It started not long after James left with small shifts in the apartment that were easy to dismiss as her own forgetfulness. First was the copy of Little Women, resting on her bed when she returned home rather than her nightstand. She picked it up with confusion, certain she hadn’t even opened it that day.
The next time, it was a chair not pushed against the table, the one to the far corner that she never sat in.
After that, she carefully set a cup and saucer by the edge of the kitchen table, precarious enough to fall and smash to pieces with the slightest brush. She returned home that day to find the dainty dishes placed at the middle of her table. Not only was the location incorrect, one set was missing from what was once a four-piece place setting in the cupboard.
Her home was being searched.
From that day on, she didn’t keep anything of import there.
She glanced at her watch, noting it was twenty minutes to nine. That exact time always made her recall Miss Havisham’s stopped clocks in Great Expectations, but she shoved the thought aside. She didn’t have a second to spare for that now when she needed to meet Alfie and get to the train station before nine.
Pausing only to secure the door behind her, especially the recently installed bolt lock, she rushed from the building to find Alfie waiting on her, his reserved, affable smile in place.
“I’m sorry I’m running late.” She walked as quickly as she dared in the heels. The soles were slippery as always over the stonework, and the heels still managed to catch between the limestone and basalt mosaics on the walkway.
“He’ll understand if you’re running behind,” Alfie said as he joined her.
“It isn’t James I’m worried about,” Ava replied. “It’s the mother and her child. I want to be there to welcome them when they arrive.”
Four months had passed since Ava first saw the code in Combat. Which was never repeated once James informed her that England agreed to help bring them to Lisbon.
James had been gone for two of those, the reason unknown to Ava until she’d received notice from Alfie that James would be arriving at the train station at nine in the morning with two people she was eager to meet.
She didn’t have to think hard to know exactly what he meant.
They crossed Rossio Square and headed toward the high horseshoe-shaped entrances of the train station. Crowds of people always thronged around the ornate white building with the statue of Sebastian, the lost king of Portugal, at its entrance.
Some were well-dressed volunteers and employees of refugee assistance charities, their faces weary as they clutched signs with various names scrawled upon them. Most were refugees, freshly arrived, their eyes wide with their first glimpse of Lisbon, their arms laden with sacks of belongings, battered suitcases, and children. Languages from all over Europe rose from the crowd, blending French, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and many more into the cacophonous hum.
Ava and Alfie made their way through the crowd, salmon nudging upstream until finally they entered the internal archways to the spread of chipped-white limestone laid out before the arriving trains. In the crush of passengers disembarking, Ava caught sight of James, his jaw uncharacteristically shadowed with the beginning of a beard, his body braced to shield a woman who cradled a dark-haired boy to her chest from the jostling crowd.
Ava’s breath hitched at the enormity of the moment. For months, she had anticipated their arrival, paying for the apartment to be kept empty for them, preparing the paperwork as much as possible that she’d need to facilitate their visas. They were faceless and nameless to her, but that did not stop the palpable pang in her chest for these people she’d come to care so deeply for.
Now she would finally meet them.
James looked toward Ava and he gave her a tired, lopsided smile that made her heart give a strange little skip. Shifting his attention back to the mother and child, he shepherded them closer. He appeared to be limping slightly as he did so. Ava craned her neck to see through the crowd. He strode forward, his footing solid, but then on his next step, yes—a limp.