Jamie and I exchanged looks. I’d never seen a homecoming that looked so far from home. In this I found hope, however short-lived. Pru was not overjoyed to see him. She didn’t even seem especially relieved.
“They’re happy of course,” Charlie said. “But, baby, it was you. Your face kept me going. I was only in the camp nine months, nothing compared to some of the guys, but it was pure hell. I thought of you the whole damned time. Hell, I thought of you before I was captured. The horrors I witnessed, the ones I committed myself.”
As Charlie spoke, veins lifted off his temples.
“You were right,” he said. “I never should’ve gone. But visions of you kept me alive. When I finally got out of the hospital and you weren’t there … fuck. I wished I’d died. This time, for real.”
Pru struggled to inhale. She could not catch her breath.
“But that’s over,” he said. “Because I found you and we’re together at last.”
Charlie uncurled his fist, which was until that time balled into a knot. He stretched his fingers, reaching his hand toward Pru.
In the middle of his palm sat a ring. A platinum band with a four-carat diamond in the center, two-carat baguettes on either side. The privileged in England inherited titles. In America, it was grandmother’s jewels.
“I’d ask you to marry me,” Charlie said, and let his eyes flick briefly in my direction. “But you already said yes. Nothing’s changed. Unless you have something against cripples.”
“Charlie…” Pru said in a whisper. “Don’t…”
“Come back with me. I’ve never loved you more than I do at this moment. We’ll start over. I’ll work at a goddamned desk, the biggest bodily threat a paper cut. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
As Pru remained in a fog, Charlie leaned into her and glided the ring onto her finger. It was far too big. The diamond fell immediately out of sight.
“Come back with me,” he said again. “Paris is nice, Laurel. Paris is great, but God Bless America.”
Eighty-one
?LE SAINT-LOUIS
PARIS
NOVEMBER 2001
There wasn’t a person in that apartment not floored to see Laurel standing in the doorway. Even Annie, who’d called her in the first place.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” Laurel said, face beating and hair chaotic around her. “But you don’t go running off to foreign countries without telling me.”
Laurel ranted on for several more minutes, sounding like a top candidate for Strictest Mom on Earth. But Annie understood it was for show. Mostly Laurel lit into her daughter so she didn’t have to acknowledge the other people in the room.
“I left you a message,” Annie pointed out. “So I did tell you. And what choice did I have? And, P.S., I’m an adult.”
“This is not like you, Annabelle. What were you planning to do? Sleep in some strange man’s apartment?”
“He’s not a strange man.”
“Well, we’re both a little strange,” Jamie tried to joke.
Laurel closed her eyes. Around them the apartment creaked and sighed. Annie felt Gus quaking behind her.
“Well, now I finally get why you’re so anti Eric,” Annie said. “Charlie? The dead soldier? He was my dad?”
“He was. And I am not anti Eric. I’m pro you.”
“These past few weeks,” Annie said. “I thought you didn’t want us together because we didn’t know each other. Then I thought it was because you were afraid I’d lose him. You had me questioning everything—me, him, whether we should even be together. But now I know. It’s not that you were afraid he’d never come home. You were afraid that he would and I’d marry him anyway.”
It couldn’t have been clearer if she’d written it out, or engraved it on a luggage tag. Laurel didn’t love Charlie when she married him. She left with him out of guilt. Or nostalgia. Or because she’d loved him once.
Oh, her mother had tried. Laurel tried her hand at a bohemian Parisian lifestyle, but she couldn’t make it stick. She was forced to act like an adult from a young age, after losing both parents, and then losing Charlie the first time. Responsible adult was how Laurel behaved, “doing the right thing” her default mode. Laurel’s character and her personal history were too ingrained to overcome.
“Annie,” Laurel said, eyes avoiding Gus as if he were the sun. “Whatever you think right now, you’re wrong. You don’t know the whole story.”
“So where is he?” Gus asked.
Annie whipped her head in his direction and was surprised to find a different man standing there. She thought of Gus as tall, broad-shouldered, and strong. But he suddenly appeared thin, anemic almost. She wondered if he was ill.
“Where is Charlie?” he asked.
The muscles in Laurel’s neck rose as she strained to keep her head from turning.
“Please warn me if a third member of this esteemed family is going to show up,” Gus said. “I can’t do that again.”
“Not bloody likely,” Jamie mumbled. “Mate, he’s dead.”
“He’s dead?” Gus said, gaping. “When? How? He’s dead?”