His brother rolls his eyes again. He tucks the wooden box under his arm and turns toward the door.
Oliver clenches his jaw. That was too easy. “Theo?”
He turns back to Oliver, guilt written plainly across his features, just like when they were kids. He never could get away with anything.
Oliver nods to the box. “Promise me you’ll do it. All of it.”
“I can’t promise you that, Oli.”
Tears burn Oliver’s eyes and molten anger pools in his chest. Why does his brother have to be sofuckingstubborn? Can’t Theo let him do just one thing for him? “Please.” His voice breaks on the word and something behind Theo’s eyes does, too. He pulls Oliver into a hug.
“I’ll try,” he says, his voice thick. “I promise I’ll try, all right?”
It is the most Theo can give him.
“I just want you to be okay,” Oliver whispers. God, he hopes he will be okay.
Theo releases him. His throat bobs. “I’ll be okay.”
But Oliver knows Theo can’t promise him that, either.
July 18, 1960London, England
Beatrix smooths down her tweed pencil skirt and sits on the bench curving along the edge of the Whispering Gallery. It’s the same place where she sat all those years ago, the first time Oliver brought her to the new St. Paul’s. New to her, anyway. She closes her eyes and leans against the wall, as if she can hear all the whispers it has ever known.
“Happy birthday, Bea.”
Beatrix opens her eyes. Did she imagine it? She scans the people wandering the gallery. And then she sees him through the crowd, sitting against the wall across from her.
Tall. Dark hair neatly combed back. Tortoiseshell-framed glasses and a cardigan the same shade of blue as his eyes. Her heart leaps. 1960 suits him.
She turns her head toward the curved wall. “My birthday’s tomorrow.”
She sees Oliver’s bright smile from where she sits. “And I don’t want to miss a second of it.”
Beatrix follows Oliver down the narrow, carpeted aisle of a train car, her small yellow suitcase in one hand, a cream-colored cardigan draped over her other arm. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
Oliver has never wasted his precious hours traveling with her. He can appear precisely where—and when—he wants to be. Yet here they are, at Victoria station, on a train. She hasn’t a clue which one. Oliver made sure she closed her eyes as soon as they reached the platforms.
He grins at her. “It’s a surprise.”
He glances at the tickets in his hand, then at the numbers next to the door in front of him. “This one.” He slides it open and disappears through it.
Beatrix freezes on the threshold. On one side of the small room, a pair of rectangular windows with half-drawn shades fill the wall. A powder-blue sofa large enough for two sits beneath them, and a narrow bed is pushed against the opposite wall. Through the door ahead of her, she spies a tiny white porcelain sink. “Are we going far?” Oliver taking the train with her is odd, but a sleeper berth makes no sense at all.
A sly smile plays at the corners of his lips. He takes the suitcase from her.
She racks her brain for a suitable destination. “Are we going to visit Glasgow?” The trip alone will take up half of his time.
“Cold.” He slides her case onto the luggage rack over the windows.
Beatrix sinks onto the bed. “Edinburgh?” That is even farther.
“Still Scotland, still cold.” He laughs.
“Plymouth?” She is grasping at straws.
“Nope.”
