What time was it in America? Robert had taught her to calculate the time difference so they wouldn’t call each other too early or too late. Audrey couldn’t think. She didn’t care about the time. All she wanted was to hear Robert’s voice, reassuring her that he was fine. That there had been a mistake. Please, God . . .
Eve bounded into the bedroom again, breathless. “The operator will ring back when the call goes through.” She sat on the bed beside Audrey and gripped her trembling hands. “Do you want me to talk to Robert’s parents for you?”
“No . . . I—I’ll do it.” But how would she speak with a gaping hole in her chest? She could barely draw a full breath past her suffocating fear. It was a mistake. It had to be. She would walk to the telephone, which seemed a hundred miles away, and speak to Robert.
“Let me help you,” Eve said as Audrey rose on shaking legs. They went downstairs to the foyer, to the telephone. Audrey’s head whirled with every step she took. When they reached the bottom, Eve pushed a handkerchief into Audrey’s hands, and she wiped tears she hadn’t realized were there.
When the telephone finally rang, Audrey flinched, startled. “Are you sure you don’t want me to talk to them?” Eve asked as she lifted the receiver. Audrey shook her head. The telegram was a mistake. In another moment, she would hear Robert’s voice. She put the receiver to her ear.
“Hello, this is Audrey—” She nearly said Clarkson.
“Yes, hello. I’m Robert’s father. . . . I’m sorry we didn’t call. . . . When we sent you the telegram, the police still weren’t sure what happened. We were waiting until we knew more details, but now . . .” His voice crackled with static and faded for a moment.
“Hello? Are you still there?” Audrey asked.
“Yes . . . Can you hear me?” He sounded as if he were speaking into a tin can.
“I can hear you. Speak louder, please.” Her heart pounded so violently she feared it would burst.
“We’re still reeling . . . Linda, Robert’s former girlfriend, came to the house and asked Robert to run an errand with her. She was driving the car, and she . . . she . . . Witnesses say she was going at a very high rate of speed. The police believe she deliberately steered into the bridge abutment, killing herself and Robert.”
Audrey gasped. The phone slipped from her grip as her knees buckled. Eve grabbed her and held her up as Robbins slid the bench beneath her. “He—he’s gone? . . . He’s really gone?” Audrey’s son began wailing in his bassinet upstairs as if mourning for his father.
Eve picked up the receiver. “Shall I finish for you?” she whispered. Audrey shook her head and reached for it again. Every breath she drew felt crushing, as if she lay buried beneath tons of rubble.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Mr. Barrett said. “I’m so sorry. . . . We’re making funeral arrangements . . .” His voice broke. Audrey waited, listening as he struggled for composure. “My wife will write to you. . . . I need to go.”
The phone went dead. Robert was dead.
Dead.
And Audrey wanted to die with him. “It was all my fault,” she mumbled as Robbins replaced the receiver. Eve crouched in front of her.
“How could Robert’s death thousands of miles away possibly be your fault?”
“Linda caused the car accident. She killed him and herself.”
“No . . .”
“If I hadn’t told Robert I loved him, if we hadn’t married, he would have gone home after the war and married Linda. He would still be alive.”
“Are you saying he’d be better off married to a woman capable of killing him?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. But Robert would still be alive!”
“But you wouldn’t have a son. Robert’s son.”
Her son. He was crying. The sound of his wails caused a dam inside Audrey to burst. Grief poured out in a scream that rocked her body with its force. She screamed and screamed, unable to stop. If Eve hadn’t held her tightly, Audrey would have shaken into pieces.
Time stood still. Audrey had no idea how long she screamed, how much time passed before the village doctor arrived and administered a sedative.
She had no memory of climbing the stairs to her room, but she must have because she awoke in her bed, her throat raw, her eyes swollen and burning.
Eve was sitting beside her. She was weeping, too. “I don’t know what to say, Audrey. I’m so sorry.”