The Diary

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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF EILEEN GOUDGE

“Eileen Goudge writes like a house on fire, creating characters you come to love and hate to leave.” —Nora Roberts, #1
New York Times
–bestselling author

Woman in Red

“Once you start this wonderful book, you won't be able to put it down.” —Kristin Hannah,
New York Times
–bestselling author

“Beautifully intertwines … two stories, two generations …[Goudge's] characters are appealing both despite of and because of their problems.” —
Library Journal

“Eileen Goudge has crafted a beautiful tale of loss, redemption and hope.
Woman in Red
is a masterpiece.” —Barbara Delinsky,
New York Times
–bestselling author

Blessing in Disguise

“Powerful, juicy reading.” —
San Jose Mercury News

The Diary

“A lovely book, tender, poignant and touching. It was a joy to read.” —Debbie Macomber,
New York Times
–bestselling author

Garden of Lies

“A page-turner … with plenty of steamy sex.” —
New Woman

“Goes down like a cool drink on a hot day.” —
Self

One Last Dance

“Enlightening and entertaining.” —
The Plain Dealer

Such Devoted Sisters

“Double-dipped passion … in a glamorous, cut-throat world … Irresistible.” —
San Francisco Chronicle

Thorns of Truth

“Goudge's adroit handling of sex and love should keep her legion of fans well-sated.” —
Kirkus Reviews

Woman in Black

“This novel is the ultimate indulgence—dramatic, involving, and ringing with emotional truth.” —Susan Wiggs,
New York Times
–bestselling author

Woman in Blue

“Romance, both old and new, abounds. Fans of Goudge's previous books, romance readers, and lovers of family sagas will enjoy the plot, characters, and resolution.” —
Booklist

“A touching story with wide appeal.” —
Publishers Weekly

The Diary

Eileen Goudge

F
OR MY PARENTS
, J
IM AND
M
ARY
G
OUDGE
,

who never stopped holding hands

The life of every man is a diary in which

he means to write one story
,

and writes another
…

—
JAMES M
.
BARRIE

Preface

This novel was inspired by a true story from my parents' lives. The details shall remain under wraps so as not to spoil the ending. Here's what I can tell you: My father served in World War II. He and my mother met shortly after the war. She spotted him at a dance hall called the Coconut Grove and told her brother-in-law to go over and introduce himself—and, by the way, to be sure to mention that he had an attractive sister-in-law. My father took the bait, and they danced all night, by their own account. They went on to marry and have six children.

Before we came along, my father made a living doing caricatures at county fairs. He earned enough that way to make a down payment on their first home. But the realities of supporting such a large brood eventually forced him to take a more mundane route: After a brief stint selling Fuller brushes door to door, he became an insurance agent for State Farm. His creative side was fulfilled by buying and renovating old houses, which he turned into rental properties.

Their love story didn't become fully known to me and my siblings until later in our lives. We saw them only as Mom and Dad. My mom took care of the house and baked her own bread. My father arrived home from work each day carrying a briefcase. Through a secret cache of old photos and stories from friends and relatives, and even a few selected ones from my mother as she grew older and felt we could handle some of the less sanitized aspects of their marriage, we learned more about them as real people: their hopes and dreams, their disappointments, and most of all their undying passion for each other. When my father passed away, my mother told us she wasn't going to mourn him because she knew she would be joining him before long. Ten years later, she did just that. Today they're buried side by side in a cemetery in the seaside town they called home.

The story of Elizabeth and AJ is dedicated to my parents.

CHAPTER ONE

The diary was bound in maroon leather dulled with age, its gilt tooling worn away in spots. Sewn into the binding was a satin bookmarker, once red, now faded to the ashy pink of a dried, pressed rose. The diary seemed to carry the scent of dried roses as well, the merest hint, like the long-forgotten bundles of sachet the two daughters had been finding tucked in the backs of drawers throughout the house all this past week.

