But she’d been too scared to inquire, afraid perhaps that this incident that rocked her world hadn’t affected her mother at all. That after the Dumbo ride, Jocelyn had gone on with her life freely, relieved she no longer had to care for her daughter. Grateful, even, that Quenby was gone as she started a new family, birthing new children to replace the old one who’d never been able to make her happy.
Brandon might have thought her obsessed with her work, but the truth was she was scared to get close to anyone, man or woman, thinking if they really got to know her, they would be gone too. It was crazy, of course, but it was her own version of crazy. During high school, she’d tried to remake herself into someone much more cool and smart. Likable. Someone different from who she was at the core. Someone people enjoyed being with.
She no longer tried to evolve into someone people liked. Instead she focused all her efforts on her stories. People seemed to enjoy her writing. It didn’t matter if they knew or even liked her.
Had Brigitte tried to change her identity as well, stepping into a new one that didn’t include the horrible memories of her childhood? Which begged the question—did Brigitte deliberately hide from Dietmar after the war, or was she detained?
Perhaps, after four years as a refugee, Brigitte joined a new family, like Dietmar had done. She could have stayed in Canada, under a new name, or been relocated to the United States, Australia, or even South Africa. Or she could have traveled back to Germany, not knowing whether her father was dead or alive, and stayed there.
Or had Brigitte died, like her father, before the war ended?
The task before Quenby seemed more than daunting. It seemed impossible.
But Brigitte had carved her initials in that wall back on Mulberry Lane. If she wanted Dietmar to find her, at least while she was with the Terrells, perhaps she’d continued to leave a trail along the way. Quenby could only hope time hadn’t erased anything else she’d left behind.
For now, like Mr. Knight, she would cling to the hope that Brigitte was still alive.
There were three long hours before she was supposed to meet Lucas for breakfast. She returned to her bed, yearning for peaceful sleep, but the lonely girl swept back into her mind.
Sitting up, she flipped on the light again and reached for the Gideon Bible in the drawer beside her bed. When she was a child, her grandmother liked to read to her from Proverbs. And Jesus’ words in the Gospels.
She found the verse in Matthew.
“For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Quenby pulled her knees up to her chest, praying quietly as she’d done over the years that Jesus would do more than help her carry the heavy load of her past. That He would take it away.
She rocked back and forth a few times before resting back against the pillows. As she fell asleep, the pain from her childhood seemed to swallow her again. Rejection. Loneliness. Fear. But this time when she dreamed, there was someone beside the girl. A warm presence. An elderly man holding out his hand. And the girl wasn’t scared of him at all.
The man led her through the crowd, and he must have been invisible as well for no one looked at him either.
He guided her to the grassy banks of a stream, to a picnic awaiting them on a crimson blanket. The girl ate the cold cucumber sandwiches prepared for her, gulped the lemonade. Then she swam in the clear waters by the waterfall. Safe. Her stomach full.
The man watched over her while she slept, and when she woke, he held out his hand again.
The alarm woke Quenby, but this time she wished she could slip back into her dream, to see where the girl went. To make sure the man didn’t abandon her.
It seemed, in her dream, that he wanted to rescue the girl from her fear and her loneliness. It seemed that perhaps he understood what it was like to be rejected too.
Morning light warmed her room as she leaned back against the headboard. Outside the window, a sailboat drifted toward the channel, preparing to dance with the wind.
Perhaps God did want peace for her and for Brigitte. Not sadness or despair.
Perhaps He didn’t want any of His children to be alone.
Chapter 29
Mill House, April 1941
One minute. That’s how long it took for Olivia to begin accosting him after he stepped through the cottage door. Instead of greeting him with a kiss, Olivia stood by the kitchen sink, her lips pressed in a firm line. “You said you’d come every weekend.”
Eddie shoved aside two dirty plates and dropped the box of food onto the kitchen table. She tore open the box and rummaged through the tins of Spam and tomato soup, pushing aside the dried vegetables and tea until she found a block of government cheddar.
“The dolt from London came back multiple times after you left,” he tried to explain. “I couldn’t travel until he gave up or he might suspect we’d done something wrong.”
“The investigation is done?” she asked, her mouth full of cheese.