First, Mia took out the photo on the top. They were both smiling, arms wrapped around each other as someone she couldn’t remember snapped the shot. There were more, too; photos of them from places around the world, selfies of them kissing and laughing and smiling.
A tear slid down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away with her fingertip. There was nothing easy about looking at photos of Ethan, even after all this time. If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the warmth of his hand when it closed over her knee, hear the deep timbre of his laugh. He’d been thekind of man that people were drawn to, someone who’d always had time for anyone.
Her engagement ring was in there, tied to a soft pink ribbon, and she slipped it onto her finger before deciding it was a bad idea and placing it back in the box. But it was Ethan’s notebook that she found the hardest to look at—she’d taken it with her after he’d passed, after finding it on the bedside table in their hotel room. When she cracked it open, she saw his familiar scrawl, and it broke something in her heart all over again, despite the time that had passed.
But as much as the tears prickled, she refused to let them fall. Today was about new beginnings, and she had no intention of faltering at the starting gate, so she took a deep breath and put everything away, before sliding the lid back on the box.
It was a start. That’s what she was going to tell herself. It was a start, and at least she’d taken a look and begun the process. She didn’t have to look at everything all at once, but she was proud of herself for looking atsomething.
Mia rose and placed the box back in her wardrobe, before slowly reaching for the worn black bag. She took a deep breath and pulled it out, taking it to the bed with her and carefully taking out her camera.This camera was my life. An extension of my arm. The weight felt foreign but at the same time comforting, and she turned it over in her hands, closing her eyes this time as the tears were suddenly harder to hold back. This time they clogged her throat and made it difficult to breathe.
She hadn’t held her camera since Ethan had passed. Every time she’d thought about it, something had held her back, until she’d completely lost her way with her career and her passion—everything about life as she knew it had been taken from her in one fell swoop. But today she’d made a decision—it was time to pick up the pieces of her life again, little by little. She would never forget Ethan, he’d been the love of her life, but she had tostart living again,trulyliving. It was what he would have wanted—she knew that without a shadow of doubt—and if she was honest, it was what she wanted, too.
Being with Charlotte and Georgia, hearing their stories of how brave they’d been to travel and go on adventures and find their person out there in the world, had made her realise that she wanted that. She wanted the type of big, full lives they were living, and she was starting to realise that she deserved it just as much as they did. She’d had that life once, before she’d reduced her world to a smaller and smaller place since Ethan’s passing, but she wanted it back. She wasreadyto claim it back again.
She’d always thought that she’d already had her great love, that there was nothing else,no oneelse, out there waiting for her. But what if she’d been wrong? What if her fears were holding her back from leading the life she was supposed to have?
Mia placed the camera in her lap and took a deep breath, still holding on to it, letting her fingers find the still-familiar grooves. She wasn’t going to hide it anymore. Even if she didn’t take a photo, just getting it out and seeing it was a step forward. Or at least, it felt like one.
This is the first step to taking back my life. If ever there was a time to be brave, it’s now.
5
FRANCE, 1929
Hope was dressed before anyone else on the first day of the new school year. Her bag was packed, she’d scrubbed her face and brushed her hair, and she was even wearing the dress her father had told her she looked so pretty in last Sunday at church. But when her father came down to the kitchen for breakfast and saw her sitting there with her brothers at the table, who were all moaning about their day of classes ahead, he didn’t smile like he had the week before. And he certainly didn’t tell her how nice her dress looked.
‘Where do you think you’re going all dressed up like that, young lady?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to school,’ Hope said, not understanding why he was asking her. How did he not know what today was?
‘I know your brothers are going to school, but aren’t you a bit old for the classroom now?’
Hope felt her eyes widen. Too old? Her brother Pierre was older than her, and no one was asking him why he was going to school still. But Hope knew not to say that. If she did, she’d have her mouth washed out with soap for disrespecting her father, and all her dreams of the school year ahead would be over.
‘If she stays home, she’ll only get under my feet,’ her mother said, coming to the table with a pan full of eggs and scooping out a large helping for Hope’s father before anyone else. ‘It would be easier to just let her go for one more year.’
‘She’s twelve years old, she should be learning how to look after a house,’ he grumbled. ‘What’s the use of her going to school anyway?’
Hope saw the way he grabbed her mother around her wrist, and she quickly looked to her brothers, but they hadn’t even seemed to notice. Her mother winced, and her father only tightened his hold as Hope watched on in horror, wishing there was something she could do. Wishing she was brave enough to yell at him and tell him to stop.
‘Do you not think I know what’s best for my daughter?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir, she does,’ Hope said, meeting her mother’s gaze. ‘Mother said to me that I’ll need to do all my chores when I get home, and that I can only go if I promise to help more around the house.’
Hope hadn’t known she was holding her breath, until her father finally let go of her mother’s arm and she let out a big gasp.
‘A girl’s place is at home, not having her head filled with learning,’ he went on. ‘There’s nothing worse than a woman with an opinion, or one who knows too much.’
Hope looked down at the small amount of eggs on her plate as her mother gave her the last scoop, not daring to glance at her brothers’ plates. She knew they would be laden with at least twice the amount of food as hers. But as long as she could go to school and get away from this house for the day, she wasn’t going to moan about her growling stomach.
When she looked up, once her father was busy reading the paper, she found her mother staring at her. But instead offeeling that her mother was grateful for her speaking up, all she received was a frown as her mother rubbed at the nasty red mark blooming on her wrist.
‘I’ll speak to her teacher,’ her mother said, ‘and make sure she knows school is secondary to Hope’s duties at home.’
Hope balled her fists beneath the table as tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she refused to cry.
If she wasn’t allowed to learn mathematics at school, then so be it. She’d just steal her brothers’ books when they weren’t using them to teach herself. But she was not staying home, and as far as she was concerned, not even her father could stop her.
