The Paris Agent(7)

“Only when you’re ready, Lottie. I’m sorry to tell you that grief is forever, but the acute phase does ease—in its own time. I just wanted to remind you today that your mother knew we all adored her. She wouldn’t have needed us to stay miserable to prove it.”

I look down at Wrigley and my gaze sticks on the scar on his left front shoulder—where his leg used to connect to his torso. I always feel a pinch in my chest when I see that scar. Wrigley lost more than a limb that morning.

The dog looks up at me then rises, pushing himself effortlessly onto his three paws. He bends to stretch, wobbling just a little on that single front leg, then sprints down to the water’s edge, where he splashes his front foot in the water and gives a bark of joy.

“Hi, Aunt Kathleen. It’s Charlotte.”

I’m home from the beach, and Dad has retired to his study to start work on his project, but I have one last task left to do before I turn in myself. I invited Mum’s sister, my aunt Kathleen, to join us for the picnic. She said she was too busy with end-of-year work at the girls’ college where she’s headmistress and maybe there’s some truth in that, but it’s not the whole truth. Since Mum died, Aunt Kathleen is busy just about every time I invite her somewhere unless I make it clear the invitation is just for the two of us. She and Dad have always had an odd relationship and I suspect she doesn’t want me to be put in the position of buffer, as Mum so often was.

“How was your picnic?” she asks me now. She sounds miserable, and I wonder if I should have made the effort to visit her alone after the picnic instead of calling. She and Mum were so close. Kathleen is as heartbroken over Mum’s loss as Dad and I am.

The whole reason I chose Formby Beach for the picnic today was that many of my happiest childhood memories of Mum are from Saturdays there. We’d throw the family dog into the car and we’d drive, the radio blaring and the windows down, wind in our hair and smiles on our faces, to meet Aunt Kathleen in the parking lot. She and Mum would often walk so they could gossip or brainstorm some school issue in privacy, while Dad supervised me and Archie as we paddled in the water or played in the sand. Afterward, we’d sit on a blanket together and share fish and chips, just as Dad and I did today. Despite the ever-present hint of friction between her and Dad, Kathleen is a branch of our family and the distance between us now just feels wrong.

“How are you holding up?” I ask her gently.

“I should be asking you that question, Charlotte,” she sighs. I can’t answer her honestly, so I lie and tell her what she needs to hear.

“I’m okay,” I say, then I force a positivity I don’t feel. “The ‘firsts’ are hard, but we’ve survived her first birthday without her now. Next year will be easier.”

“Hmm,” she says noncommittally. “And Noah?”

“He’s doing a little better, actually.” It strikes me that Kathleen has known Dad for as long as Mum did. “Did you know Dad was in the SOE, Aunt Kathleen?”

She sucks in a breath and seems startled as she says, “I…well, yes. I did.” There’s a pause before she adds cautiously, “Why do you ask?”

“He never told me and Archie.”

“I know that. I’m curious how you know now.”

“Dad told me he’s starting a project to try to find some man who helped him when he was in France—” I say, but I’ve barely finished the sentence when Kathleen says abruptly, “Your mother would have hated that.”

My eyebrows lift in surprise.

“Dad just says he wants to focus on something else. Something other than his grief for Mum.”

“Geraldine was always adamant that the war years were best left forgotten,” Kathleen says stiffly. “She was a wise woman, Charlotte.”

“You think I should discourage him?”

Aunt Kathleen doesn’t answer me at first. There’s a long, strained silence before she sighs.

“I really don’t know, darling. But the timing of this is awfully strange, isn’t it? Your mother dies and Noah starts dredging up the past like this? What good could possibly come of that?”

Despite her abrupt tone and how certain she sounds, it seems to me that something good already has come of Dad looking back.

“He’s struggled so much since Mum died. We all have. But now, he seems relieved to have something else to focus on. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Your father was a completely different man during the war years,” Kathleen says. “It’s a blessing that you never knew that version of him, Charlotte. That’s all I’m saying.”

The coolness in Aunt Kathleen’s tone sends a chill down my spine. She’s never been fond of Dad, but she’s never been openly hostile toward him—at least not within my earshot. It’s clear there’s still more history here that I’ve never been privy to. Once upon a time I’d have laughed at the idea that my father might have some darkness hidden in his past. Not my dad, who cries in sad movies and who catches spiders and releases them outside rather than squishing them.

He’s a soft man. A kind man.

But is he an honest man? Dad’s involvement with the SOE is no small thing to hide, and even he has questions about those days.

“Have you ever talked to Dad about the war years, Aunt Kathleen?” I ask uneasily.