“It’s nothing,” I reply. “Ancient history.”
“Can’t be too ancient,” Nolan says, “given that she hasn’t lived here long. You two obviously aren’t over each other. Not that I’m one to give relationship advice”—a snort comes from the back seat, but I can’t tell if it was from Mason or Jared—“due to how much I screwed things up with Hailey before she forgave my sorry ass and eventually agreed to marry me. The emotional scars my father left me with after years of abuse really messed me up. Luckily, Hailey never gave up on me.”
“Duly noted,” I respond, even though it isn’t.
His wife is clearly stronger than me. Or she didn’t have to deal with Nolan constantly pushing her away out of fear of moving on. Pushing her away like Jess kept doing to me.
My skin prickles with the need to turn the truck around and go back to her.
I white-knuckle the steering wheel and keep my gaze on the road ahead of me.
59
ANGELIQUE
June 1965
New York City
Lizzieand I walk along Madison Avenue. The New York City sidewalk is busy with people bustling to their jobs or the next tourist site they want to visit. The honking of car horns adds to the backdrop of the city noise, so different from the quiet in Maple Ridge, Oregon.
Unlike everyone else, we’re not in the same rush. We’re here to absorb the atmosphere, to mark off another city we wanted to visit.
Lizzie stops and looks up at the tall skyscrapers. New York City. The city of dreams. At one point, she aspired to be an actress and work on Broadway. But in the end, she decided an American history degree was more practical.
“It’s so different here compared to being in a small town,” she observes. Not a single vowel or consonant mark her English beginnings. “New York City is groovy. Maple Ridge is dull.”
Four years after the war, we immigrated to America—California, specifically—where I used my French and German skills as a translator in my secretarial job. Eventually, we moved to Maple Ridge. It was the town Johann had dreamed of moving to one day. The place is as beautiful as he imagined it would be. It’s the only place where my heart has felt settled.
“It is different.” I smile at Lizzie—the name having more meaning than she could ever imagine. Lizzie was the nickname RAF pilots gave the Lysander during the war. I thought it was only fitting to shorten her name—Elizabeth—to that because a Lysander had rescued us from occupied France so we could begin our life anew. My daughter has grown from being a scrawny, malnourished baby into a beautiful, spirited twenty-one-year-old.
“But I’ve lived in a number of cities and small towns,” I tell her, “and I still think Maple Ridge is the best place of all.”
We start walking again.
Lizzie tosses her long blond hair over her shoulder. “I can’t figure out why you would think that. There are places full of history and incredible architecture…”
She didn’t major in architecture, but I know what she means. Maple Ridge is a new town by most standards. It lacks the historical architecture of the northeastern states that she’s drawn to. It lacks the historical architecture found in Britain and Europe—her heritage, even if she doesn’t know the truth behind that.
“What can I say? Maple Ridge has a special place in my heart,” I tell her.
She makes a sound that has me smiling on the inside. I recognize it. I’m about to be lectured by my headstrong, romantic daughter.
“Auntie, how can you say that? You haven’t even found a man there to fall in love with.”
My breath draws in slightly at the wordAuntie, but not enough for Lizzie to notice. Twenty-one years and it still hurts—has done so from the first time she called me that.
I never got to experience the joy of her calling meMummy. Instead, I got to witness her use the word in reference to Hazel’s photo. Sometimes, I would pretend Lizzie was saying it to the other woman in the picture. Me. The woman who fell in love with her soul mate, only to lose him to the senselessness of war.
Lizzie has never commented on how she looks more like me than the other two people in the photo I took from Hazel and Charles’s bombed house.
“There’s more to life than falling in love with a handsome stranger,” I remind her. The gold pendant Johann gave me presses warmly on the skin over my heart.
My love for him hasn’t dimmed since I fell for the man who was supposed to be the enemy. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.
“Have you ever been in love?” Lizzie gives me a questioning side glance.
“Once. A very long time ago.”
