A woman in a pale-gray uniform enters through a swinging door, bearing a soup tureen and a large silver ladle. Owen nods coolly as she sets the soup in the center of the table. “Thank you, Belinda,” he says dismissively as he lifts the tureen lid. “Cynthia. Your bowl, please.”
Thia holds out her bowl obediently, watching as her father ladles out a rich red bisque. She stares at it, nose wrinkled. “This is tomato, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he replies, filling his own bowl, then passing the ladle to me. “And you’ll eat it. Everyone must do their part for the war, Cynthia, and you’re no exception. That means making do with what we grow locally. Or would you prefer your brother go hungry halfway around the world?”
Thia’s eyes go shiny with a sudden rush of tears, and I feel my anger flash, stunned that a father could be so unfeeling. “Actually,” I say casually as I fill my bowl, “the Red Cross sends regular food shipments to the hospital where Anson works, and they’ve turned all the flower beds into vegetable gardens so they can grow their own tomatoes.”
Owen gives me a hard look. “My son wrote that he met you at this hospital, but not much more. Were you a nurse there?”
“No, not a nurse. I was a volunteer.”
“A volunteer. What does that mean?”
“We looked after the men’s needs.”
He regards me frostily over his soup spoon. “Indeed.”
I ignore his tone and the unspoken suggestion that there was something inappropriate in the work I did. He was wounded himself in the first war. He knows very well what volunteers do. “We fed the men who couldn’t feed themselves, bathed them, read to them, helped them write letters home.”
“Very admirable, I’m sure. And so lucky for our boys. Tell me, how did you and my son become . . . friends?”
Friends.
I bristle at the word, clearly chosen to diminish my relationship with Anson. But before I can open my mouth to respond, Thia jumps in. “Oh, I know this! She got sick on her first day at the hospital, and Anson helped her.”
Owen flicks a look at his daughter before returning his attention to me. “On your first day. Well, well, that was quick work. And it seems you and my daughter have become fast friends as well.”
“She asked about Anson as we were coming down,” I say, spooning up more bisque. “I’m sure she misses her brother.”
He puts down his spoon and fixes me with a cold stare. “We both miss him, Miss Roussel. And we’ll be happy to have him back home with his family—where he belongs.”
I manage a smile but say nothing, unsettled by his use of the phrase back home with his family. Surely he doesn’t think Anson and I will remain under his roof after we’re married. I try to imagine it, living under those cold, watchful eyes, constantly trying to earn his approval—constantly failing. The thought actually makes me queasy.
Belinda reappears in her ghost-gray uniform, balancing three plates, which she serves without a word. I look at the food, a small green salad and a salmon steak topped with a dill-and-cucumber relish. After weeks of little more than bread and watery soup, it’s an absolute feast, but as I stare at my plate, I find I’m no longer hungry.
TWENTY-SIX
SOLINE
A bride must remember that in being bound to her lover, she is also bound to his family, and that we make no claims with regard to the success of those relationships. Such is not our work.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
5 October 1943—Newport
Two weeks after stepping off the train, things with Anson’s father are no better. He’s civil when he has to be but rarely bothers to speak, even at meals when I’m seated directly across from him. He’s gone most of the time, which is some small mercy, either working late, attending meetings, or dining with clients at his club. And when he does happen to be at home, he’s in his study with the door closed.
The days stretch emptily, with nothing but the radio for company while Thia is in school. I listen to the news with clenched insides, wondering where Anson is, praying he’s safe and will be home soon. I wrote several times along the journey and again when I got to Newport, letting him know I arrived safely. Weeks later, I still haven’t received a letter, and the waiting is making me restless.
I haven’t left the house since I arrived, except to sit out by the pool or walk the small stretch of beach beyond the patio gate. The fresh sea air is good for my headaches and makes me feel less claustrophobic. I’m uncomfortable moving about the house, as if I’m somewhere I don’t belong—a trespasser. But I’m not entirely alone. There’s Belinda, who sees to meals, and a cleaning woman named Clara who comes in twice a week, but they treat me like a piece of furniture when they see me. And so I keep to my room with its hideous wallpaper and heavy gloom.