Page 56 of The Secrets We Left Behind
Addy smiled into her coffee. “Something like that.”
Cate leaned forward then, and Addy looked up at her. “Just be careful. He might be just a man falling for a beautiful girl, or he might want more than you’re prepared to give. In fact, he might suspect more than you realize, so be vigilant. You might not know if he’s playing a terrible game with you until it’s too late.”
Her words sank in and Adelaide realized her coffee mug was trembling in her hand. “I’ll be careful. I promise I will.” She hadn’t really thought about the fact that he could be playing with her, rather than the other way around.
“Good, then can we check how that bread’s looking? Because I could honestly eat a horse, I’m so hungry.”
If Cate was trying to win her over, she’d definitely succeeded.
“Cate, how is it that you’re so level-headed?” Addy asked once they were both standing by the oven. “I mean, you’ve risked everything to stay alive, you’re hiding in my house and ...” She took the bread out and turned to face her. “You’re amazing. I’d be a nervous wreck, is what I’m trying to say.”
Cate’s quiet sob took her by surprise; a shudder shook the other woman’s shoulders but lasted barely a few seconds before Cate seemed to compose herself.
“Cate, oh Cate, I’m so sorry!” Addy discarded her oven mitt and threw her arms around her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Cate hugged her tightly, and Addy stroked her back in big circles.
“I’m fine, you just caught me off guard, and I’ve been holding it all in for so long,” Cate said, stepping away at last. “I’m not who you think I am, Addy.”
“So you’re not a brave, strong, capable woman then?”
Cate’s smile seemed bittersweet. “Put it this way,” she said. “My insides feel like a freight train is chugging through them, and my hands shake so often that I’ve started to almost permanently fist them. So hearing you call me brave? It makes me feel like a fraud.”
“You’re not serious?” Addy asked, barely believing what she was hearing.
“As God is my witness,” Cate replied. “But I’ve had to believe in myself all these months, Addy. There was no one there to hold my hand, and the men I nursed, well, some of them had a fate worse than death, and my job was to make them feel like everything would be fine.” She took a big breath. “And some of them didn’t make even a day in hospital before their bodies gave out on them, some of them were so badly burned their howls and whimpers will haunt my nightmares forever. It takes everything I have to keep those memories at bay.”
“That must have been unbearable, for you I mean,” Addy murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“I lost my fiancé, too,” Cate said, staring at the bread as if it might hold all the answers. “He was a good man, and he didn’t even last a month, and part of me will always wonder if someone kind was nursing him at the end. If he’s not alive somewhere, that is, because he was classified as presumed dead, so there’s always that question in my mind.”
Addy cleared her throat, because it had suddenly turned dry and raspy. “Just like my brother Louis. We lost him right at the beginning as well. He was so strong and full of life, we didn’t for amoment think that when we waved him goodbye he’d never come back.”
“We’re not so different after all then, are we?” Cate’s smile was kind. “We all learn to cope as best we can. So whenever you look at me and think I’m holding everything together so well, just remember I’ve had more practice than you at faking it.”
Addy touched Cate’s hand. “Thank you for opening up to me,” she whispered.
Cate smiled. “Thankyoufor making bread.”
And they both laughed so hard, despite it all, that when Harry walked into the kitchen, he looked at the pair of them as if they’d gone stark raving mad.
It was time. Adelaide took a final look at herself in the mirror, running her hands down her pretty lavender-colored dress, her favorite, and staring into her own eyes for a moment.Can I actually go through with this? She was about to go on a picnic with Wolfgang, just the two of them, and all her earlier confidence had drained away. Her hair was softly curling over her shoulders, longer than usual, but she’d kept it that way during the war because she’d decided she liked it. She’d used a little rouge on her cheeks and pink lipstick, but she felt too young as she stared at her reflection, not grown-up enough to go on a proper date, even if she did turn twenty in a few days’ time.
Elise tapped on the door then and she quickly looked away, not wanting to be seen mooning at herself in the mirror.
“I thought maybe you could wait for him near the door, so he doesn’t have to come in,” Elise said softly, her head against the door jamb as she considered her. “You look absolutely beautiful, Addy.As gorgeous as Mama when they used to leave us and go out for dinner when we were little.”
Adelaide did a little twirl and they both laughed. “You really think so?”
“I do.” Elise came in and lifted the perfume bottle from the dresser, taking Addy’s arm and dropping a little to her wrist. “And now you can smell like her, too.”
Adelaide watched as Elise dabbed a little to her own wrist before setting the bottle back down.
“Addy, I know I said that I didn’t approve, but I do believe in you, and I know I can’t tell you what you can and can’t do. If it were my choice, you wouldn’t be seeing him, but ...”
Adelaide picked up her jacket and slung it over her arm, nervous all over again as she waited for Elise to finish her sentence.
“Well, perhaps you could try to find out more about the current situation, what happened at Dunkirk and so on?” Elise suggested. “Don’t make a fuss about it, just act interested if he starts to talk about the war. Make out like you know very little, just play along and get as much out of him as you can without being obvious.”
