“Sure, sure,” I say quickly, grabbing his arm and starting to steer him towards the road, where I know he normally parks.“I’ll pay for the fuel. And your time. I’ll buy you new tires, even. Anything you like. You can have both of the bacon rolls. Just … please, can we go? Right now?”
Martin nods, his cheeks turning even pinker at the sight of my hand on his arm.
“Anything to help a damsel in distress,” he says gallantly. “To the airport we go.”
And that’s exactly what we do.
23
PRESENT
Okay, it’s not quite amillionpieces. It’s more like three, really. But in the long moments that pass after the wooden snow globe box hits the floor, it seems to me that this is the kind of tragedy that can only be adequately summed up with the generous use of hyperbole; and, luckily, that’s one of the things I’m good at.
“Oh my God, Elliot, I’msosorry,” I gasp, tears pricking dangerously at the back of my eyes as I kneel down to inspect the damage. “Seriously, I can’t believe how clumsy I am. I’ll … I’ll pay you for it, though, I promise. I know that’s not going to make it any better, because it’s basically irreplaceable, but … Oh God, this is awful.”
I sit back on my heels, looking at the broken pieces of Evie’s work box. As luck would have it, the glass globe somehow landed on the sofa, so it miraculously survived the fall. And the little people, and other small pieces, are obviously okay too. But the lid of the box has come off, as has the base, and I reach for it now, wondering if there’s some way it can be fixed.
“I really am sorry,” I say again, glancing up at Elliot, who’s suspiciously quiet for a man who’s just watched the one thing he came all this way for, fall apart right before his eyes. “I’ll take it to … someone … as soon as I get home, and see if it can be fixed. A carpenter, maybe. Or … an antiques dealer, maybe?”
Elliot, however, doesn’t answer. I’m not sure he’s evenlistening, actually.
Maybe it’s the shock? Maybe I should get him a glass of water? Or brandy, if he has it? Isn’t that what people on TV always use for shock?
“What’s that?” he says suddenly, breaking the silence.
“What’s what?” I look around in confusion as he drops to the floor beside me, looking much more excited than I’d really have expected him to be about buying something only for his ex to instantly break it.
“Look, Holly. Look at this!”
Elliot reaches out and picks up the wooden base of the box, which I haven’t dared touch yet, because I’ve been so busy trying to figure out how to reunite the lid with the sides. But now that I look at it properly, I see what’s got his attention.
“Is that …?”
I shuffle closer as Elliot turns the wooden base over in his hands, revealing a large gap at the bottom, through which something thin and papery can just be seen.
“There’s a compartment in the bottom of this,” he says, examining it. “Look.”
I look. And he’s right. What appeared to be the bottom of the box, is actually a kind of lid; one which Elliot carefully pries open with his fingertips.
“A secret compartment,” I breathe, feeling like a little kid again, hiding in a corner of the bookstore with one of her favorite mystery stories. “I can’t believe there’s a secret compartment.”
There is, though. And, all of a sudden, it springs open, spilling a bunch of folded paper onto the floor, all of it a distinctive pale blue color.
Letters.
The bottom of the box was stuffed with letters.
“Okay,” I say, the smile on my face mirroring the one currently on Elliot’s. “Nowwe’re in a movie.”
Outside the giant living room window, the sun is starting to make its way towards the horizon, turning the sky a soft pink which is reflected on the snow beneath it.
Elliot and I aren’t looking at the view, though.
No, Elliot and I are sitting side by side on the sofa — in the middle this time, rather than at opposite ends — poring over the letters we found in the box, which are all dated from just after the war, and all written to Evie from Luke: Elliot’s great-grandfather.
“He wasn’t exactly a man of many words, was he?” says Elliot, once the initial excitement of finding the letters in the first place has worn off, and we’ve finally stopped repeating variations of the words, “I can’t believe this! Canyoubelieve this? Because I can’t believe this!” over and over again.
“Well, these might not beallthe letters he sent her,” I reply. “There wasn’t a huge amount of space in that box. These are probably just the only ones she kept.”
