by John Wilson
“I don’t know. Is it possible to love two people? He loved my grandmother very much and built a wonderful life for his family in Canada. Maybe he assumed that Maria had done the same in Spain and convinced himself that she had forgotten him.”
“She never did.” Laia smiled sadly. “When Barcelona fell, she fled with tens of thousands of other refugees to the camps in France. When the Nazi’s invaded France, she went into hiding. She told me once that she did some work for the Resistance. After the war, she came back. They were hard times, but her parents had managed to keep the house, and she moved in with them. She lived there the rest of her life.”
“She never married?”
“That’s something I’ve thought about a lot,” Laia said. “My grandmother was Maria’s only child and she was born out of wedlock. That is a serious difficulty in Catholic Spain, but the times were chaotic and there were many young widows with children after the war.”
I nodded, thinking about how hard life must have been for Maria and the other refugees in those days. But Laia hadn’t finished telling me things.
“My grandmother was born during the war in France.”
“It must have been tough with a new baby.” Then a thought exploded in my mind. “When was your grandmother born?”
“I know what you are wondering, but your grandfather is not my great-grandfather. We’re not related. My grandmother was born in 1944, near the end of the war.”
I laughed. “At Grandfather’s will reading, my five cousins and I discovered that we had a seventh cousin that no one knew about. I don’t think I could handle finding out we were related, even though it would be like half cousins, a bunch removed.”
“You don’t want to be related to me?” Laia asked with a mischievous grin.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said.
“Of course,” Laia went on, her smile broadening, “there were no paper records during the war. We only have Maria’s word that my grandmother was born in 1944 and not 1939.”
“Stop teasing me,” I said, returning her smile. “I don’t want to be your relative. I’d rather be your…friend.”
I felt my face burning as I realized what I’d just said. “I mean…” I began, but Laia silenced me with a gentle touch on my cheek.
“I would like us to be friends as well,” she said. “How long are you going to stay in Spain?”
“I have a ticket back in a couple of weeks.”
“That gives us time, and you have got used to our scooters.” Laia laughed and I grinned back stupidly. “We can visit my grandmother and I can show you Barcelona. Maybe we can even visit our famous beaches.”
My heart was pounding. I was happier than I had ever been. I had discovered Grandfather’s past and retraced his footsteps. Like him, I had found an amazing girl in Barcelona. Unlike him, I wasn’t going to let her go.
“That would be fantastic,” I said through a smile that hurt my cheeks. “I would love to discover Barcelona and visit some beaches. I know some people at the Hotel Miramar in Lloret de Mar. I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Eric Walters for the idea and for his drive in getting six other writers heading in the same direction; to Andrew Wooldridge for seeing the potential in the idea and providing the platform for us to tell our stories; and to Sarah Harvey for making sure our stories mesh and that we’re all on the same page.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, JOHN WILSON grew up on the Isle of Skye and outside Glasgow without the slightest idea that he would ever write books. John is addicted to history and firmly believes that the past must have been just as exciting, confusing and complex to those who lived through it as our world is to us. Every one of his twenty-five novels and nine nonfiction books for kids, teens and adults deals with the past. John lives in Lantzville, British Columbia. For more information, visit www.johnwilsonauthor.com.
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