To truly love someone, we must accept the real version of them, scars and all.
“Mum wasn’t perfect, was she, Dad?” I croak, and my eyes are suddenly stinging again, even as Dad gives me a slightly startled laugh.
“Lottie,” he says. “She wasn’t ever meant to be. None of us are.”
I think about my mother and the love I had and have for her. I think about the happy upbringing she gave me and Archie, and her years of important work as a teacher. I think about her relationship with Dad, and how, despite everything, I know she would want him to be happy.
And for the first time since her death, I let myself acknowledge that maybe it’s not disloyal to admit Mum made mistakes too sometimes. Like Aunt Kathleen said to me, I have to mourn who she really was, not who I wanted her to be.
“If Mum knew how much time and energy we’ve put into this, the jealousy would have driven her mad,” I finally admit. “But she kept those letters, Dad, and that’s how I know, deep down, she understood that one day you’d need to look back at those years and face them head-on. She’d be proud of you for doing that.”
“War is hell, love. History nominates a winner, but every single person touched by war loses something—even those one step removed from the oppression and the shooting and the bombing. People like Dr. Sallow and her friend. People like your mum,” he whispers. “But Gerrie and I got to be together and to raise you and Archie in a world at peace because of the sacrifices of women like Josie and Eloise.”
“That’s an awfully big shadow to live in, isn’t it?” I say, and Dad nods slowly.
“I’m happy for Theo,” he says, but he sounds stricken again. I know he’s thinking about Fleur, and this new knowledge that she saved his life at the cost of her own. I squeeze his forearm gently.
“Do you remember what you said to me when I asked you if Josie might have made a mistake?” I say. Dad doesn’t respond, so I remind him. “You said that war is messy but that Josie was just a kid dropped into a war zone with just a few months training. I think you need to keep some of that grace for yourself. Because of you and your courage in looking back to find Remy, Theo has found his family.” He’s asked me to come along when he and Helen Elwood meet tomorrow. They’re going to start a thorough search through the boxes of Turner’s belongings together, hoping they might find something to confirm their suspicions about Theo’s identity.
“The truth has a way of finding its way to the surface,” Dad concedes. “Maybe in knowing the truth about his parents, Theo can find meaning in their loss.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say. “I think meaning is something we make, not something we find. And you know—in a lot of ways, Theo has been doing that already. His whole life’s work has been making meaning out of the questions about his own past. I don’t think that’ll change, but I do think he’ll find a new peace now.”
“And you?” Dad asks me quietly. “I know your mum’s death was so hard on you. I know this year has been difficult. Have you found a way to make meaning from what we’ve been through in losing her?”
“I started this year feeling so angry. Cheated. Maybe I’ll always feel that way, but now…I also feel so grateful,” I say, my throat tight, and I’m struck by the simplicity and the truth that word contains. “I’ll never stop missing Mum and I’ll always regret the way that she died. But I got to know her—to really know her, warts and all. I got to grow up with her. When I think about it like that, I can’t help but feel like the luckiest woman on earth.”
Maybe history is powerful not just for the lessons it can teach us, but for the perspective it can bring.
E P I L O G U E
CHARLOTTE
Manchester
1972
“I think we were meant to find one another,” Theo says. We’ve collapsed side by side onto a sofa in our new living room, both exhausted from a long day moving into our new flat. I turn to look at him in surprise. This awkward history buff has stolen every inch of my heart over the past two years, but he’s not prone to romantic outbursts. He leans across to kiss me gently. “You have to admit, we make a spectacular team.”
He’s right about that, and that’s exactly why I’ll be marrying him in a few days. I’m not so sure about pre-ordained destinies but falling in love with Theo unlocked a happiness in me that I never imagined I would feel, especially after Mum died.
One of the first things we did when we got the keys to the flat today was to hang a series of photographs on the hallway wall. Those mismatched frames chart the story of our family, starting long before we even born. There’s a photo of Theo with his adoptive parents, Mariel and Evan. One of my mum and dad on their wedding day. The last photo we have of Mum, a shot of her with Wrigley at Poppy’s first birthday. One of Archie and Carys, with Poppy and their new baby, Owen. And mixed in amongst it is everything Theo finally has of his first family. He and Helen spent weeks searching through the boxes from Turner’s flat and his office, and eventually they found a little wooden box, the Eiffel tower carved on top, a series of precious gifts inside. Notes from Giles to Eloise, from Eloise to Theo himself—side by side now on our wall in a hinged frame. There’s the photo of a pregnant Eloise and Giles framed along with Giles’s rosary beads and medal. Beneath that, there’s the photo of Theo as a child at that fair, and finally, the gifts Helen gave him on his birthday last year—enlarged copies of file photographs from Eloise and Giles’s military records.
“Last one,” Dad announces. He sits one final box down on top of a stack of others, then motions toward Wrigley and his new rescue greyhound, Spot, who are snuggled up on a rug near my new dining room. Both dogs look at Dad, then drop their heads back down onto the rug. “Come on, you two!” he says, playfully impatient as he gestures toward the dogs. “We better give these lovebirds some privacy.”
Dad has gradually recorded an extensive oral history with Professor Read’s team over the past two years, turning to face his own past fully for the first time. I choose to believe my mother’s intentions were good in hiding those letters from Professor Read to Dad over the years, but as difficult it has been for my father to delve into those memories, it’s all also been restorative.
A few months ago, he finally retired—properly, this time. He now volunteers at an animal shelter three days a week. I can’t help but wonder if there’s space in my father’s future for a third great love of his life, because he and the shelter’s director Catriona seem to be awfully fond of one another. We visit Drusilla and Quinn for a roast dinner every Sunday, and lately Dad has been bringing Catriona along.
It’s an odd kind of family, but that’s exactly what this group of strangers has become over the past two years. We share a secret knowledge of uniquely powerful legacies and that has bonded us in a way that’s hard to describe.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, standing to hug my father. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes gently, then releases me as he clears his throat. My eyes are misting over, and I can see from the way he’s blinking that his are too. “For everything.”