In the kitchen, the woman collapsed into a chair, and it wasn’t until Carol had pressed a cup of hot tea laced heavily with brandy into her hands that she began to sob, her body shuddering with the force of it, the reality of her son’s death finally penetrating.
“What happened?” Carol asked in a low voice as she patted the woman’s shoulder and Sophie looked on from the doorway, her arms folded.
Lily felt as if she could collapse. She leaned against the table instead, the edge digging into her hip, a reminder that she was here, that she’d survived.
“We were caught in the raid…” she said numbly. The world still felt muted. “She was across the street. Her son… he couldn’t be more than six…” Lily’s breath caught and she felt the urge to sob the same as the woman, but she swallowed it back. This wasn’t her grief.
“You poor thing.” Carol leaned over to give Lily’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Such a shock.”
“I’m all right—”
“Sophie, make your sister a cup of tea,” Carol barked.
Sophie, looked at her mother, clearly surprised by her sharp tone.
“She’s had a shock,” Carol continued. “And she’s been ever so brave. You did the right thing, Lily, bringing her here. It’ll be all right, love.” She gave the woman’s back another pat. “It’ll be all right.”
Sophie slunk to the table and poured Lily a cup of tea from the big brown pot. As Lily met her sister’s gaze, she saw her eyes narrow, and in that moment she realized something intangible had shifted between all of them again.
Sophie was no longer the favored child, the laughing girl, who, despite, or perhaps because of, her high spirits, could do no wrong. Thanks to her evening with Tom Reese, thanks to Lily’s actions tonight, something had started to change, roles reversed, or at least forever altered. And as she thrust a cup of tea into Lily’s hands, it was clear Sophie knew it.
“We,” she said softly, so only Lily could hear, as she poured a splash of milk into her cup. “I wonder who you were with, Lily Mather.”
Chapter Thirteen
ABBY
“Abby?”
Abby closed the door slowly, her heart thudding. Memories tumbled through her mind of a moment like this one—fifteen years ago, her father in the doorway just as he was now, a look of naked grief and disbelieving despair on his face as she’d watched him turn into an old man.
What have you done, Abby?
That was all he’d said. He hadn’t waited for an answer, not that she’d had the courage to give one. He’d simply turned around and shuffled into the kitchen. He hadn’t said a word to her for an endless, agonizing week.
But that was then, and now was completely different. She’d hadn’t been up to anything. Her father couldn’t be angry that she’d spent the afternoon with Simon. She was a grown woman, after all, perfectly entitled to a private life.
Abby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what you mean, Dad.”
“I mean the trunk upstairs in the attic that has clearly been opened.”
What? Abby blinked at him through the gloom of the hallway. How had he known she’d opened the trunk? She’d put everything back exactly as she’d found it, and in any case her dad never went up to the attic. Never revisited all the memories and ghosts that resided there. She was the one who fetched the Christmas decorations or canning jars, who scurried up and down and tried not to look at anything too closely.
Goodness, but they were a sorry pair, ducking away from the past, trying to forget the truth even as it dominated their lives. Abby was so very tired of it.
“You went up to the attic?” she asked.
“You don’t deny it,” he said flatly.
“No, I can’t. I wouldn’t. I mean, I’m not going to lie about it.”
“Why did you?”
“I was curious about Grandad.” Abby tried to lighten her voice. “Does that have to be such a big deal?” She managed a smile as she walked towards her father. He didn’t move from the doorway and she slipped past him into the kitchen, Bailey following her, determined to lend some sort of normalcy to this situation.
David turned around slowly. “It’s a big deal because you knew my feelings about it. I didn’t want the past all dug up. I told you so.”
“Because there’s something to hide?”