Oliver turns to her. “With help. With friends who care for you. With people who love you.”
“They’ll leave me. And then I am left with nothing.” Nothing but pain and heartache and an eternity without them.
“You’ll have your memories. They’ll be with you forever.” His words are meant to be a comfort.
“Memories are all I have left,” Beatrix says. Memories of her parents and her sisters and William. Of too many Londons to count. Of Anna, and soon Oliver, too. “I am tired of memories.” Or maybe she is just tired. “I want something real.”
“Memories are real,” Oliver says. “The love that made them is real.”
“Then I want something that can last,” Beatrix clarifies. Someone who can stay.
Oliver runs a hand through his hair. “You can get what? Eight, ten, twelve years with someone? That’s a hell of a long time from where I’m standing.”
It isn’t, she wants to say.It’s not enough. A blink. A breath. A heartbeat. But how do you say that to a man with only months left to live?
“Trying to forget Anna won’t work anyway,” Oliver says.
“How would you know?”
He offers her a weak smile. “I met a wise and beautiful stranger who told me a secret.” He sits next to her on the sofa. “It’s hard to regret someone once you’ve loved them.”
And she had loved Anna. How else could it hurt like this?
“Loving someone isn’t a mistake,” Oliver says. “Pushing them away because you’re afraid of getting hurt is.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
Oliver tucks a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “Remember her.” He pulls her close.
She leans against him, feels the steady rhythm of his heart under her palm, alive and here and now.
“My mom loved to dance. Ever since she took her first ballet lesson when she was four. And she loved to share dance with others. She had her own studio. That’s where she taught me, every day after school. Whenever I dance, I remember her.” He falls silent, waits for her to speak. To remember.
Beatrix lays her head in Oliver’s lap and curls her legs on the sofa. “Anna would have given you such a hard time.” She tips her head to look up at him. “But she would have loved you.” Her heart cracks a little at the thought.
She tells him about returning to London, about bicycles and trousers and picnics in the forest. About movies and dancing, crosswords and tea. About Anna’s beautiful, short life and their beautiful, short friendship.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her,” Oliver says. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was,” Beatrix says. Remembering Anna has made her heart soar and sink, ache with happiness and sadness. She feels full and drained all at once. “She really, really was.”
Oliver leans down and plants a gentle kiss on her forehead. “It gets better. I promise.”
And this time, Beatrix thinks it might be possible. “Anna would have loved to meet Amelia Earhart. She’d be so jealous of you.”
Oliver’s brow furrows.
“What?”
“I didn’t meet Amelia Earhart. When you weren’t at the train station, I waited for the next train. When you weren’t on that one, I stayed at the station in case you came. After twelve hours, I was recalled. It killed me to leave without knowing what had happened to you.”
“You came back?” The realization hits Beatrix like a punch in the gut. Of course he did. How else could he be here with her?
Oliver nods. “I had to wait another week before Lucy could send me here.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“The telegram you sent to the station,” Oliver says. “Your address was listed under sender.”
