If Dad had retired early, I’d have called Theo with the new information about Chloe right away, but it’s too late to call once Dad is in bed, so it will have to wait for morning. Still, I toss and turn in bed, unable to sleep because I’m haunted by visions of a young Theo sneaking into his parents’ room to investigate his own adoption.
A sudden thought strikes me.
My mother also had a drawer full of special paperwork. Even in all of the months since her death, it has never occurred to me to see what’s inside.
I haven’t been into my parents’ room since Mum died, but I slip through the door the next morning as soon as Dad leaves for work and am immediately startled by how confronting it is. Her clothes are still in the wardrobe, lined up on the hangers by color, items in the drawers folded to the perfectly sharp edge she preferred. Her shoes are lined up too, although my gaze sticks for a long moment on the empty space where her running shoes should be. I run my hand along the dresses and jackets on the hangers and let my vision blur.
I miss you, Mum.
Her marriage to my father seemed a happy one, except for one bewildering period when I was seven or eight. She and Dad were fighting all the time, and me and Archie convinced one another that a divorce was imminent. In a way that only children can, we decided that we had done something to cause all of the fuss, and as the big sister, I decided it was my responsibility to figure out what we’d done wrong so I could fix it. The next time I heard them shouting, I left Archie to hide under the bed as we’d taken to doing, but I crept across to press my ear against their door.
“I know you’re in love with her!” my mother cried. “Why else would you be spending so much time at the workshop?”
“Because I’m trying to build a business, Geraldine!” Dad shouted back. “For God’s sake, you knew these years were going to be hard until we got the second shop up and running. I’m no more having an affair with that woman than I am a potato!”
“What’s an affair, Daddy?” I asked him the next day, and his eyes bulged.
“Where did you hear that word?” he asked me, voice strained.
“I heard you and Mummy shouting last night.”
“Mummy has the wrong idea about something,” he said, and he seemed very tired in that moment. I didn’t understand it at the time. I adored Mum. It just didn’t seem a prospect worth considering that she might have been in the wrong.
That was the last time I’d hear them shouting, but it was far from the last time I’d see a vicious jealousy in her. They loved to entertain and had a large group of loving, warm friends—but it was not at all uncommon for their dinner parties to end in Mum sulking because Dad spent too much time speaking to one of the other women.
I go to my mother’s chest of drawers and pull the bottom one open. It’s the deepest drawer and there’s an organized stack of paperwork in there—Mum’s old folio organizers, bills marked paid before their due dates, birth certificates, pay slips—each fastened to like documents with colored paper clips. I flick through all of it but find nothing at all unexpected, until I leaf through one of Mum’s old organizers and note the little cross marks in the corner of certain dates. This was how she tracked her period, which I know she did religiously until she entered menopause. I pack the drawer back up and walk to their en suite.
Dad hasn’t packed away her toiletries or makeup, and the sight of those bottles and tubes scattered across the counter-top makes my heart ache so desperately, I have to sit down on the closed toilet lid for a moment to compose myself. Her perfume is there on the bench—some cheap brand she discovered a few years back and fell instantly in love with. I spray it into the room and breathe it in, and I miss her so badly I would give anything—anything—to be embraced in her arms again.
I didn’t come into that bathroom to torture myself. I just know that there is only one area of the house my father would never venture near, and that’s the box under the sink where my mother always kept her sanitary items. He’s always been deeply squeamish about the finer details of the female reproductive system.
I slide the box out and open the lid to find it fully stocked to the top with sanitary pads, even though my mother hadn’t had need of them for a few years. I dig through the box, and my hands begin to shake when my fingers close around a stack of envelopes buried at the bottom.
“It’s me. It’s Charlotte. Mum had hidden the letters from Professor Read,” I tell Theo in a rush when he answers the phone. “The first one they ever sent Dad was open, so I know she read it. The others were unopened, but just like Read said, his office sent letters to Dad at semi-regular intervals for more than twenty years. Mum must have been intercepting them when they arrived.”
“Probably trying to protect him from having to relive troubling memories,” Theo suggests gently. I twist the cord of the phone around my finger as I ponder this.
“I suppose so,” I say. But why keep them for all of that time? She could have destroyed them or even thrown them away. My gut twists as I consider the possibility that my mother did not want Dad to see those letters but felt bad enough about her behavior that she couldn’t bring herself to close the door completely.
But that reminds me—those letters aren’t the only reason for this phone call.
“Oh! And I asked Dad about Chloe,” I say in a rush. “He knew her. Quite well, actually.”
“He did?” Theo gasps, but his tone is guarded as he asks slowly, “So…what could he tell you?”
“She worked on an escape line. They escaped France together in 1941 and wound up friends.”
“He knew her before the SOE…” Theo whispers, stunned.
“Her real name was Jocelyn Nina Miller. She used the name Josie. She was born in London but grew up in Paris. Dad did say she didn’t have children, but he also said she was particularly unwell around 1942 and there was a long period where they corresponded via letter so—”
“So maybe my theory about a hidden pregnancy bears out,” Theo blurts.
“What do we do now?”
“Now that we know her full name and place of birth, I can try to order a copy of her birth certificate.” I hear a rush of air as he exhales against the receiver. “Maybe I’ll even get lucky and it will list a parent or sibling we can try to find.”
C H A P T E R 20
JOSIE
Paris, France
May, 1944
In training, they taught us that if we were tortured, the first fifteen minutes would be the worst. If we could survive that without our tongues loosening, we could survive anything.
They did give us some terrible advice in that training, but this was among the worst.
I lay on the floor of my cell at 84 Avenue Foch, dazed and confused after another day of torture and interrogation. Was this day two or three? No, it had been longer. Maybe this was day four or five.
Two of my toenails had been removed. One of my molars was cracked, and I suspect that several of my toes were broken too—one of the interrogating offices kept stomping on my feet in his jackboots. I suspected I had some broken ribs. My lungs were angry and inflamed after hours of water torture.