“That’s why…” The wind had ceased, and not a leaf was stirring. It was as though the old tree were holding its breath, waiting for me to go on. “She asked me to come home, Bill. She pleaded with me to come home. But I was too proud, too stubborn, too set on proving… I don’t know what. And that’s why…that’s why I wasn’t there when…”
Bill put his arms around me and pulled me to his side. He held me quietly, caressing my hair, then murmured softly, so softly that I could scarcely hear his words, “Did your mother ask you to come home for her sake or for yours?” I stiffened, but he tightened his hold, waiting for the tension to ease from my body before going on. “You shouldn’t have stopped reading those letters when you did. You might have learned a thing or two.” His fingers feathered lightly down my cheek. “You inherited more than your mother’s mouth, you know. You have her chin, too, and it’s a very determined one. That’s how your mother described it, at any rate. I don’t recall her ever using the word ‘pigheaded’. ‘As strong-willed as I am’, were the words she used.”
I shook my head in protest, but Bill continued on, regardless.
“Do you think your mother joined the army because it was a good career move? Do you think she sat down and weighed the pros and cons? She didn’t, Lori. She saw the war as a grand, romantic adventure, and she saw the same romantic streak in you. Why else would you study something as impractical as old books? She didn’t think you were foolish, though. She would’ve supported anything you did, as long as you were following your heart. You know that, don’t you?
“As for your marriage—she understood that, too. She had doubts about it from the beginning, and she was proud of you for discovering your mistake. Yes, she wanted you to come home then, but it was because you seemed lost. She thought you needed her help. She never wanted yours.”
“Because she knew I was useless,” I said bitterly.
Bill’s fingers dug into my arm. “Stop it. You know that’s not true.”
“But—”
“Your mother, Lori Shepherd, was just as pigheaded as you are. She never asked anyone for help. That’s why she clammed up after your father’s death. It took Dimity a long time to knock some sense into her.”
“And did she?” I sat up, my heart racing. “Did she talk about it?”
“Yes, after Dimity did everything but send a brass band through the mail.” Bill pushed a stray curl from my forehead. “Yes, your mother finally came out with it, all of it, all of the pain and the loneliness she’d gone through, along with the joy she’d found in you. She told Dimity all about it, eventually. But she would have saved herself a lot of heartache if she’d spoken of it sooner.”
“I wish she’d told me about it,” I whispered.
“She should have. She should have explained what a nightmare it is to lose someone you love. She should have told you that it took her a long time and a lot of work to wake up from it.”
“Maybe she was trying to protect me,” I said loyally.
“I’m sure she was. But she ended up hurting you. Dimity warned her about it—I’ll show you the letter when we get back. She said you’d grow up thinking that your mother was the Woman of Steel, that you’d want to be just like her. Dimity said there’d be trouble when you found out you weren’t as tough as you thought you should be.”
“When my mother died…”
“You found out that you weren’t made of steel. You had no way of knowing that no one is made of steel. How could you? You had no one to tell you otherwise.”
“You had Dimity.”
“And your mother had Dimity.” Bill raised his eyes to the distant hills. “But who did Dimity have?”
I followed his gaze. Bill’s words had fallen like balm on my wounded spirit, but the thought of Dimity’s unnamed sorrow reawakened the sense of anguished longing I had felt upon seeing the heart. The clearing itself seemed to change when he spoke her name, as though something were missing, or out of place. The sunlight had become harsh and a cool breeze chilled me. The ground felt rough against my legs and when I searched the sky for the soaring hawks, I could not find them.
Bill reached for the bag and stood up, then stretched out a hand to pull me to my feet. “It’s time to go back to the cottage.”
*
I spent the rest of that day in the study, catching up on the correspondence. Bill spent it in the Jacuzzi.
19
I would have made a fortune if I’d had the foresight to sell tickets to Tea with the Pym Sisters. It was better than anything playing in the West End.