Millie looks as if she’s seen a ghost, and perhaps she has. “It’s you.”
“I stayed away for far too long,” he says. “But even so, I was always near.”
“I take it you know that Eloise…passed.”
Liza and I exchange glances.
“Yes,” he says solemnly. “I was able to say my goodbyes.”
Millie swallows hard. “Oh…” Her voice trails off as she takes in his words, and his presence. “I’m…glad—for the both of you.”
He looks up to the ceiling when a few drops of water hit his shirt, and Millie sighs. “I’ll have to call a contractor. It looks like the pipes are leaking again.”
“Nothing the dry cleaner can’t remedy,” he says, unbuttoning his shirt, revealing the faint outline of a…tattoo. The edges have blurred on his aging skin, but then it hits me. All of it hits me.
“The violin,” I say suddenly, my eyes meeting his. “You got the tattoo, because…you always wanted music in your ear, is that right?”
“That’s right, young lady,” he says with a smile.
“Edward?”
“Yes.”
“The man my mother loved.”
“Oh, and did I ever love her,” Edward says. “Eloise was the brightest star in my sky. She still is.
“You must be Valentina.”
I nod.
“You’re exactly as your mother described. Beautiful, like her. Kind eyes.” He nods. “You have her nose.”
“Do I?” I say, compulsively touching the tip of my nose.
“And oh, how she loved you.”
Hearing his words feels like the stamp of approval on an official document, one that I can file away and return to for proof, in moments when I need it most.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You sent the money. You saved the store.”
He takes a deep breath. “Well, there’s no way I could stand by and watch London’s finest bookstore get transformed into another dull block of flats. I only wish I’d known sooner that you were in trouble. Eloise didn’t mention it, but then I saw the article in the newspaper, I’m afraid, a bit late, but hopefully not too late.”
Millie merely nods, unable to find her voice.
“I…I don’t know what to say other than…thank you. Thank you so very much.”
“Well,” he says with a smile, “enough of these dull matters. We have a great deal of catching up to do.” He looks at Millie, and then me. “I’ve come here to ask you both to join me for lunch. It would be my great honor if I could spend a little time with Eloise’s two favorite people.”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “I’d love that.”
“And, Millie?” he continues. “Will you join us?”
There’s a far-off look in her eyes, as if she’s returning to a chapter of an old favorite book that stirred her heart, and still does. “Thank you, but no,” she finally says. “You two go ahead. I have…so much to do here.”
Edward looks disappointed, but Millie’s made up her mind. He turns to the window and motions to his driver, who’s waiting outside.
“Wait,” Millie says. “Before you go. I…have something for you.” We watch as she walks to the back room, returning a moment later holding a garment bag, which she hands to Edward. He pulls the zipper, revealing a man’s jacket. “Do you remember?”
“Like it was yesterday,” he says.
“El asked me to keep it, and…I always did.”
“David,” he says, smiling as he turns to his driver. “Will you please call Claridge’s and let them know we need a table? Their best one, if it’s available. I’m an old man, but a very lucky one. I’m taking one of the loveliest women in London to tea.” He winks at me. “And I’ll be wearing this dinner jacket I left behind in 1968.”
* * *
—
Edward is comfortable in the past, and I encourage him down whichever paths his memory leads him, hoping to catch glimpses of my mother.
She’s there with him.
First, on the balcony of the Royal Automobile Club, where they met by chance, laughed, and finished each other’s sentences, agreeing to meet again the following night.
Edward tells me how he left her a hand-drawn map to the club’s secluded library bar that he’d discovered as a boy, and how she’d shared her dream of opening a bookstore before their conversation was interrupted by an urgent message. One that turned out to be false.
“My sister saw me with Eloise that night on the balcony,” he said. “She planted a seed of worry in my family. You see, as an heir to a sizable fortune, she felt that an East Ender, no matter how bright and magnificent, was an unacceptable match.” He takes a sip of his tea, and I notice the way his hand trembles a little as he sets the cup back on the saucer. “Genevieve’s prejudice didn’t matter to me, but my parents’ love did. It took me some time to convince them that if I were to marry, it would be for love—and love alone. Eventually, they came around.”
“But it was too late for you and my mother?”
“I hoped it wouldn’t be,” he continues. “I saw her once, months later—at Rhett’s Supper Club. I was with another woman, and she was with…your father.” He swallows hard. “She looked…so beautiful that night. It took all of my strength to will my eyes away.” He nods. “I called her several times after that, but I never got through to her. I had to see her again, so as I did the night of our second date, I arranged a scavenger hunt for her, with notes I’d left around her neighborhood.”
I smile.
“And we found each other again, and it was…magic. She was magic. There was nothing I wanted more than to start a life with her, right then and there; she wanted that, too. The heart wants what the heart wants, after all. But as before, time wasn’t on our side.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’d already accepted your father’s marriage proposal.”
“And she was expecting a baby,” I add. “Millie told me.”
“Yes,” he says.
I used to love to look at my parents’ wedding photo, with Mummy dressed in white. I had no idea what that dress was hiding, though—a pregnancy that bound her to my father, who whisked her away to California, and the inevitable miscarriage that followed.
Edward blinks hard, fighting back tears. “As you can see, our timing was…tragic.”
I nod.
“Just like Eloise, I married someone else, too. We had a happy life, two children. From the outside looking in, people might have thought we had it all. But inside, my heart belonged to someone else. When I heard Eloise had moved back to London, it took all my self-restraint not to go see her, and I didn’t—out of respect for my wife. But the year after she passed, I finally did. But by then, your mum was quite ill; we didn’t have much time. But I treasure the moments we had at the end of her life. I always will.”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head, taking it all in.
“I’m sorry that you’re hearing all of this from me and not your mum.” He glances down at the paper bag on the chair beside him. “But I have something for you—from her.”