by Asha Lemmie
“Auntie Nori, look,” she exclaimed. “I can play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’!”
Nori beamed at her. That incoherent key bashing could in no way be called Mozart.
“That’s lovely.”
“And Noah says he will teach me Butthoven.”
Nori bit back a laugh. “I’m sure he will.”
Noah’s eyes met hers, and they exchanged a rueful glance.
“Charlotte,” Nori said, without looking away, “I think it’s time for bed.”
The girl frowned. “Must I?”
“Yes. Mummy went to bed hours ago and you should too.”
Charlotte sighed, but got up to do as she was bid. She was levelheaded and well-behaved, traits Nori assumed she must have gotten from her father.
Nori bent down to kiss her on both cheeks. “Good night, sweet girl.”
After Charlotte had gone, Nori was acutely aware of her proximity to Noah. She had never been alone with him before.
He smiled shyly at her. “Do you . . . maybe want to sit?”
Part of her did. “No, thank you. I should be going.”
“I’m teaching Charlotte Mozart’s twelve variations,” he said.
“Yes, I know.”
She turned to leave. She didn’t want to be rude, but she knew better than to start down this road.
“You’re a musician, aren’t you?”
Nori froze in her tracks. She turned back around to look into his bright face. “What?”
Noah grinned. “You aren’t new to any of this. I can tell. And you don’t just look at the music I give the girls, you read it. I hear you humming the melody.”
She shrugged, flushing. “I dabbled. Years ago.”
“Lady Alice says—”
Alice. Of course she couldn’t stop herself from meddling.
“I really have to go,” she said, because this conversation only led one place. And she wasn’t going to talk about her brother with this boy. Not ever.
She left before he’d had a chance to drop his smile.
* * *
Nori woke in the night to the sound of a bloodcurdling scream. It was like a banshee.
She shot up and threw a robe over her nakedness. She ran down the hall to Alice’s bedroom, but Charlotte had gotten there first.
She was clutching her stuffed animal to her chest and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. With a horrible sinking feeling, Nori realized that Alice hadn’t been the one who had screamed.
It was Charlotte.
And when Nori saw why, a scream rose in her own throat and froze there in horror.
Alice was on the floor, half tangled in the sheets. It was clear that she had tried to stand but had become caught and fallen.
Her white nightgown was stained, terribly stained, with bloody water. And there, lying in the mess of sheets, was something . . . solid.
Nori snatched up Charlotte and shoved the little girl’s face into her chest. But it was too late. She had already seen.
“Bess!” Nori cried. “Noah! Someone, please! Help, please!”
Alice raised her head off the floor. Her skin was green. There were tears streaming down her lovely face.
“It’s too late,” she whispered. “It’s too late. He’s already gone.”
* * *
Nobody knew why. The doctor said that it was rare this late, but that it happened, and there were no answers.
“He never breathed,” he said, as if that was supposed to bring comfort.
Alice was a ghost, pale and silent. She slept in Nori’s bed because she couldn’t bear to be in her own room. She stayed there all day, for weeks, until the October leaves started to fall.
Nori knew the bleak, endless despair that she was caught in. There were no words.
All she could do was sit by the bed and wait for Alice to be ready.
George came as soon as the news reached him, but ultimately, there was nothing he could say. They buried the half-formed body of Alice’s son in the garden, underneath an ancient oak tree, in a small ceremony presided over by a local priest. Alice refused to attend.
George took the girls back to London with him afterwards, leaving Alice in the care of Bess and Nori. Charlotte had worn the same shell-shocked look on her face since that night, and Matilda’s screaming for her mother could be heard even as the car pulled away.
Surprisingly, Noah had refused to leave.
“I’ll stay with Lady Alice,” he said simply. “And with you.”
Nori did not have the energy to ask what use a music teacher, and a second-rate one at that, would be in a situation like this. It was all she could do to keep her beloved friend from starving to death.
Bess brought hot water and soap to the side of the bed every day, and sometimes between the two of them they could coax Alice to sit up so that they could wash her and change her into a fresh nightgown.
Nori cooked all of Alice’s favorite dishes in a vain attempt to get her to eat more than a few bites.
Noah was mostly useless, but he’d stand in the doorway and sing in a low, clear voice. Absurdly, Nori felt better having him here, though she’d never admit it.
Bess pulled her aside one morning. “She can’t go on like this,” she said simply. “It’s been months.”
Nori hesitated. “We can’t force her.”
Bess blinked at her. She was a tan, sturdy girl with freckles and wild strawberry-blonde hair.
“I can’t, certainly,” Bess corrected her. “But begging your pardon, miss, she listens to you.”
Nori felt the pit of her stomach fall out. She groaned. She had been here before, on the other side of the door. Mired in darkness. Now it was her turn to pull someone back to the light.
