We entered the house through the side door I remembered from years before. Although we had walked out the front, it was clear this was the entrance Mom used most. The small mudroom had a soapstone floor, already worn with water spots and life. Three pairs of Hunter boots stood sentinel in a tray—one the most startling orange color. Several coats hung on thick wood pegs and shelves held a variety of baskets to drop objects within. She plopped her house key into one and her handbag within another.
She then led me up the back stairs to the top floor. We came out at the workroom with its high center table. But rather than stand empty, the table now held three large cloth bins.
“While you slept I emptied the trunk. There was no way we were going to be able to lift it so I filled these. These are all letters.” She pulled at one bin. “At least what I thought were letters—all the packets tied in ribbons. This one holds books. I assume they are Margaret’s diaries.” She walked around the table and laid her hands on the third bin. “And this last holds papers, odds and ends, and a few photographs.”
She pointed back toward the attic. “You can also go through the trunk. There are still dolls, clothes, and lots of stuff in there, but I think this is what’s pertinent to your search.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She paused, a question flickering across her face before she verbalized it. “Can . . . Can I stay? Can I help?”
I pulled out one of the four high stools. “You’ve never been through this? Not while you were here with Grandmother all that time? Not after?”
“Back then I felt it would have been a huge invasion into her privacy. Besides, Caro—that’s what she called her sister—was all she wanted to talk about those last months. After almost eighty years of silence, she couldn’t stop. I got to know both Margaret and Caro that way.”
Mom dug through the bin of odds and ends and pulled out a photograph. “Then I didn’t want to search. I wanted Caro to be for me just as Margaret remembered her. Despite everything that happened, your grandmother adored her twin.”
She handed me the photograph. Two young women captured from the waist up. Lovely women. Mirror images. Yet different. One had her long dark hair pulled back. The other wore her hair short, curled close to the jawline, much like I’d seen in Downtown Abbey and Foyle’s War. The one with long hair seemed wide-eyed and anxious or sad, I wasn’t sure which, and the short-haired girl’s head tipped back as if the camera caught her mid-laughter. Her bold joy was infectious. It made me smile and wonder why her mirror image, standing so close I couldn’t find the line between their shoulders, wasn’t joining in the fun.
“You look like them.” Mom tucked a strand of my dark hair behind my ear.
I wanted to disagree, but I couldn’t. For the first time, I saw rather than simply accepted what I’d been told. Before me were two iterations of me. The same wide, light blue eyes, dark hair, and square jaw—although my jaw was not so pronounced. Both my parents had brown eyes and Mom, a heart-shaped face.
“You and Dad said that, but I never saw myself in Grandmother.”
“She was very changed by the time you knew her.”
I turned the picture over. The year 1936 was written on the back. “They would have been eighteen? I assume Caro has the short hair?”
“Yes. She moved to Paris that year. Perhaps this was taken on a visit home.” Mom nodded at the table. “Where do you want to begin?”
“I’m going to start with the letters.” My thinking was that Caro’s letters would provide the best insight into her story.
“I’ll sort through Margaret’s diaries.” Mom stacked six identical books—all brown leather, hardbound with cream pages tipped gold at the edges—on the table. “The last book ends in October 1941.”
“October 20, 1941, was the day of the notice Mat gave me, when they told her parents Caro ran off with her German.”
“Margaret must have stopped writing . . .” Mom shifted as if trying to get comfortable. “She told me about that night, and what followed.”
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. Lost either in thought or in memory, Mom opened one of the diaries and began to read. I dropped my head and focused on my own task. The letters. I was tired of talking, guessing, and wondering anyway. I wanted to find answers—from the source.
I lifted out the packets of letters and placed them before me. The envelopes varied in size, and they did not seem to be organized by date but rather by importance. Some were crisp. Read once and put away. The ones in the first packet I pulled out felt soft with handling and wear. They held spots of ruined ink as if tears had fallen on them. My heart hurt for a woman who must have loved her sister very much—and, according to my mom, mourned her all her life.
Fanning through the stacks, I found most letters featured a swirling script that looked as if the writer’s brain moved faster than the pen, which raced to catch up but never succeeded. There was something hurried about the penmanship, frenetic and excited, with the letters sloping close and up to the right in an endless chase.
One bundle came from a different writer. The pen had moved straight up and down, creating rigid letters. Instinctively, I knew those were not written by my aunt. No one thought to have impulsively run away with her Nazi lover could have such stiff, precise penmanship.
I reached for the topmost letter, one from the packet bound by the worn ribbon, created by the racing hand, and unfolded the soft linen pages.
Eight
Hastings, England
17 May 1940
Dearest Margo,
I can’t imagine your dinner conversation after I telephoned this evening. I thought Mother was going to convulse and expire right there. Father sounded near tears as well—and that says something. But you, dearest sister, your trembling “Thank God” was all I needed.
I was with you, hugging you tight. Our short conversation wasn’t enough. There is so much filling me right now and no one to tell. I asked a WAAF senior section leader billeted here for pen and paper. I am warm, bathed, and dressed in clothes also borrowed from her. She is shorter than we are, so I look like I waded from France this morning. If I had, I would keep walking home to you. But that’s impossible.
First I must be fed and, if I can be helpful, I must answer a million questions. They gave me a meal upon landing and that was the first I’d eaten in two days. I packed a bag when I left Paris, but that ran out quickly. Everything on the road ran out quickly.
Tonight I will live vicariously through you right now. Mrs. Dulles will have finally lightened Parkley’s menu with spring and, as soon as she heard I was safe, most likely whipped up a treat. I’m hoping for champagne and my favorite custard and, if my salvation doesn’t warrant that, please don’t tell me. Let me dream I am worthy of a full month’s rations of butter and cream and a little black market bubbly if Father has drained the cellar.