“Wait . . . why . . . ? What are you doing?” Audrey sputtered. “I’m here to visit Mr. and Mrs. Barrett.”
Eve didn’t reply as she shoved in the rest of the suitcases. They had to leave before Mrs. Barrett returned from her tennis match at the country club and the world Eve had created began to implode. “Just get in the car, Audrey. I’ll explain later.”
“But they’re expecting me.”
Eve squared her shoulders and willed the fear from her voice. “No. They’re not expecting you. Get in the car.” She held the passenger door open.
“But . . . I still don’t understand what you’re doing here in America. When you left Wellingford Hall, you vanished into thin air. I had no idea where you went or what became of you. And now you’re here in my mother-in-law’s home? You owe me an explanation, Eve.”
“I saved your life, remember? You would be dead right now if it weren’t for me, so please, just get in. I’ll explain on the way.”
Eve could see that her words had shaken Audrey.
Audrey climbed into the front seat and settled her son on her lap. Tears slipped down her face. “We used to be friends, remember? We looked out for each other. What happened?”
“The war happened, Audrey. It changed us. And we’re never going to be the same again.”
Eve backed her car into the street, then sped away. They drove in silence for several minutes before Audrey spoke again. “What’s going on, Eve? I want to know what you’re doing here with Robert’s family.”
Eve’s heart thudded faster. “You decided not to come to America, remember? You made up your mind to stay in England. You said Wellingford Hall was your home and you didn’t want to leave it. Ever.”
“Well . . . things changed. . . . But that doesn’t explain why—”
“How did you get here? Boat, airplane?” Eve floored the accelerator, driving as if racing through London in her ambulance again, delivering casualties to the hospital. She barely paid attention to traffic as panic fueled her, and nearly drove past a stop sign. She slammed on the brakes so hard that Robbie tumbled onto the backseat floor. Audrey, still holding Bobby on her lap, had to brace against the dashboard. “Sorry . . . ,” Eve mumbled. “You were saying . . . ?”
“We came by ship to New York City, then by train, then taxi—the same way you did, I presume. What does it matter how we—?”
“How is Wellingford Hall? I want to hear all about Mrs. Smith and Tildy and Robbins and George . . .”
“They’re gone. All the servants are gone. Father sold Wellingford Hall. It’s no longer our home.”
Wellingford Hall—sold? Eve slowed the car. She needed a moment to absorb that bombshell. She had always imagined that she and Robbie would return for a visit one day, and it would be exactly as she remembered it. She would gather around the table in the basement with her fellow servants and talk about the past. And Mum.
Sold.
The London town house was also gone, so where would Audrey live? Not here. Please, not here! Eve downshifted, glancing around at the traffic, barely aware of what she was doing.
“So you decided to come to America? But surely you . . . I mean, it’s very different here. Not at all like home . . .”
“The Barretts are the only family I have left. I’m moving here with Bobby.”
This can’t be happening.
“I wrote and told them I was coming. I don’t understand why they weren’t expecting me.”
The letter. Eve had intercepted a letter from Audrey a month ago. She often fetched the mail for Mrs. Barrett whenever she visited because Robbie liked to chat with the postman. When she’d seen the return address, Eve had slipped the letter into her purse. She hadn’t bothered to read it before tossing it into her rubbish bin at home. Now she wished she had. She could have told Audrey not to come, that the Barretts were getting on with their lives and didn’t want a war bride they’d never met barging in.
Eve’s panic subsided a bit as she steered her car into her neighborhood, passing rows and rows of identical bungalows. She’d thought the community looked very American when she’d first seen it, with its tidy green lawns and white picket fences. Now the neighborhood seemed stark and boring. The land had been a cow pasture before the war and the streets still looked naked with only a few spindly trees, struggling to grow. She had a fleeting image of the lush, formal gardens at Wellingford Hall, remembering the rainbow of colors, the gravel walkways, the comforting clip-snip of George’s pruning shears.
Before the war. Before everything changed.
Audrey leaned forward to stare through the windshield as they turned in to her driveway. “This house . . . it looks like the one Robert was going to build for me.”
Eve couldn’t reply. She remembered the brochures and floor plans Robert had sent, remembered Audrey’s anxiety and uncertainty. “The house seems so small . . . only two bedrooms!”
“Fewer rooms for you to clean,” Eve had told her. Eve parked beneath the carport and was just opening her kitchen door for everyone when a familiar pickup truck pulled up and tooted the horn. Tom. He called to Eve from his open window. “Hey, Audrey!”
Eve and Audrey both turned and answered at the same time. “Yes?” Could this get any more complicated? Eve hurried to the truck, where Tom sat with his arm on the windowsill. “Hi, Tom. What brings you here?”
“I stopped by to see if you and Robbie wanted to come out to the farm with me. We’re bottle-feeding a new baby lamb.”
“Thanks, but we have company,” she said, gesturing to them. “Maybe another time—”
“Uncle Tom! Uncle Tom!” Robbie called as he scampered down the driveway. “Can I go out to the farm with you?”
“Not today,” Eve said, catching him before he reached the truck. “We’re going to have ice cream, remember?” She lifted Robbie into her arms and turned to say goodbye to Tom, but Tom wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Audrey and her son, studying them. “An old friend of mine from London stopped by for a visit,” Eve said, backing away from him, inching toward the house. “We have a lot of catching up to do. Cheers, Tom! Toodle-oo!”
“Yeah, bye.” He didn’t move his truck. He was still staring at Bobby and Audrey.
Eve hurried back to the carport and herded everyone into the house. She pulled Popsicles from the freezer and tried to send the boys into the back garden to eat them, but Audrey’s son refused to leave his mum’s side. “Would you like one?” she asked Audrey. “Everyone in America eats these when it’s hot outside. There’s a month’s worth of sugar rations in each one.”
Audrey didn’t seem to hear her. “Wait! Was that Tom?” she suddenly blurted. “Robert’s friend, Tom? One of the Famous Four?”
Eve could have lied and said no, but the pieces of her life were quickly slipping from her grasp like a fistful of marbles and she couldn’t seem to catch them fast enough. She nodded.
“I would have loved to meet him.” Audrey peered through the window in the kitchen door as if she might run down the driveway to stop him. Thankfully, Tom had driven away. “The last we heard he’d been wounded . . . somewhere in Italy, wasn’t it?” Audrey asked.