“I’ll tell her to get up,” she said.
Bess nodded and gestured to the closed bedroom door. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Nori took a deep breath and opened the door to the bedroom. The shutters were drawn, and it was so dark that she almost stumbled.
She crept to the bed slowly.
“Alice,” she whispered.
There was no response. The figure in the bed did not even stir.
“Alice,” she tried again, more forcefully this time.
Still nothing.
Nori knelt down so that the two of them were at eye level. “Alice,” she said, “it’s time to get up now.”
Alice’s lips moved, but she did not speak.
Nori tried again. “We have to go back to London. The summer is over. You have duties. Your husband has called, again, to say that the girls are asking for you. It’s time to go home.”
Alice’s face was full of hatred. “Go,” she hissed, with quiet fury.
“I can’t go,” Nori said gently. “I’m so very sorry. But today is the last day of this, my dear. You have to get up.”
Alice looked into her eyes. “Go away, Nori. Everything was fine before you came here. Just go away.”
Nori ignored the twinge of agony she felt. It was not the first time she had thought this herself, but there was no time now for self-pity.
“It makes no difference now,” she said evenly. “Horrible things happen and we will never know why. You must bear the injustice of it, you must swallow it down like a bitter pill and carry on. You must get up.”
“I demand to know why!” Alice shrieked. She bolted up. “Why take him?” she raged. “I want to know why, damn it. I want to know why.”
“God’s will,” Nori said, and it cost her a great deal to say it.
Alice folded over and sobbed. “It’s my fault,” she moaned. “It’s my fault. I have a sin, I have a horrible sin. I was sixteen. In Paris, I . . . I was so afraid. I was so afraid, Nori. They never would’ve let me come home if they’d found out I’d gotten pregnant. It would’ve been the en
d of me. And I had nobody. I was alone.”
Nori took in this latest revelation without blinking. “That’s not a sin. And even if it were, it is between you and Him. He wouldn’t punish anyone else.”
It was so eerie to say these words out loud. She wondered who she was really speaking to.
Alice let out a heartrending cry. “I’m supposed to be past my troubles.”
“You are, Alice. You have recovered from everything that’s happened. And you are so young, and you have the girls already. You will have other babies. I promise you.”
Nori held out her hands. After a moment, Alice took them, and the two women rose to their feet.
Alice swallowed down an endless stream of tears. “But I wanted this baby.”
Nori didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
The next morning, they left for London.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BUT HOME IS NOWHERE
London, England
December 1964
By winter the mood had lightened. Alice was restored to her usual good cheer and had thrown herself wholeheartedly into planning for the holiday season. Nori knew it was a front, but she of all people knew how necessary it was to have distractions. She let it be.
Nori withdrew as much as she could. There was no question at all of her attending any more parties.
Besides, she was preoccupied. Avoiding Noah was growing increasingly difficult. His gazes grew longer and more heated. She began finding little gifts of silk or paper flowers in her room. There were poems and candies, ribbons and tiny painted figurines.
She ignored them all. But she knew that eventually she would have to face him.
He caught her on the back stairs one morning before breakfast.
“Do move,” she said, politely enough. “I’m expected.”
“Have you gotten my gifts?”
Nori cheated her gaze to the side. “I have.”
“And? They don’t please you?” he asked, in a tone so earnest that it made her heart ache.
“It’s not that. They’re very pretty.”
“I read a book about origami,” he said, his cheeks rosy. “And I thought you would like it. I hoped it would remind you of home.”
My God. You poor, sweet fool.
“Mr. Rowe, it is not appropriate for you to be sending me gifts.”
The boy before her shifted awkwardly, and she was reminded of just how young he was. She wondered if she was the first girl he’d ever set his heart on.
“I know I’m beneath your station,” he mumbled. “And I don’t mean to offend. It’s just I . . . I think you’re beautiful.”
She felt a warm tingle in her spine.
“You’re not beneath me,” she said clearly. “No one is beneath me. Trust me. But I am a foreigner, and much older than you.”
Noah smiled and revealed perfectly white, straight teeth.
“Hardly. Barely five years.”
She shook her head. “You are a charming young man. I am sure that there are many lovely English girls that would love to receive gifts from you.”
He frowned at her. “But I don’t want to get them gifts. I got them for you.”
Nori hesitated. She could twist herself in knots all day trying not to hurt him. But she needed to put an end to this.
“I can’t give you what you want, Noah.”
He took a step closer to her, and she caught the scent of warm cedar and freshly cut grass.
“And what do you think I want?”
“I imagine you want what all men want.”
He paused.
“Is that what you think of me?” he asked, and if she didn’t know better, she would have said he sounded disappointed . . . but in her, not in himself.
