I love him, Emmy, I do. And I know he loves me. But sitting there in the dark with the shimmer of London way off in the distance, I knew that I must continue on alone. If I don’t, I fear I am the one who may lose interest.
I don’t want to feel as if I am the broken thing that needs to be repaired even if that’s what I am. Your lover should see you as whole even if you are in pieces, because that’s what love does, doesn’t it? It sees past the flaws. It forgets there are flaws.
Simon said my name.
I traced his hand in mine, wondering how to tell him.Simon,I said,would you mind very much if next Saturday I went alone?
What was that?he said.
I proceeded to tell him that finding the brides box was something I needed to accomplish on my own. I figured the word “accomplish” would sound good to his ears. I didn’t think he needed to know that I was feeling he was showing less love for me rather than more by his ardent enthusiasm for the quest. That would only wound him. And there are already enough wounds in the world. I told him I appreciated with all my heart the help and support he had given me, but that I wanted to continue on my own.
But are you sure that’s a good idea?he asked.Going alone?
I think he was suggesting that in my fragile state, maybe I would collapse at the shock of finding the house and the box, or be devastated at not finding them.
But I have survived much, Emmy. Haven’t I? Haven’t I survived the war and the loss of my childhood, my parents, and my sister? Haven’t I come back to London? Haven’t I looked for you? Haven’t I agreed to write this journal? Haven’t I embarked on the mission to find your brides? And haven’t I done all that alone?
I squeezed Simon’s hand.This is something only I can do for me, Simon,I said. I will be all right.
He attempted a couple more counterarguments but, in the end, because he loves me, he agreed.
I asked him if I could use his car, which he has loaned to me other times, and he said of course.
He seemed a little hurt when we said good night, but I don’t think he feels injured by me. It’s more that he’s disappointed he can’t be the one to rescue me.
I think I know how that feels.
Julia
Thirty-nine
July 19, 1958
Dear Emmy,
Emmy, I think I found the town where we got off the train and Charlotte met us! When I drove into Moreton-in-Marsh today, I felt as though I were being tugged through a tunnel. I was shaking when I parked Simon’s car and walked into the train station. The station itself didn’t seem familiar to me, but walking out of it and back onto the street nearly took my breath away. The scene in front of me was like a long-lost photograph that flitted down off a shelf in my mind. It was the same, but different. As I walked up the sidewalk toward the town center, I could see you and me, holding our cardboard boxes with our gas masks inside. I could feel the weight of my fairy tale book tucked under my arm. I could feel my hand in yours. There was a dead bird in thestreet, and the boys ahead of us from my school wanted to stop and poke it. They were daringmeto touch it. You kicked it with the tip of your shoe and it flopped over into the gutter.
Oh, Emmy, the pull of feeling you so near almost yanked me to the ground.
This was the place. I knew it.
The first few people I approached in the grocery store and the stationers seemed dubious when I told them whom I was looking for and why, and I realized I was talking too fast and too frantically. I must have seemed like a madwoman escaped from an institution, intent on hacking to death the two sisters I was searching for. I knew I needed to compose myself. And I needed to sit down with the map and see where you and I could have come from that long-ago morning when we walked to Moreton. Charlotte didn’t live here. She lived somewhere else. But I was close.
I went to a café, ordered a pot of Darjeeling, and used the warmth and floral notes of the tea to calm myself as I studied the map. I made a list of towns that you and I could have walked from to reach Moreton. Batsford, Draycott, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Blockley, Chastleton, Broadwell, Longborough, Stow-on-the-Wold, Oddington.
I drank my tea, got back in Simon’s car, and headed to the northwest corner of my search area to work my way down. So today, I only got to explore Batsford, Blockley, Bourton-on-the-Hill, and the smaller hamlets Paxton and Aston Magna.
I did not find the house.
And I did not see the sisters’ names in the local cemeteries.
I started home for London when the sun was setting and drove to Simon’s flat so that he could take me home and have his car. He seemed a little sad that I’d so quickly discovered Moreton on my own. Not sad for me, but for himself. It was obvious that he wished he had chosen Moreton the first day out.
Still want to go alone next Saturday?he asked. Maybe I should have invited him to come; I could tell he wanted to. But I kissed him and declined.
I like it that it’s just me.
Next Saturday I will head for Chastleton, Broadwell, and Longborough.
