CHAPTER 66
•December 1925•
Evelyn
Oddly enough it was when Maggie told me that she broke off her engagement to Palmer back in November that I first began to see the slender strands of the solution to my own predicament.
We were all of us—Papa, Maggie, Willa, and I—living in the same house but isolated and alone in our remote mental wastelands of sorrow. Our shared grief was that Alex had left us, but we were all suffering from private wounds we did not speak of to one another. We were getting a taste of what it would have been like if Mama had died and we hadn’t had Alex to soften the blow.
Papa has always been a quiet man, never one given to expressing his feelings aloud, and with Willa, it was always better just to let her vent her anger and be done with it. She was never one to seek solace from us anyway. If I had asked her if she wanted to talk about how she was feeling regarding Alex’s absence, she would have told me to mind my own business.
But Maggie is different. She is neither reserved like Papa nor unreceptive like Willa regarding any consolation I might be able to offer.
When she came to my room to tell me she’d given Palmer back his ring, I was fairly sure I knew why.
“It would have been a terrible mistake,” she’d said, sitting down beside me on my bed. “I couldn’t marry him when I loved someone else. When I will always love someone else.”
It was this little string of words, which my sister had practically whispered, that sounded like clarion bells within me. I loved Conrad. I would always love Conrad.
“Does Jamie know?” I’d asked.
“Does Jamie know that I broke off my engagement or that I have always loved him?” Maggie replied.
Before I could answer, she continued.
“He’s always known I was in love with him when I was younger. He thought it was sweet. And he knew I must have continued to love him when I kept writing to him after he left and was gone all those years. He came home wondering if I still loved him, hoping maybe I did. And then he thought he was too late.”
“He almost was,” I said.
“No, not really. I’m the one who almost got it all wrong. Not him.”
“What will you do now?” I’d asked her, hoping her answer would help me choose my own next steps.
She’d shrugged. “He wants us both to settle in to the way things are right now. Him being back, Alex having been taken from me, my breaking off the engagement, us being more than just friends. These things seem more like a season I need to abide patiently rather than something I need to do. So what I’m going to do is go on loving Jamie because I can do no other.”
I knew then, as sure as I knew my own name, that my heart would only ever belong to one man. What I lacked now was not a single-minded purpose, but the courage to believe the bold plan forming in my head was attainable.
The next morning at the asylum, I retrieved Sybil Reese’s file fromthe archives. I flipped to her admission papers and noted her place of residence, memorizing the address for the soon and coming day when I would have no doubts.
•••
December’s first snow is falling like dandelion cotton as I step out from underneath a towering elm across the street from Conrad and Sybil’s house. The sun is just starting to set. Conrad is home from work; I made sure of it. I had earlier watched as he left his printing company. I saw him get into his car and head for home. I’d hailed a taxi and followed him, getting out on the opposite side of the boulevard and waiting twenty minutes before coming out from my place of cover.
His house is a redbrick Colonial with white trim. Empty flower boxes hang from all the windows, and a hearty hedge all around the house sports a feather dusting of snow. Warm lamplight shines mellow through window sheers. No one has pulled the heavier curtains closed yet. I sense welcome and it makes me smile.
I ring the bell at the front door, and my hand does not shake. Nor does my voice tremble when a housemaid in a black frock and white cap answers the door and I tell her I wish to speak to Mr. Reese. I have never been more sure of anything. Four weeks after memorizing Conrad’s address, I am fully convinced of my destiny. It begins here on this doorstep.
The maid invites me in out of the cold. She asks who she may say is calling and I give her my name. I have no sooner spoken than I see Conrad appear at the doorway of a room just off the tiled entryway. He heard me come inside, heard my voice.
The maid is about to announce me when Conrad thanks and dismisses her. But he doesn’t quite know what to do with me. For several seconds we just stare at each other. Then he realizes he let the maid go before she had a chance to take my coat.
“May I... that is, shall I take your coat?” he asks, hesitantly.
The question is really: “Why are you here?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He helps me off with it and then hangs it on an enormous hall tree with cherubim and ivy carved into its frame and which sports a bench to sit on to pull on overshoes. Or take them off.
