Page 84 of The Last Night in London
As I leaned closer, I heard my own breaths keeping time with the ticking clock. “What wrong were you trying to right?”
She smiled at me in the moonlight. “You first.”
I sat back, trying to regain control of my feelings. I cleared my throat, searching for a neutral topic so I could sleep. “My aunt sent me magnolia leaves from home. If you like, I can use them to decorate the flat.”
She stared at me blankly.
“For your mantel or dining table. I’m not really good at that kind of thing, but my mama was, and I’ll just copy what she used to do.”
“Of course. Please—decorate away.” She flapped her hand, her fingers like a bird’s wings in the moonlight. “This place could use some freshening up.”
“Has it not changed since the forties?”
“A bit.” I felt her eyes on me, heard a fluttering outside the open windows. “The rooms that were destroyed in the Blitz had to be completely refurbished. Sophia took care of that—she always had such a good eye for that sort of thing. Happily, our clothes were stored in rooms that didn’t sustain much damage, although Sophia said it took a long time to air them out.”
“It’s a good thing that Sophia and David didn’t sell the flat and you could live in it when you returned.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes.
“I’m just curious why it took you all those years before you came back to London.”
She smiled without opening her eyes. “I was waiting until I was ready to face the past. Like you, Maddie. It’s hard to return home when the memories aren’t all happy ones.”
I straightened, felt the zing strike me in the chest. Pretending I hadn’t heard, I said, “Did you ever consider returning to Tennessee?”
“I would have been returning to strangers. London was my home. I wrote to my family, right after the war, so they wouldn’t worry. I let them know that I had survived but wouldn’t be returning to Tennessee.”
Her chest rose and fell, and I waited a moment for her to say more. When she didn’t, I stood, prepared to leave.
“Don’t wait too long, Maddie. Face your fears. Walking through the flames is always less painful than anticipating them.”
I stopped, turned around. “Excuse me?”
But Precious’s eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling as if in sleep. I waited another minute, then moved to the windows to close the curtains. Without the moonlight, I turned on my phone’s flashlight to guide me out of the room. I’d taken a couple of steps when the beam caught on a small rectangle of white on the carpet. I bent to pick it up and took it to my room to get a better look.
When I flipped on the light, an unexpected jolt ofsomethingshot through me before I realized it was the photo of Graham in his RAF uniform. It had seemed, just for a moment, that it was Colin. They shared the same shy grin and dimpled chin. The same light-colored hair. Even the pattern of freckles on their noses seemed to match. Not that I’d paid that much attention to Colin’s freckles.
I leaned down to get a better look. Genetics was a funny thing. Colin resembled his great-uncle more than his own parents or grandmother. I looked a lot more like my aunt Cassie than I did my mother, so it wasn’t so far-fetched. Yet I remembered when I met Colin’s father, how I thought he looked familiar. Something in his face must have been a throwback to a shared ancestor.
I flipped the photo over, saw the feminine handwriting again.Sweet dreams, darling.I yawned. It was too late to be up, and certainly too late to be thinking. Yet something about those words pricked at my brain, a slow drip that evaporated as soon as it landed.
A noise from the front of the flat startled me. I flipped off the light, holding my breath as I strained to listen. It could have been Laura in the kitchen, but as I tiptoed to the hallway, I could see no light from the kitchen, and Colin’s bedroom door was still closed. I took a step, cringing as the old wood floor creaked beneath me. I stopped, hearing an odd rustling sound. I considered calling the police, but I’d dead-bolted the doors myself and set the alarm.
More curious now than frightened, I crept down the hallway, sticking to the side by the wall where the floorboards didn’t squeak as much, an old trick I’d learned from my grandfather’s house. My shoulder knocked one of the framed photographs, but it stayed on the nail.
In the foyer, I stopped to listen again, pausing in a bubble of shadow. The moonlight through the leaded glass windows painted willowy patterns on the floor and walls. A dim light shone from the reception room, a triangle spilling from the door left slightly ajar.
Something rustled again, followed by the solid plop of a heavy object being dropped on the floor. Whoever it was wasn’t trying to be stealthy. With more confidence, I crossed the foyer and peered around the door.
Colin stood in front of the window at the desk, Sophia’s stationery box by his feet, the desktop littered with old letters. His jacket lay discarded on the sofa, his shirt untucked and hanging loose. As I watched, he pulled his fingers through his hair and let out a groan of frustration.
“What are you doing?”
He turned his head but didn’t startle, almost as if he’d been expecting me. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you. But I didn’t leave the office until eleven. I thought I’d take a few moments to have a look at some of this, in the hopes of finding Graham or Eva.” He straightened, then turned around to face me. “I wanted to see if you’d join me, but I don’t know what time you go to bed.”
“Eleven, usually. Unless I’m editing or facing a deadline. But usually I turn off the lights at eleven.”
“I wasn’t asking, but thanks,” he said.
