“Where’s Bobby? Is he all right?”
“He’s downstairs with Mrs. Smith. Shall I bring him up to you?”
“No . . . I can’t . . .” Her tears started falling again. She wanted to go back in time and wake up on a different day, a day when Robert was still alive, when she could call him and hear his voice. Hear him say, “I love you.” But she would never hear those words again. Audrey closed her eyes and welcomed the darkness, praying she would never have to open them again.
She didn’t know how many days of darkness followed. Her grief was a mountain she had no idea how to climb. She couldn’t get out of bed. She forgot she had a son. Eve and the other servants ran the household and cared for Bobby while Audrey drifted in a stupor. Eve talked to her whenever she brought meals to her room, meals Audrey couldn’t eat, but none of her words made sense. Eve tried to coax Audrey from her bed, but all she wanted to do was swallow another pill and sleep forever and never wake up.
“The pills are gone,” Eve told her one morning. She flung open the curtains, flooding the room with light, making Audrey’s swollen eyes ache. “You need to get up so we can change your bed linen. I’m drawing you a bath. Come on, I’ll help you.” Audrey allowed Eve to undress her and lead her to the tub, just as Eve’s mum had done for Mother. The hot water made her skin tingle, and she longed to sink beneath the surface and let it swallow her. “You have to eat something, Audrey. You’re skin and bones.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Lean back and I’ll wash your hair.” Audrey obeyed, letting the water flow over her head. “Remember during the war when we were only allowed to bathe in five inches of water?” Eve asked.
Audrey didn’t reply. The long, horrible war was over and Robert had survived. Yet now he was dead.
“I know it must seem impossible, Audrey, but you need to start living again. You have a child to think about.”
“Robert was my life. He was all I had, all I wanted. I can’t go on without him.”
“I know. But you have to. Robert wouldn’t want you to stop living.”
“I didn’t think I would survive the pit of grief when Alfie died, but Robert was here with me. He kept me from drowning.”
“And now I’m here.”
Audrey shook her head. She didn’t want Eve. “You can’t understand what it’s like. I have no one left!”
Eve rose from where she knelt beside the tub. “Did you forget who you’re talking to? Who do I have, Audrey? I’ve lost everyone, too. But we’ll manage, somehow. Both of us. We have no other choice.” When Audrey didn’t reply, Eve laid the towel on the edge of the tub. “I’ll let you finish by yourself.”
Audrey wanted Eve to stay, yet she wanted to be alone. Eve turned to her again when she reached the door. “Get back in the fight, Audrey. If not for yourself, then for Bobby’s sake. Do you want the servants to raise Robert’s son the way you and Alfie were raised?”
Audrey couldn’t reply, couldn’t make any decisions for a life that no longer included Robert. When she finished her bath, she dressed for the first time in nearly two weeks. She found Eve downstairs in the sitting room, feeding Bobby a bottle. The servants had switched him to formula while Audrey mourned, her breast milk dwindling to nothing when she refused to eat. “Here, you finish feeding him,” Eve said, handing her the baby. For a moment, Bobby felt awkward in Audrey’s arms, a warm, wiggling, unfamiliar weight. Then her son looked up at her with his olive-dark eyes. His father’s eyes.
Audrey hugged him close to her chest. She wasn’t alone. She held a little piece of Robert in her arms. A precious piece. She would hear her husband say, “I love you” every time she looked at their son. She understood, now, what Eve meant when she’d urged her to get back in the fight for her son’s sake. Audrey focused on his sweet face as he finished his bottle and slept in her arms.
“A letter came for you from the Barretts,” Eve said when she returned to the room to tend the fireplace. “It’s on your desk.”
“You read it, please. Tell me what it says.”
Eve slit open the envelope, removed the letter. The room was quiet except for Bobby’s soft breaths as Eve scanned it. “They give details about the funeral service. . . . They’re trying to cope with their shock and grief. . . . They end by saying they hope you and the baby will still come as planned. It says, ‘You’re our son’s wife. Bobby is our grandchild. You’ll always have a home with us. We want to take care of both of you.’”