Thirty-nine
July 19, 1958
Dear Emmy,
Emmy, I think I found the town where we got off the train and Charlotte met us! When I drove into Moreton-in-Marsh today, I felt as though I were being tugged through a tunnel. I was shaking when I parked Simon’s car and walked into the train station. The station itself didn’t seem familiar to me, but walking out of it and back onto the street nearly took my breath away. The scene in front of me was like a long-lost photograph that flitted down off a shelf in my mind. It was the same, but different. As I walked up the sidewalk toward the town center, I could see you and me, holding our cardboard boxes with our gas masks inside. I could feel the weight of my fairy tale book tucked under my arm. I could feel my hand in yours. There was a dead bird in the street, and the boys ahead of us from my school wanted to stop and poke it. They were daring me to touch it. You kicked it with the tip of your shoe and it flopped over into the gutter.
Oh, Emmy, the pull of feeling you so near almost yanked me to the ground.
This was the place. I knew it.
The first few people I approached in the grocery store and the stationers seemed dubious when I told them whom I was looking for and why, and I realized I was talking too fast and too frantically. I must have seemed like a madwoman escaped from an institution, intent on hacking to death the two sisters I was searching for. I knew I needed to compose myself. And I needed to sit down with the map and see where you and I could have come from that long-ago morning when we walked to Moreton. Charlotte didn’t live here. She lived somewhere else. But I was close.
I went to a café, ordered a pot of Darjeeling, and used the warmth and floral notes of the tea to calm myself as I studied the map. I made a list of towns that you and I could have walked from to reach Moreton. Batsford, Draycott, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Blockley, Chastleton, Broadwell, Longborough, Stow-on-the-Wold, Oddington.
I drank my tea, got back in Simon’s car, and headed to the northwest corner of my search area to work my way down. So today, I only got to explore Batsford, Blockley, Bourton-on-the-Hill, and the smaller hamlets Paxton and Aston Magna.
I did not find the house.
And I did not see the sisters’ names in the local cemeteries.
I started home for London when the sun was setting and drove to Simon’s flat so that he could take me home and have his car. He seemed a little sad that I’d so quickly discovered Moreton on my own. Not sad for me, but for himself. It was obvious that he wished he had chosen Moreton the first day out.
Still want to go alone next Saturday? he asked. Maybe I should have invited him to come; I could tell he wanted to. But I kissed him and declined.
I like it that it’s just me.
Next Saturday I will head for Chastleton, Broadwell, and Longborough.
July 26, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I am sick with some kind of flu.
It’s Saturday but instead of getting into Simon’s car and continuing my search, I am spending the day in bed with a fever. Granny insisted on coming out on the train to take care of me when I came home ill from work on Thursday, even though I was far from needing that much attention.
I haven’t been out to see Gramps and Granny much since I started dating Simon. I think she was looking for a reason to come see me and to see how Simon and I are getting on. I’m twenty-five and never really had a boyfriend before. She and Gramps have met Simon only once, when he and I drove out to have Sunday dinner with them a few months ago. That was before Simon proposed to me and tried to offer me a ring, and I told him I wasn’t ready.
No one really knows he did that. Well, maybe his parents do. I don’t have many close friends at work or here in my building. I haven’t wanted to trust many people with my friendship. I guess because of how awful my teenage years were. So I don’t have chummy girlfriends to confide in. Maybe if I had a best friend, I would have told her Simon had proposed. But I don’t really have one of those. Simon is my best friend. You can see how terrible it will be for me if he loses interest in me.
He says he won’t, but I wonder how he knows he can wait for me. He’s never done this before.
Granny stayed for two days, made me loads of soup, did my laundry, and went to the pharmacy for cough syrup. She asked more than once what I’ve been up to in my free time. I think she is wondering why I’ve not been home on Saturdays when she has called.
I almost told her what I’ve been doing.
I’m not sure why I didn’t other than she’d worry that I’ll wish I hadn’t looked for the brides box when it’s all said and done, whether I find it or not.
She left this afternoon on the five o’clock train back to Oxford. Simon is coming over in a little while, to read to me and fuss over me, no doubt.
I just want to shake this bug and get back to what I was doing before I got sick.
I am close. I can feel it.
Julia