Fondness for the circle of women—her women—overcame Gemma. They'd known her and cared for her all her life. The sense of belonging she felt with them was a powerful, matchless thing.
“Mom,” Colette said, “are you looking forward to the reason behind this brunch? Learning the missing part of your love story?”
“Very much, yes.”
“I am too,” Simone concurred.
“You were secretive over the phone, Gemma,” Colette scolded. “Everyone who knows me knows I'm not good at being kept in suspense. So now that we're all assembled, can you spill the beans?”
“I can. After we found the cardboard box in the northwest corner of the attic, I began reading Gracie and Paul's love letters.” While they ate, she brought them up to speed, explaining how a careful examination of the dates of the letters made her suspicious of the marriage certificate and how a trip to City Hall had verified their certificate to be a fake. She pulled a document from her backpack and handed it to Gracie. “This is a copy of your real marriage certificate. I ordered it and it came in the mail.”
No one was eating now. Nor moving. They were all just watching her, alert.
“We had . . . two certificates?” Gracie asked, obviously confused.
“Yes. I wanted to understand why and remembered you writing in your diaries. I realized the diaries would fill in the blanks, but where were they?” Gemma crossed to Gracie's bedside dresser and returned with the photo that had the doodled border on the back. “Turns out the code you left in the desk drawer wasn't the only clue associated with this treasure hunt. You left a clue to the location of the diaries hidden in plain sight here in this drawing.” She handed it to her mom.
“I don't see anything except hearts and flowers,” Mom said.
“I didn't either at first,” Gemma acknowledged.
Colette took the photo and squinted at it. “I think I see a number seven in here. Is there a seven?”
“Yes.”
Colette pointed out the seven to Simone, then Gracie. Gracie accepted the photo from her daughter. It didn't take long for her face to light up. “Ah. There are several numbers here.”
“Yes,” Gemma confirmed. “Ten, to be exact.”
“Ten?” Colette demanded, swirling the ice and liquid in her glass. “What do you do with ten numbers?”
“You dial them, when you place a phone call,” Gracie said, her trademark mastery of puzzles shining through.
“Exactly,” Gemma said. “I dialed the numbers and your friend Wanda answered. I asked her if she had your diaries, and she said she did. You'd left them nearby with someone you trusted for a situation exactly like this one. A situation in which you wanted to jog your own memory and answer your own questions.”
“Because sometimes I forget things?”
“I believe so, yes. I believe, a few years back, you anticipated that you might forget things you'd want to remember.” Gemma drew the two diaries from her backpack and set them next to her plate. “I went by Wanda's house earlier and borrowed these. The answers are all here. Would you like to read them yourself? Or would you like me to fill in the pieces of your love story?”
“I'd like for you to do it, sugar. I'm too impatient to hunt through the diaries now, though I will certainly read them later.”
“Hear, hear!” Colette barked as if she was a member of the British Parliament.
Gemma took a few bracing bites of bacon and a sip of coffee. “Well.” She set a hand on the diaries. “You and Paul were deeply in love when he was sent back to France by the French Committee of National Liberation. You were both determined to reunite as soon as possible after the war and spend the rest of your lives together. You both promised to write. Which you did faithfully and which he did faithfully. But, unfortunately, after the first few months, you stopped receiving his letters and vice versa. I think that was due to your job as a Code Girl. International letters would have posed a security risk for someone like you who had access to such sensitive information.”
“Makes sense,” Colette said.
“The letters that survived from him are heartbreaking,” Gracie said. “He didn't understand why I wasn't writing.”
“And you didn't understand why he wasn't writing to you. In the diaries you talk about continuing to write to him again and again despite hearing nothing from him in return. After five months with no word, you came to the conclusion that he no longer loved you and had moved on once he returned to France.”
“I was the one who gave up on him?” Gracie asked, looking deeply disappointed with her younger self.
“In your diary, you admit that was motivated by fear. At the time, you were scared that the pain of continuing to love him was more than you could take.” Reading that earlier in the diary and speaking it again now, conviction struck Gemma. She and Gracie were similar in personality. Both of them, passionate. Both of them, afraid of the pain their big hearts and big emotions could cost them. “You were devastated and lonely and overwhelmed with the grief of war. In January of 1945, you entered into a rebound romance with a soldier named Theodore Cook. He fell in love with you right away. It's clear from the diaries that you were fond of him in return, but that your heart belonged to Paul.”
“Still does,” Gracie whispered.
“You and Theodore conceived a child, but you didn't know about the pregnancy when Theodore shipped off for war in the Pacific in February of 1945.”
