A book had arrived on every anniversary of her mother’s death, secretly, quietly, without fuss or flourish. Sometimes it was left on the bottom of the bed. Sometimes she would find it in her schoolbag. Sometimes it was sitting on the stairs, and always there was a simple inscription to her inside, but never a note saying whom it was from. She knew they were from Pappy, although he never admitted it. He admired the books when she showed them to him, joining in the charade of the mystery. And yet this couldn’t possibly have come from him. So who was it from?
The rain returned during the evening, casting everything into an autumnal gloom. Glad to be alone after she’d locked up, Olivia kicked off her shoes and took the Peter Pan book upstairs to the flat, where Hemingway had made himself at home on the foot of the bed. She wriggled beneath the duvet and started to read.
It was nearly dawn when she reached the final pages: “Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret. . . . When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on. . . .”
Olivia thought about the family photographs lined up on the mantelpiece in Bluebell Cottage, the memories safely stored away behind the glass frames: great-grandma Ellen on the doorstep of the cottage in the woods with a baby in her arms; Nana Martha with her baby daughter in her arms; the photograph of her own mother cradling her in her arms, their whole uncertain life stretching out before them like the sea in the background. Four generations of women, each of their stories continuing through each other. Four generations of women, of which Olivia was currently the last—and always would be.
The reality of it all hit her hard.
Finally, she let go of the anguish she’d carried since reading the letter from the consultant. She let go of all the hours spent in consulting rooms being prodded and poked, and all the hours spent lying awake at night, hoping for a different answer than the one she received. It seemed especially unfair that after losing her own mother in such traumatic circumstances, she was now unable to become a mother herself.
Silently, the tears came. One by one, they slipped onto the pillow, each taking away part of a future she’d always imagined—assumed—would be hers. She would have been a good mother, in honor of her own. She would have created special memories for her children to collect and keep in buckets of their own. She would have done the best she could.
As her tears subsided, she lay back against the pillows and read the final words of the book. “Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky until they were as small as stars.”
That night, in her dreams, she sat on the harbor wall, legs cool against the concrete, cheeks reddened by the sun, heart warmed by the shape of her mammy beside her.
And while she slept, a note from Henry sat unseen where it had fallen beneath the desk downstairs.
A note saying that someone had called in earlier, looking for her.
Someone called Jack.
Thirteen
Ireland. Present day.
Olivia was processing new orders from the website when the shop bell jangled the next morning. She glanced up, expecting to see Henry or a customer. What she saw took her breath away.
“Jack?” The inflection in her voice carried a dozen questions she couldn’t articulate.
The tightness in her chest constricted her breath, her thoughts, her words, while her hands trembled against the desk as she tried to steady herself and process what was happening: Jack was here. In Ireland. In the bookshop.
“But . . . I thought you were overseas,” she added. “What are you doing here?”
He closed the door behind him and stood in the middle of the shop, legs slightly apart, hands in his chinos pockets. His business stance.
“I’m here to take you back to London. It’s been six weeks, Olivia. It’s ridiculous. People are starting to talk.” He tilted his head to one side and frowned. “What did you do to your hair?”
She touched her hand self-consciously to her neck. “I cut it.”
“I can see that. You look weird.”
She was used to his critical views on her appearance. His words fell off her now like raindrops. “So do you, Jack. You look . . . different.”
He looked terrible. Dark shadows lurked in the hollows beneath his eyes, stubble peppered his chin, and his hair was unusually tousled. Everything about him was wrong, but what struck Olivia most was how wrong it was that he was standing in her shop, how wrong it was that he had invaded this happy little world she’d created from nothing, and how wrong it was that when she looked at the man she was supposed to love more than any other, it was like looking at a stranger, and her heart felt numb.
“So, this is the famous bookshop,” he continued, his eyes scanning the shelves and the teetering piles of books leaning against the edge of the desk. “This is it? This is what’s been keeping you here?”
There was an edge to his voice that Olivia didn’t like, a look in his eye she’d seen when business deals didn’t go his way. It wasn’t anger. It was something deeper than that. A seething dissatisfaction at not getting his own way.
Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t have the words or the energy to defend herself or the shop, or to explain—again—why she’d needed to stay. She’d repeated herself so often whenever they had spoken over the past few weeks, but Jack couldn’t understand her emotional attachment to the shop. It was a business. There was no place for emotion as far as he was concerned.
“What are you trying to prove, Olivia? Because, really, a secondhand bookshop in a poky little Irish town isn’t exactly going to change the world.”
“Perhaps I’m not going to change the world, but I can change my small part of it.”
Jack smiled in reply. Or was it a sneer? It was hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Olivia caught a whiff of alcohol as he swayed on the spot. “Have you been drinking?”
He laughed. A loud, false laugh. The one he used in business dinners when he was trying to weasel his way into the favor of someone he secretly loathed. He sauntered toward her, the smell of brandy unmistakable as he leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk. “When were you going to tell me, Olivia?”
“Tell you what?” Her mouth was paper-dry. Her hands clammy.
He slid an envelope across the desk.
She recognized the crest of the consultant’s practice on the front. Her heart thumped double-time in her chest as Jack perched on the edge of the desk, a little too close. Instinctively, she leaned back. “Where did you find that?”
“I found it in your nightstand when I was looking for your birth certificate for the church.” He stared at her. Cold, glassy eyes that she had once fallen for because they had glittered with confidence and she’d been too easily impressed. “You do remember we’re supposed to be getting married in seven weeks?”
She reached for the letter, but he snatched it away. Tears pricked her eyes. She refused to let them fall.