“We did serve together late in the war, but I also knew her well before the SOE.”
“You did…？” I gasp, then, so excited I can barely bring myself to breathe, I whisper, “Dad, does that mean you know what her real name was?”
“Of course. Her real name was Josie Miller,” he says softly, but then he pauses. “Actually, her name was Jocelyn Nina Miller. She much preferred people use her nickname—Josie.”
“Was she French?”
“She was born in London. Her father was some well-to-do lawyer and her mother a doctor. There was an especially acrimonious divorce when she was an infant and her mother moved her to France. She grew up in Paris and lived there until the occupation.” A sad, distant look comes onto Dad’s face. “Do you remember I told you I traveled with a woman on the escape line? That was Josie. She was a tiny scrap of a thing but God, Lottie, her spirit was immense. We walked dozens of miles in a single night and every one of my footsteps meant two or three for her. She was exhausted, but there was no stopping her—she just kept going.” He pauses, then laughs suddenly. “I was absolutely terrified and wanted nothing more than to crawl into a little ball to hide beneath a tree, but I had to keep going because I was too proud to admit any of that in front of her.”
“She sounds remarkable.”
Dad sighs sadly.
“She really was, love.”
“Do you remember anything about her personal life?” I ask uncertainly. “Did she have children, for example?”
My father looks so pained by this question I instantly regret asking it.
“She wanted children and she was marvelous with them,” he whispers, then he swallows heavily. “But no, she never had the chance to have her own.”
“And you saw her often through the war?”
“We wrote letters for a long time after we made it out of France. I was serving at first, training flight mechanics you recall, and about the same time, she was here in England, quite unwell.” That’s interesting. Perhaps, if Theo is correct and Josie Miller’s “surgery” was a covert pregnancy, Dad might not even have known. “Later in the war we were posted together.” A warm fondness crosses my father’s face and it strikes me that this is the very first time I’ve seen him reminisce about the war without becoming visibly pained by the memories. But his expression sobers, and he tilts his head at me. “Why is Theo so interested in Josie?”
“Oh, you know these history types,” I say, laughing uneasily. “Curious just for the sake of curiosity all the time.”
“She was…” Dad trails off, his gaze distant again as he stares past me to the TV. “She was extraordinary. One of the most incredible women I’ve ever known.”
“Did she die serving?” I ask.
The wistfulness evaporates in my father’s expression. His jaw sets hard and his lips thin. The shadows return to his gaze, and right along with them, that vague, sickly sense of guilt.
“Yes,” he says, and he pushes himself to his feet as if he’s going to return to his room. I’m struck by the realization that it cost my father something to delve into his memory to retrieve that information about Chloe. He wanted to look back when we started this process, but maybe the reason he’s become disengaged since our visit to Jean Allaire’s house is that he just can’t bear to let his thoughts remain with the past.
“I’m sorry for asking, Dad,” I blurt desperately. He pauses and gives me a miserable look.
“I’ve had questions for all of these years and your mother always encouraged me to forget them. In the beginning, I wasn’t so sure of that, but she always did have a way of changing my mind.”
“She did.” Mine too, I think, and I’m surprised by a surge of bitterness that runs through me at the thought. I immediately feel disloyal, as if I’ve tainted her memory somehow just by acknowledging that. Mum was loving and kind and clever and supportive. But if I really stop and think about it, she did tend to go out of her way to make sure the rest of the family complied with her thoughts on particular subjects.
She never liked Billy, for example, and when we first started dating she launched a concerted campaign to convince me not to see him. Now I see that she just wanted the best for me and most of the time, she was right. Billy is the perfect example of that! I’d have saved myself a lot of heartache if I just listened to her in the first place.
But was it really so helpful for her to constantly point out his flaws to me? Was it healthy for her to suggest other boys in our circle I should date, sometimes even in front of Billy? Was it fair of her to refuse my requests to invite him to family dinners, even a year after we were dating?
“I think I convinced myself I could shortcut my grief for your mother by distracting myself but all I’ve really managed to do is to drag my memory back to the last time I tried to shortcut my own emotions,” Dad laughs weakly. “Your father, I am sorry to say, is the kind of man who needs very little encouragement to run away from his feelings rather than to confront them full-on.”
“These feelings you keep talking about,” I say, cautiously meeting his gaze. “You said you have ‘troubling feelings’ when you think about the war.”
“I made a lot of mistakes in those days,” Dad says. “I have all of this…” He waves his hands around his chest vaguely. “…guilt that surfaces when I force my mind to go back and I can’t always make complete sense of it. I find myself surrounded, with aged, overdue feelings coming at me from all sides.”
Dad takes a step toward the bedrooms, but I stand and catch his hand. He turns to look at me, his eyes swimming in tears. I’d never seen him cry before my mother died. Now, I can’t help but wonder if this tender side of him was buried beneath a facade for decades. I throw my arms around him, and he returns the hug automatically.
“Dad,” I choke. “I’m sorry for all of it. I’m just sorry this is all so hard.”
“Life goes by so fast, doesn’t it?” he whispers roughly against my hair. “Most of the time my SOE days feel like something that happened to someone else, but when I really let myself think about it, it feels like it all happened no more than five minutes ago.”
Just then, Wrigley joins us, pushing his way between us to join in the hug. Dad and I both laugh half-heartedly, and as we separate, Dad brushes away a tear and bends to scratch Wrigley’s neck.
“Why don’t you watch some TV with me tonight?” I ask him, pointing to Mum’s armchair. “We can watch Monty Python and forget about our problems for a while.”
Dad pauses, and I think he’s going to refuse the offer, but then he shrugs and forces a smile.
“You’re just jealous because Wrigley always wants to go to bed early when I do.”
He sinks into his own recliner, right next to the one my mother always sat in, and I chuckle triumphantly when Wrigley struggles his way up onto the larger sofa, next to me. The dog falls asleep with his head in my lap after a few minutes, my hand resting in his soft fur.
I’m not sure we manage to forget about our problems, but we do laugh as we distract ourselves with a few hours of TV, and that’s enough for now.