Three months, Emmy. Charlotte was alive three months ago.
I had to sit down for a moment to let that sink in. I knew no good would come from pondering why I hadn’t begun the search sooner. But how could I not lament having just missed her?
The librarian felt bad for me and wanted to know if she could get me anything.
I told her I just needed to know if Charlotte’s house was still standing.
She answered with a nod and told me she’d heard an American woman and her daughter were living there—at least for the summer. The woman was distantly related to Charlotte. Or something like that.
She asked if I wanted directions to Thistle House.
Charlotte’s house has a name, Thistle House. You probably remember that. You probably remember everything.
It didn’t take long to drive the half mile to the house. The moment I was standing outside it, it was as if the years had rolled back like a curtain and you and I were arriving on that first day.
I knocked and the door was opened by a teenage girl. She asked if she could help me. Her American accent was strange to hear coming from that threshold.
I told her that I had lived in this house during the war when it belonged to Charlotte Havelock. And then I asked if her parents were home. She said her father was still in the States and her mother wasn’t due back until evening. I was so deeply disappointed. To have come that far—to have actually found the house—only to have to leave and come back another time was crushing.
I pulled a grocery receipt out of my handbag and scribbled my name and phone number on it. I asked the girl if she wouldn’t mind giving my name and number to her mother when she got home and asking her to give me a ring.
Does my mother know you?she asked.
I told her she didn’t. And then who knows why I did what I did next. I just blurted it all out, Emmy. I told the girl about you and your bride sketches and what I had done with them on the night we ran away from Thistle House. I told her how you and I were separated on the first night of the Blitz and that I was whisked away to America by a grandmother I didn’t even know I had and that I never saw or heard from you again.
The girl’s eyes were rimmed with tears when I was done and I realized with a shock that so were mine.
I began to apologize profusely when she opened the door wide and told me to come and see if the brides box was still there.
I didn’t think I should with her mum not at home. But the girl said I looked harmless enough.
I’m not sure I should,I said.
I am plenty old enough to take care of myself. Come in.
So I did.
She told me her name was Gwen.
Emmy, from what I can remember, the house looks the same. The same furniture. The same green sofa in the living room. The same oak kitchen table. The same red carpet on the stairs and the same creak as we ascended them.
So you’re related to the Havelock sisters? I asked, babbling as we climbed to calm myself.
Gwen shrugged and said she wasn’t really sure how they were related. She said her mother was born in England but she moved to America when she married her father. Gwen said she didn’t know very much about her mother’s side of the family because they were all deceased and her mother never wanted to talk about them.
We got to the top of the stairs and I saw bursts of yellow. The room we slept in is still lemon hued. The two twin beds are gone, and now there are a settee and two armchairs upholstered in checked canary yellow. My gaze was immediately drawn to the far wall where the lace-covered table had been. A bookcase is there now.
I told Gwen the crawl space was behind the bookcase and she didn’t hesitate. She walked right over to it and started to pull books off the shelves so that we could shimmy it away from the wall.
As we worked, I asked her if this was her first time to England and she said yes. Thistle House had been left to her mother whenCharlotte Havelock died and they were just staying the summer. Home and her father were in Minnesota. I asked if she liked it here. She said if she were allowed to go anywhere or do anything, she might like it. She said her mother worries too much about her and it drives her crazy. I felt sorry for her. She reminded me a little of you, Emmy. I’m not sure why. Maybe because she seemed so eager to be grown-up and to make her own decisions. I asked her how old she was and she said nearly thirteen.
When we had removed enough of the books, we pushed the bookcase out of the way and there it was: the crawl space door, painted shut. Gwen ran downstairs and quickly came back with a screwdriver. Before I could ask if her mum would want her to, she started to pry the painted seam open. The seal broke with a cracking pop. Gwen pulled the door open and then sat back.
She told me to go ahead and see.
My pulse was drumming as I crawled halfway in and reached up above the door frame. I felt dust and cobwebs and droppings but no box.
No box.
