“Tell me about your sister.”
“Oh boy, she was amazing; so full of life.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I was with her the morning she first met him. Does she say that in her diary?”
“Yes, she does. She says you dragged her away from him.”
Thomas laughed as he remembered. “Yes, I did. Our father was a snob. He would have made her life so difficult if he’d any idea she was interested in someone who didn’t come from money. He barely allowed Rose to work at the library, but she refused to give the job up and said she wanted to make her own money. I don’t think she liked working there much, but it was her bit of freedom, I guess. It probably made her feel good knowing she was going against Father’s wishes.”
He took a minute. “I caught her once or twice, sneaking out to meet him, so she would bribe me with ten cents to buy Our Gang comics. She actually went out and bought me the April 1st edition to keep me quiet. It was our little secret as Father had told Mother I couldn’t have that issue for getting up to no good. I sometimes wonder that if I’d told my father about what she was doing, maybe she would have lived.”
Mack just stared at him and wondered if she heard him correctly. “What do you mean?”
With a glance into the darkness, Thomas turned back to Mack. “She died the night she was running away with him, April 14, 1947. She’d left to meet him, to go away and marry him, I guess. That was the last time I saw her.” Thomas wiped his eyes.
“How did she die?” Mack asked.
“That I really don’t want to talk about.”
“Do you know if she met up with Jacob?” She couldn’t stop with the questions.
“No, she never made it. About a month later, I overheard my father talking to my mother. It turned out that it was about Jacob. I heard him telling her Jacob had called the house asking for Rose. He told Jacob she was happily married to Richard. He said Jacob sounded really upset, and then he hung up on him.”
“Oh my, so if he’s still alive, all this time Jacob thinks Rose changed her mind and didn’t love him and used him probably,” Mack said with tears in her eyes. “That’s so sad, Thomas. I have to see if he’s still alive and tell him what happened to Rose.”
“If he is, he’ll be older than me. When I overheard my parents talking, my father said he was three years older than Rose so he would be . . .” Thomas’s voice trailed off as he did the math, “around ninety, I think.”
“I have to try, Thomas. If you read her diary, you can see and feel just how much she loved him, and if his feelings were the same as hers, then he has to know.” Mack still had tears running down her face. “If he’s still alive and remembers her, and I think he will, then he has the right to know the truth about how much she loved him.”
“I think you’re right.” He stood up to leave.
“Thank you, Thomas, for sharing that with me. It breaks my heart knowing how their love ended.”
“You have a tender heart,” Thomas told her, placing a kiss on her cheek.
“Are you okay walking home? It’s pitch black out there.”
“I’ve been walking home in the dark since I was five years old,” he told Mack with a chuckle on his way out the door.
“Okay, goodnight then. Why don’t you join us for breakfast?” Mack couldn’t help but notice the look on his face and thought perhaps Lucas had mentioned the hot cereal. “Pancakes, eggs, and sausage,” she quickly added.
“I’ll be here at eight.”
“Goodnight.”
She stood on the doorstep and watched Thomas head home. Her thoughts filled with Rose and Jacob. Their story was so sad.
Inside the cottage, she locked up for the night and headed upstairs to shower and change into her pajamas.
Back downstairs, she made her usual hot chocolate and retrieved Rose’s diary from her purse before she headed to bed with a heavy heart. Knowing how it all ended brought tears to her eyes but Rose’s story was so bittersweet; Mack was unable to stop reading it.
Chapter 11
March 22, 1947
Movie night with Richard…
Richard came calling for me, just as he said he would, in his father’s car. I was really looking forward to watching the movie, Blue Skies. Bing Crosby was one of my favorite actors. I didn’t really have the heart to tell Richard that I’d already seen the movie with Jayne. At least it was a fun movie to watch so I really didn’t mind seeing it twice.
We took our seats and Richard was ever the gentleman, even though I had reminded him that it wasn’t a date, and we were just friends.