “There’s something we want to ask you—”
“No, it’s nothing.” I grabbed Mike by the arm and squeezed it hard. “It’s fine.” I looked him in the eye and tried frantically to convey what I was feeling.
Mike’s mouth fell open and he gaped a few times, like a fish out of water.
“We really must be going, but I am so glad we managed to get these to you,” I said to Abe, who wasn’t even looking at us now; he was too busy with the letters.
I pulled Mike towards the door. “It was nice meeting you,” I said to Abe, as we started to leave.
“Thank you for coming all this way and bringing them to me,” he called after us.
I turned and smiled at him. “They belong to you.” I opened the door and pulled Mike out of the small house, and then started running towards the park in front of me.
CHAPTER 73
I ran up to a bench and sat down on it. I lowered my head and held it in my hands, trying to catch my breath.
“Why did you do that?” Mike rushed up to me and sat down. “Why didn’t you ask his permission, like we spoke about? Why didn’t you tell him about the book and the story and what you’re writing—?”
“I can’t do it!” I swung around and cut him off.
“What?” he asked.
“This. Any of this. All of this!” That familiar feeling rose inside me again. I felt breathless. I looked around for something to steady myself on and grabbed hold of the sides of the bench.
“Are you okay?” Mike asked quietly.
I shook my head. I tried to count to ten in my head. I always did this when I felt the anxiety taking hold of me. But it wasn’t just the anxiety, this time; it was also the sadness. I could feel the tears, like buckets building up behind my eyeballs, climbing up my throat, just waiting for one more thing to tip me over the edge so they could all come out.
“Becca, please tell me you’re okay?” Mike’s arm was around me now.
That’s what tipped me over the edge: his genuine care and concern for me. The sobs came and they shook my body. “No. No!” I finally managed, through the messy crying. “I’m not okay. This is not okay.”
“Talk to me,” Mike said gently.
“I can’t write this. This is not mine to write. This is not just some story with characters and a plot twist in it. These are real people, and they are in pain. Did you see how much he loved her—loves her? He still loves her, after all these years. After an entire lifetime has passed without her, he still loves her.” I shook my head, hard. “I just can’t do this. This isn’t my story to tell, and I know you think your grandmother told you to tell it, and Emelia and Ash feel the same way, but I don’t think she meant this. I think the fact that we found those letters, and they’ve finally—after all these decades—found their way back to Abe, means she gets to tell it to the one person who is meant to hear it.”
I stood up and walked over to the huge oak tree in front of me and put my hands on it and tried to take another deep breath. I heard Mike stand up behind me and walk over. I turned around before he reached me and leaned my back against the tree.
“I can’t believe I even thought of doing this,” I whispered to him. “How did I become so desperate that I thought I could steal someone else’s story and pass it off as my own?” I looked up at Mike. “I have done some stupid things in my life, but this one . . . this one . . .” Down at my feet, a small beetle was scuttling over the blades of grass, and I watched him as he went about his business, totally oblivious to what I was going through.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” I looked up at Mike when the beetle had walked around the back of the tree and disappeared. “I’m sorry I dragged you halfway across the world and wreaked havoc in your town and . . . well, I’m just sorry,” I said.
He smiled at me sympathetically. “I’m not sorry. Look what we just did.” He looked back at Abe’s house, and I did, too.
“Do you think he’s reading them now?” I asked, feeling a little calmer.
“I hope so.” Mike came and rested next to me, with his back against the same tree.
I thought about the willow tree and what was etched in it, and I felt like Mike and I were etching our own story in this tree together, without even knowing it.
We stayed there in silence like that, our shoulders touching. I synced my breathing to his and my body started to relax even more.
“So, what are you going to do about your book?” he asked, gently nudging me with his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just know what I can’t do.” I took a deep breath; the air here smelled different from the air I was used to. It seemed sweeter, as if it were laced with some exotic flower. “I guess I’ll call my agent and just tell her I don’t have a book,” I said calmly. “She’ll call my publisher, who will freak. The bookstores will be told that the book is not coming, my readers will be told that there is no second book. My career as an author will be over. I’ll take on a small job somewhere and sell my car and all that other crap I don’t need, and I’ll start trying to pay back the advance, and . . .” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I know that the Willow Bay Herald would probably jump to have a writer of such caliber working for them,” he said, and I laughed through my tears and then leaned my head on his shoulder.
“You think?” I asked, my cheek resting against the muscles in his arm.
I felt him nod. “Yeah, I do think.”
“And where would I live?” I asked. “The people of Willow’s Eco Estate will not have me.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to chuckle slightly. “No, they definitely won’t.”
We were silent for a while again and then Mike put his hand on my cheek. “You sure you don’t want to do this? It’s not too late to go and ask him. We are right here.”
I pulled my head away and shook it. “This is the right thing to do.” I pushed myself away from the tree and then started wiping the tears from my cheeks. I straightened my clothes and pushed the loose strands of hair that were hanging in my face behind my ears. I put on a small, brave smile when I was done.
“I’m proud of you,” Mike said, out of the blue.
“You are?” I asked.
He nodded and smiled. “And, you know, I won’t think anything less of you if you’re not Becca Thorne, international bestseller. In fact, I think I might think more of you . . . just like this.”
I looked down at myself. “Just like this?” I asked.
He took a step closer to me. “Exactly like this.”
I looked up at the tree as a pigeon flew into it and cooed. I smiled to myself; it looked exactl
y like the birds from the eco estate. Just like this. I sighed, but it wasn’t a pained, torturous sigh. It was the sigh of a person letting go. There was relief in that sigh. Acceptance. And, you know what? For the first time since starting this journey, I also kind of liked myself, just the way I was. I’d finally done the right thing. The only thing.
“What now?” Mike asked. “Do we go back home?”
I put my hands in my pockets and looked at the ground again. “No,” I finally looked up and said. “There is another good thing I can still do today.” I pulled the small piece of paper out of my wallet.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“An address.” I held it up for him to see.
“Whose address?” he asked.
I looked down at it and stroked the piece of paper in my hands. “My story might end here, but I know of another story that doesn’t have to,” I said, walking back towards the road.
CHAPTER 74
I rang the doorbell with shaking fingers. I had no idea what I was going to find on the inside, or whether the people on the inside would even want to see me. I stared at the mezuzah next to the front door while I waited.
“I’m not sure about this,” Mike said, one last time, in my ear. He’d been saying it for the last twenty minutes, in the taxi, as we’d driven here.
“I’m not sure either,” I whispered back, “but we have to do it.” As I said that, the door opened and a teenage girl stood there.
“What?” she asked in a snappy tone.
“Hi. I . . . I . . . My name is Becca Thorne and this is Mike Wooldridge. We’ve come from South Africa and we wanted to know if your dad was in?”
“My dad?”
“Well, sorry, I’m just making an assumption that he is, but I’m looking for Pierre Van der Merwe,” I said quickly.
The girl looked at me and put her hand on her hip. “Yeah. That’s my dad,” she said slightly venomously, and then rolled her eyes.
“Who’s at the door?” I heard a man’s voice.