As Emily withdrew it from the cardboard carton she'd been rooting through, the small key inserted in its metal clasp fell to the dusty floorboards with a soft plink, disappearing into the gloaming of an attic crammed to the rafters and lit only by the errant rays of sunlight that had managed to slip in under the eaves. The clasp gave easily when she pried at it with her thumbnail, the worn cover falling back with a creak of arthritic spine to reveal an entry penned in handwriting so neatly rounded and girlish, it was a moment before she recognized it as their mother's.

She idly remarked to her sister, “I didn't know Mom kept a diary.”

“A diary? Hmmm,” Sarah murmured distractedly. She was kneeling on the floor beside Emily, her rear end resting on her sneakered heels, absorbed in sorting through another carton filled with odds and ends. “God, can you believe all this stuff? She must've saved every single card and letter, not to mention all our school report cards.” She plucked one from a crumpled manila envelope marked “Sarah.” “Oh, Lord. There's that D-plus I got in Mr. Grimaldi's class. All As and Bs except that one stupid D. Remember how mad Mom was? Not at me but at my teacher. She marched straight down there and told him that if a smart girl like me had practically flunked his class, it was because he didn't know how to teach. I was so embarrassed!” She smiled at the memory, eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

“How could I forget?” It hadn't been just that one incident. Their mother had been a tigress when it came to her children, questioning and sometimes berating anyone who dared criticize them when she viewed the criticism as unjust; making sure they got the best education; gently nudging Emily, the shier of the two, into the forefront whenever she appeared in danger of being overshadowed by her more outgoing sister. For Elizabeth, husband and children had always come first.

“I wonder if the old man ever recovered,” said Sarah, chuckling softly as she shook her head.

Emily's attention was drawn back to the diary, which had fallen open to about the midway point. She struggled to make out their mother's neat schoolgirl's handwriting in the dim light. Her pulse quickened as a passage jumped out at her. She called urgently to her sister, “Sarah, come quick. You have to see this!”

Sarah crab-walked over to have a look, pushing a scrap of blond hair behind one ear as she leaned to peer over Emily's shoulder. After a moment, she exclaimed softly, “Wow. Looks like this diary wasn't the only secret she kept.” She looked up at her sister, her eyes wide and her normally animated face slack with puzzlement. “What do you make of it?”

Sarah was the rounder of the two, anchored to the earth in a way that made her seem sensible and dependable, which she was. Emily, the more excitable one, was built like a rocket poised for lift-off. Sarah had their father's fair hair and blue eyes, while Emily favored their mother: tall and slim-hipped, with dark hair that grew to a widow's peak on her forehead like the point on one of the heart-shaped construction-paper cutouts she'd been unearthing from cardboard cartons all day—various Valentine's Day projects made by her and her sister through the years.

Emily shook her head, equally bewildered. Then a new, troubling thought occurred to her. “Do you think Dad knew?”

Their father had passed away the year before. His ashes were in an urn on the fireplace mantel downstairs, where their mother had been keeping them while purportedly trying to decide where they ought to be scattered.

“Maybe it was before they were a couple,” said Sarah.

“No. Look at the date.” Emily flipped back to the first entry, where the date was clearly marked:
July 3, 1951
.

“The year she married Dad.” Sarah's voice emerged as a cracked whisper.

Their mother had been twenty-one when she and Bob Marshall had wed in December of 1951, just before he'd shipped out to Korea. Sarah had been born five years later, Emily three years after that.

Emily, seated cross-legged on the floor, stared sightlessly at the jumbled pile she'd unearthed from her box: an old clock missing one of its hands, a manila envelope stuffed full of yellowing receipts, back issues of magazines, tattered paperbacks, a JFK campaign button, and an old sombrero with a hole in its brim—a souvenir from a family trip to Acapulco. “You know how she was always telling us Dad was the only man she ever loved?” she mused aloud before bringing her head sharply round to face Sarah. “Do you think that's just what she
wanted
us to believe?”

The two sisters sat in silence for a moment.

Finally Sarah replied staunchly, “No. She loved him.”

Emily nodded thoughtfully. No one who'd ever seen their parents together could have doubted that. Still … “According to this, he wasn't the
only
man she loved.” She peered at the diary, frowning.