Instantly, she was awash with guilt. “I didn’t mean—”
“You wouldn’t think that if you knew me.”
“But I don’t know you! And you don’t know me! We’ve barely spoken!”
Noah scratched his chin. “Well, that is true.”
“So now you see,” she said hopefully, “why this must come to an end.”
He grinned at her. “Ten minutes.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Ten minutes. Spend ten minutes with me every evening for the next month. And then if you want me to leave you be, I will.”
She had all the power here. One word to Alice and he would be sent packing straight back to Cornwall.
“Why should I say yes?”
“You’re asking the wrong question. Why should you say no? What are you afraid of?”
She was immediately on the defensive. “I’m not afraid.”
Noah clapped his hands. “Good. So I’ll see you tonight.”
“B-but . . .”
“The library. Nobody ever goes in there. Say, ten o’clock?”
She stared at him, at a loss for words. He took that as an assent, winked at her, and walked away.
You stupid girl.
Look what you’ve done.
* * *
He was right about the library. Though it was clean, it still looked brand-new. It was not a lived-in room.
Like most things in Alice’s house, it was probably just for show.
Noah was seated in a plush high-backed armchair, with his hands folded across his lap. Though he had the face of a boy, she could see the ripple of his muscles underneath his shirt. He was sure with his hands, and she did not doubt that he was used to an honest day’s work.
He smiled at her. “You came.”
She sat across from him and crossed her ankles. “Ten minutes.”
He nodded. “Best get started, then. Where were you born?”
Nori shifted slightly. “I don’t know.”
He frowned, and she was immediately irritated that he’d managed to touch, with such a simple question, on how utterly dysfunctional her life had always been.
“How do you not know?” he asked softly, and his voice was free of judgment.
“My mother had me at home. There’s no record of it. We lived in an apartment . . . for a while. But I didn’t ask her. And then she left, and I was raised by my grandmother in Kyoto.”
Noah nodded. “I’ve heard gossip, of course. That you’re . . . that you’re, well . . .”
“A bastard,” Nori said clearly. “Yes. I am.”
Noah flushed. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“And you haven’t. It’s what I am.”
He looked unconvinced but decided to let it go. “And did you like Kyoto?”
She looked at her hands. “I didn’t see much of it from the attic.”
He looked at her, dumbstruck. “What? They kept you in the attic?”
“They did.”
“They can’t do that!” he burst. “You can’t keep a child in the attic.”
She laughed. “They can and they did.”
He went very pale. “But why? Surely you weren’t the only bastard in Japan.”
She showed him her arms. His eyes fell on the smooth skin, tanned to a coconut brown from all her time in the sun.
“Because of this,” she said simply.
“Your skin?”
“Yes.”
Noah looked at her with wide blue eyes. “But there’s nothing wrong with it.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “My grandmother thought differently. She deemed it a mark of inferiority, a sign to the world that I had foreign, traitorous blood.”
“But you don’t?” he pressed. “You don’t give what she said any credence, do you?”
She moved to deny it, but the split second of hesitation gave her away. Before she could react, Noah was out of his chair and kneeling in front of her.
He ran his pale fingers over her arm, down t
o her hand. He flipped her palm over and pressed it against his. He radiated warmth, so much that it was almost uncomfortable.
“It was the first thing about you I noticed,” he confessed. “Smooth as a pearl, such a wonderful color.”
He looked into her shocked face.
“I think it’s beautiful.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and she took back her hand. He raised his face to hers, and she pulled away, stumbling out of her chair like it had been set on fire.
“And now your time is up.”
She rushed out of the room, but even as she lay in bed that night, she could do nothing to still the suddenly frantic beating of her heart.
* * *
Nori swore to herself that she would tell him nothing else about her past. During their nightly meetings, she sat in silence, with her face turned towards the wall like a stubborn child. But she always came. Her feet led her there every evening of their own accord.
Noah was not dissuaded by her silence. He was always ready with a small glass of wine for himself and a steaming mug of apple cider for her. He told her quite candidly that she did not have to stay if she didn’t want.
But she always did.
He did the talking. She tried to tune him out, but his voice was so charming, invoking an image of rolling green hills.
And so she listened.
He’d grown up in Cornwall, the youngest of four boys. His French mother was a drunk who died young and left him nothing but recipes for jams, which he’d tried and failed to re-create.
It was his way of trying to know her and of dealing with his anger at having never got the chance.
He made her laugh with his terrible French.
His father was a teacher who had died four years ago. His oldest brother had sold the family home, and they’d all been forced to fend for themselves.
“We never had much,” he confessed sheepishly. “And me being the youngest, I usually got leftovers. But there was lots of love.”
He told her how the nuns at school taught him to play the piano.