Our one and two halves third-class tickets in my hand, I shepherded the boys onto the train.
“I’m a half,” Davy joked as I placed our suitcases on the leather luggage netting overhead. It didn’t look strong enough to hold the bags.
I settled into a seat, the boys on either side of me, and Douglas took my hand.
“Mommy?” he asked in a quieter voice than usual.
“Yes?” I brushed his hair from his forehead.
“What if they don’t like us?” he asked. “They don’t have little boys, and they are so famous. And what if they don’t want to talk about Lucy and Peter with me, and they get mad that we’re there?”
The memory of Bill rose like bile in these moments, a raging ghost. My son had known years of ire, and he was expecting more of the same.
“The Lewis brothers aren’t like that, Douglas,” I reassured him. “They are kind men. And even if they didn’t like us, which isn’t possible because you are the most lovable boys in all the world, they would never be angry or mean. You’ll see. Everything is different now.”
He settled closer to me and folded his hand into mine, our fingers winding together, while Davy drew small circles on the window with his palm, as if he could wipe the outside fog away. In a moment Douglas was sound asleep as only young boys can be, completely and instantly. Davy dug into his pack until he retrieved his tattered copy of Prince Caspian and opened it to a random page.
“What part are you on?” I asked as the train chugged forward, hesitating and then picking up speed as we hurdled toward Oxford.
“Peter just challenged Miraz to fight.” Davy placed his little finger on the page and looked to me. “Do you think Mr. Lewis just imagined them out of nothing or did he know someone like them?”
“Why don’t you ask him about it? He’ll tell you. He’s kind that way.”
I shifted to allow Douglas’s head to fall onto my shoulder, and I watched the passing countryside fly by. The industrial scenes gave way to fields of heather with stone churches reaching for the foggy sky and villages huddled under the smoke of chimneys. When we stopped in Reading, I pointed out the Huntley and Palmer Biscuit Factory outside our window and explained that they would soon know exactly what those biscuits were, and for all their life they’d have their fill of them. The boys nodded lazily and fell back to sleep.
When the train finally drew near to Oxford, it halted with a shuddering grind and they both awoke.
“Where are we?” Douglas rubbed his eyes and pointed at a cemetery out the window.
“The train always stops at this cemetery for about ten minutes,” I said to him. “I don’t know why. No one seems to know why.”
“Maybe the conductor’s mommy is in there,” Davy said very seriously.
“Maybe.” I kissed the top of his sweet head.
Once in Oxford, we stepped onto the platform and blinked in the sunlight. It was a simple country train station compared to Paddington, and I adored it all the more. I straightened the boys’ ties and smoothed their trousers, fiddled with their wool hats until they sat upright. We boarded the bus and rode on the top deck to the Green Road roundabout, along High Street, and then out to Headington.
Rested now, the boys were rambunctious, wiggling and switching seats, gaining annoyed stares from other passengers. Finally we tumbled out together onto Green Road to walk to Netherwoods Road and then Kilns Lane—it was a path I knew well in both memory and dreams. The white birch trees and naked branches sang of winter, but as the Kilns appeared in front of us, it told of renewed life. The story I’d told of wandering in the woods, boys lost and finding a shepherd’s warm cottage, was silently between us.
“Look,” I said, kissing them on the cheeks, then wiping off the red lipstick marks I’d left on their faces. “We’re here.”
CHAPTER 34
My love, who does not love me but is kind,
Lately apologized for lack of love
“SONNET XX,” JOY DAVIDMAN
We stood, a bedraggled group, in front of the Kilns, its thatched roof a russet-colored welcome mat rolled out for our return. Smoke curled from the chimney, as if imitating Jack’s pipe. Ivy, even in winter, grew along the brick walls, and the front door, green and cheerful, was closed to us. But inside I knew what waited.
“I’m hungry, Mommy,” Davy said. We’d eaten our sandwiches on the train.
“Mrs. Miller will cook us something warm and wonderful,” I told them.
“Then why are we standing outside?” Douglas, always pragmatic, pulled at the hem of my sleeve and we moved forward, under the arbor and along the gravel walkway where stones crunched under our feet. As we reached the door, the boys lagged behind me, suddenly shy.