His eyes glitter coldly. “You’re living in my house, eating from my table, sleeping on my sheets. I’d say that gives me every right.”
“What is it you expect to find?”
“You think you’re so clever, landing on my doorstep like some war orphan, without two nickels to your name and everything you own in a cardboard box, claiming to have landed the most eligible young man in Newport. I’ll say this for you, when you were shopping for a meal ticket, you didn’t mess around. Not a decent pair of shoes to your name, but you managed to bring a wedding dress all the way from Paris. That’s what I call planning ahead.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
He takes a step forward, swaying a bit in his attempt to look menacing. “What was it like?”
I try to think of something to say, something that will make him believe me. But there’s nothing. Because he doesn’t want to believe me. When he looks at me, he sees what he wants to see—an opportunist who used her wiles to trick his son into a marriage proposal.
I drop my gaze, taking in the once-tied packet of letters, loose now and strewn across the spread. Several have been opened, their contents tossed aside. The sight makes me sick to my stomach. “You read my letters.”
“I would have, but they’re all in French. Lovers, I assume. Did my son know?”
There is no shame in his reply, no acknowledgment that he has trespassed where he has no business. Only icy accusation. I bend down to gather them, one at a time, hating that he’s opened them, touched them at all. “They belong to me,” I tell him sharply. “They have nothing to do with Anson.”
I’m reaching for the ribbon that once bound them together when I see Anson’s shaving kit lying facedown among the letters. Owen sees it too. I lunge for it, reaching it before he can snatch it away. I can’t bear the thought of him touching that either.
His eyes glint dully, fury blunted by drink. “Where did you get that?”
“Anson gave it to me the morning I left Paris.”
I’m surprised when his shoulders sag, as if all the air has left his chest. For a moment he seems on the verge of tears. “His mother gave it to him the Christmas before she died.”
“He told me,” I say softly.
“Give it to me.”
I’m startled by the sudden change in his voice. I stare at his outstretched hand, then take a step back. “No. Anson gave it to me. It’s mine.”
I don’t see the slap coming, but all at once there’s a dull crack in my head and a flash of bright light as his palm connects with my cheek. I taste blood as my head snaps back. Before I can get my bearings, the leather case is torn from my hands.
“Nothing here is yours,” he hisses. “Nothing here will ever be yours. At least I can be sure of that now.”
A blade of cold slices down my spine. Something about the way he says the last words, with an icy sense of satisfaction, thickens my blood. I watch as he reaches into the pocket of his trousers and pulls out a folded scrap of paper. When he tries to hand it to me, I shake my head, refusing to take it. He shoves it at me again. This time I take it, but I squeeze my eyes shut, unwilling to read the words I already know are there, unwilling to make them real.
Every mother, sister, wife, and lover has imagined what this moment might be like, rehearsing it in her mind while trying to pray it far away. And now it has come to me. I force my eyes open and feel my throat constrict when I see the words at the top of the page: Western Union.
25 October 1943
Mr. O. Purcell:
It is with deepest regret that I must relay the news that your son, Anson William Purcell, has been reported missing dated 19 October after failing to return from a transport mission. If further details become available, you will be promptly notified.
Charles M. Petrie
C.O. American Field Services
My lungs suddenly stop working, as if I’ve received a punch I didn’t see coming. Not dead—missing. I stare at the word. It should bring me comfort, some frail thread of hope, but I’ve heard the stories. I know how rare it is for a missing man to turn up alive. Suddenly, something Anson said the night before he sent me away floats back . . . If you’re safe, it won’t matter what they do to me.
I tell myself I would know if he were dead, that I would have felt the loss instantly, like a part of myself being torn away. I haven’t. But as I recall the words Maman spoke the night she died, I realize this was what she was trying to prepare me for. This day. This moment.