Page 64 of Wish For Me

“What are you looking for?”

“Everything about two specific women.”

“What women?”

Noelle hands a framed article to me, then another.

She doesn’t answer until she finds a third frame. “These ones.”

Apparently satisfied, she leans the frames up against the boxes, then sits down in front of them, crossing her legs like a little kid and patting the floor next to her for me.

I join her. There are three framed articles. The first has a photo of two women arm in arm, in 1940s garb. I read the headline out loud. “First Official Meeting of the Quince Valley Women’s League.”

She points to the next one. It looks like the same two women standing next to an old-fashioned looking ambulance car, on a bombed out street. “Women Join the War Effort.”

The last one I don’t read out loud.Tragedy Strikes the Women’s League.

I look at Noelle in confusion.

“See that one?” She points to the first photo. The woman smile for the camera, their heads tilted toward one another like they’re good friends. “The one on the left is my great great grandmother.”

“What?” I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“My mom’s great grandma. Everyone called her ‘Grandma Betty.’ She lived to be 101 years old—died when my mom was around twenty.”

I glance from the photo to Noelle. There’s a slight resemblance, I realize. In the cheekbones, and the tilt of her smile.

“Mom remembers Grandma Betty fondly. She says she used to tell her stories about her time in the war. She was an ambulance driver in London during the air raids.”

Noelle reads the first paragraph in the article out loud:

Best friends Betty Brown and Carolyn Adamsform the Quince Valley Women’s League with an aim to join the men in the war effort.

“This picture was taken right here. See the window?” She points to the window behind the women—only a sliver of it is visible, but it’s clear it’s the same unique round window on the wall in front of us.

“Wow,” I say.

“I know.” She keeps reading the article, about how the two friends raised money to fund their trip to London.

The second article, which I read, is the story of how they succeeded in becoming ambulance drivers during the air raids in London.

My eyes catch though, on a quote from Noelle’s grandmother’s friend.

“‘I always felt a kinship with Europe, since I was born in Switzerland. I never knew my parents. But I couldn’t stay home when I knew there was a way to help. I’m just lucky my dearest girlfriend felt the same.’”

Noelle’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God.”

I move aside so she can look at the article too.

“Switzerland—Leif! My dad told me he thought Carolyn might be connected to Eleanor Cleary, but I wrote it off as a coincidence, especially when I found out a lot of orphans had been brought over here after the First World War, when Eleanor had her baby. But I didn’t know Carolyn was born in Switzerland.”

My heart skips. Could this be Eleanor Cleary’s daughter? The girl who Aunt Nora was convinced lived here in Quince Valley?

“The timing’s right,” Noelle says, growing even more excited. “She was born at the right time, her name starts with a C, and your Aunt Nora always talked about how James’s diaries mentioned a girl called ‘C’”.

I don’t want to get her hopes up. But that’s a lot of coincidences. I run my hand through my hair. “I guess it’s not outside the realm of possibility. We could ask Nora to do some digging?”

Noelle makes a little squealing noise. But when we look to the third article, her smile drops.

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