“No—” she began but quickly changed her mind. The superintendent wouldn’t be pleased, but she needed her mom.
Peter escorted her and Greta into the house, then he waited until she bolted the door.
If she had left Jimmy’s side a moment later, if Peter hadn’t stopped to help, Greta would have been gone in a blink, and she’d never know who took her.
She didn’t know what Simon had done up north, but she couldn’t allow either of his children to pay for it.
As they tended Greta’s wounds, Izzy told her mom everything. About Simon and their fake marriage. About the dangerous men from Cleveland.
“They’ll return soon,” her mom said, holding a piece of ice to Greta’s bruised face. She had stopped crying, but she was eerily quiet again, not even asking for her papa.
“I know.”
“Can you go back to Winfield?” her mom asked.
Izzy shook her head. It would be much too dangerous. If Louie couldn’t find her when he returned to Elms, he would drive straight to the professor’s house.
“You can’t stay here,” her mother said. “Next time, they won’t stick around for a discussion.”
And they might injure one of Izzy’s brothers along with her children.
May the light of your life continue to shine.That’s what Olivia had written in her copy ofSparrow Island. But any light in her life had almost been snuffed out. When Louie returned, he would try to extinguish it all together.
She desperately needed a place to shine.
Tucked away in a drawer of undergarments, she found the address and phone number that Olivia Farrow had mailed her last year. Her family had no telephone, but she had enough money, thanks to the professor, for gasoline and a map. She could leave for Pennsylvania at dawn.
Olivia had said she would help Izzy if she ever needed it. Did she know about Simon’s two children? As far as she could tell from their lastvisit, Olivia hadn’t known the baby she brought to the door belonged to Simon. She probably didn’t even know that Simon had married Olivia after promising himself to Izzy.
Louie said Simon was in Cleveland, which meant Olivia was alone.
The woman had shown nothing but kindness to her. If Simon had married Olivia for the promise of money, if she had discovered his scheme, perhaps she would have compassion on Izzy and let her spend a night or two. Then Izzy would contact the professor. Perhaps he could help her find a new home.
She’d leave Catawba, of course, if Simon arrived, but his friends would never think to search for her there.
Either way, Izzy had no place else to go. Olivia owed her nothing, but just maybe, in her kindness, she would help her now. So any light left in Izzy’s life, including the two lights she’d borne, would continue to shine.
33:Olivia
The telephone trilled up the steps, ruining Olivia’s focus. Clinton had returned the carbon copy of her manuscript with a mound of revisions, almost four hundred pages filled with clips, folds, scribbles, and the occasional coffee splash in the margins.
The first draft had taken longer to write than expected, but she was determined to spit and polish every sentence. Clinton agreed, slowing down production instead of rushing it to press.
The work had been good for her after so much unraveling in the past year. Healing, really, in its demands. A novel, she could maneuver and tweak. Rein in characters when they spiraled out of control. She could edit until satisfied with beginning, middle, and end.
Others in Catawba received letters from their loved ones fighting overseas but not her. If Simon had mailed her a letter since he left basic training, the correspondence had been lost. Jillian said he could have died in battle, but Olivia suspected he’d opted to end their marriage from afar since he no longer had access to her money.
Then again, she hadn’t received any divorce papers or petition for an annulment, if such a thing was possible after almost two years of marriage.
The phone rang again, and she lowered her pencil, eyeing the open panel where she kept her latest manuscript. For the past year, she’d stored her work while she slept, but there was no need to hide it to answer the phone.
Skirting around her desk, she rushed down the steps, knowing that by the time she reached the kitchen the caller probably would have given up.
But the phone was still ringing when she answered. “Ashe residence.”
“This is Mr. McLean, from the Savings & Loan.”
“Hello, Mr. McLean.” She took a long breath. “I must admit, I’m afraid to ask the reason for your call.”
