Unspeakable (34 page)

“That was you?” I remembered that day. “We thought you were a reporter. That's what he is, Jim. He's writes for the
Times
. He was interviewing me for a story on the
Empress
.”

“He's not Faith's father?”

I shook my head. But it did nothing to ease his mind.

“I saw you with him a few times, Ellie. You didn't seem to miss me all that much, then.”

“Of course I missed you.” If only he knew. “Jim, there is nothing between me and Steele,” I said, as if convincing myself as much as him.

“Really?” He looked at me accusingly. “So you kiss all the reporters?”

I wanted to defend myself, to push back at his hostility with some of my own. What did he know? Where was he,
then, when I needed him? Had he been spying on me? Instead, I reached for his hand, taking that chance, risking that pain of having him get up and walk away from me once more. Knowing it might kill me if he did.

But Jim was worth it. We were worth it. And I had to speak my truth. I owed him that. I owed it to myself so that, whatever else happened, at least I'd know I'd left nothing unsaid.

“It's you I want, Jim,” I said, my fingers taking his. “You're all I've ever wanted.”

His eyes softened.

“Losing you,” I continued, “thinking you were gone forever, only made me realize how much … how much I love you.” I'd found my voice and I would no longer be silent. “I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd lost Faith—they told me she'd died when she was born. And yet, here we are.” I took a deep breath, my heart pounding in my chest, and kneeled beside him. “Lots of people have tragedies, Jim. We have all faced incredible loss. But we've been given a second chance. Let's focus on that. Let's not waste it.” I gripped his hand. “I want you in my life, Jim. In Faith's.”

He knew how I felt. What I wanted. The choice was his now.

Jim looked at me, searched my eyes, and found truth. As I did in his. No secrets. No shame. Just acceptance. And love.

“God, Ellie, you don't know how long I've waited to hear you say that.” Squeezing my hand, he leaned in and slowly brought his lips to mine. His mouth warm and reassuring. Familiar. Like we'd done it a thousand times before, even though this was only our second time. We breathed our souls
into each other in that moment, knowing this was the first kiss of forever.

“I love you, Ellie,” he whispered. “I love you.”

I smiled and circled my arms around him, rested my head against his chest. Jim kissed my forehead and I felt hopeful, safe, comforted by his warmth, his breath, the beating of his heart. No matter what the future brought, we had each other. We had our love to buoy us up through any storm. Nothing else mattered.

It must have been so hard for him to confess his secret, to risk losing me. And to voice his fears about Steele. I sat up and looked into his eyes once more.

“Just so you know, Steele is leaving,” I said. We'd be in touch about the novel, as friends, but nothing more. I wanted to reassure Jim of that. The kiss on Steele's cheek meant nothing. “When you saw us, that was goodbye,” I said. “He's going to war.”

A sad smile tugged on Jim's lips and on my heart. And I knew what he was going to say even before he spoke the words. “So am I,” he said. “I enlisted this week.”

A NEW DAY

September 1914

Strandview Manor, Liverpool

Chapter Forty-Eight

SETTING MY TROWEL ASIDE
, I dug into the rich, black earth with both hands. Bates was right, there was something so peaceful about gardening. A connectedness. A rootedness. A sense of time—of season. Jim had left for his training with the King's Liverpool Regiment last month and I had no way of knowing when he'd be back, for how long, or where his duties might take him next. I couldn't change the past or jump ahead to the future any more than I could change the seasons. My life no longer revolved around the number of days since a past loss or in anxious countdown to a future worry. I'd finally learned that life was now. This moment. To feel the sun on my shoulders and the cool, moist earth on my fingers. And to sow hope for tomorrow.

I lifted the plant from its pot beside me and shook the dirt off its hairy roots. Among the green leaves bobbed dozens of tiny flowers, each one a brilliant blue, its five petals buttoned to its stem by a bright yellow centre. I gently set the plant in the hole I'd dug between the rose bushes.

“That's the perfect place for it,” Bates said to me, as he and Faith came down the front steps. She ran over to me and, picking up the trowel, patted the earth I'd mounded back in the hole.

It had been Bates's suggestion that I add a plant of my own to the garden. Something meaningful to me. At first I'd picked this one simply because I liked its vivid dots of blue and yellow. Learning it was called forget-me-not made it all the more fitting, not just because I wanted to remember my mother, Aunt Geraldine, and Meg—they had flowers of their own here—but because now that I knew her, I never wanted to forget who I was.

“Ducks! Ducks!” Faith said, running back to Bates. He handed her the small paper bag full of the crusts they'd saved from their morning toast.

“Are you sure you don't want to come with us today?” he asked, as they opened the gate.

“No, no.” I waved my dirty hand at them. “Go off with yourselves. I'll come next time.”

I washed my hands at the kitchen sink, smiling as my ring rinsed clean and caught the sunlight. I hadn't taken it off since he'd put it on my finger the day he left, over a month ago. A band of gold with two hands clasped around a crowned heart. A claddagh, a traditional Irish ring. But more than that, a promise of friendship. Loyalty. Of love.

“Will you be my girl, Ellie?” he'd asked, almost shy as he slipped it on my right hand, heart facing in—a sign that mine was taken.

“Always.”

He'd kissed me then and we'd said our long goodbyes.
But not our last. Though it was hard to let him go, to watch him leave, I knew, somehow, that this was only our beginning.

I climbed the stairs to Aunt Geraldine's study. To my study, now, but I'd always feel closest to her there. I'd moved the desk near the window, her typewriter still sitting upon it, though I'd set it aside to pen long letters to Jim. We wrote every few days. Even Steele had dashed off a postcard now and then, scribbling me bits of his adventures, of his story, asking if I'd started mine.

The rows of shelves were empty still but for the ivy plant, my aunt's novels, a portrait of my mother, and the framed picture of Faith and me meeting in the garden for the first time. But the vacant shelves no longer saddened me. I knew, in time, I'd fill each one with my favourite things, with mementoes from every adventure I'd yet to have. It excited me to see them. To wonder. To dream.

I sat at the desk and stared out the window, thinking of that fairy queen I used to imagine as a child. Realizing, for the first time, that she was me. Beautiful. Strong. Powerful.

Absentmindedly, I pressed a worn-out button on the typewriter and the key struck the paper. The
clack
broke the silence, leaving a black
E
on the white page. I liked the look of it. The sound of it. The power of creating something where there'd been nothing. That sense of making my mark.

I hit four more keys.

… L … L … I … E
.

Stopping, I stared at the portrait of my mother. I thought of her often, even more since I'd become a mother myself, and yet, I never really knew Mam's story. I gazed at the picture of me and Faith on the shelf next to it.

Would Faith know my story?

Sliding the machine in front of me, I pressed the metal arm, cranking the sheet up one line, and started to type.

AUTHOR'S NOTE