by Cathy Gohlke
David hesitated less than a moment before reaching for her hands and pulling her toward the settee. “Talk to me.”
Claire swallowed. The knot in her throat had swollen thick. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Your aunt told me a letter came from France a few days ago. She told me about your friend Arnaud.” He spoke softly, kindly, still clasping her hands.
Claire couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over her lashes. “He was shot and killed.” The words still sounded foreign in Claire’s ears, measured and far away.
“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” He rubbed one of her knuckles with his thumb.
“I’ve been waiting for him all this time . . . ever since I came to England. He and my best friend were—became a couple. I didn’t know that before now.”
“He was a fool, and a cad.”
David’s vehemence startled Claire. She’d thought he might belittle her, tell her she’d been living in a dream world all this time she’d imagined Arnaud loved her. She feared David might see her as a silly schoolgirl mooning over a teacher—an older man.
“Look, it would be easy for me to run the man into the ground for the way he treated you. But we don’t know what’s happened there, what’s happening now, and not knowing, I guess I shouldn’t hang him.” David rubbed her knuckle more fiercely. “I just hate to see you hurt, and I could do some serious damage to any man who does that, dead or alive.”
Claire breathed. She’d loved Arnaud with all the love of her young heart, despite his long silence, despite his not coming for her, but it felt a relief to have someone champion her now.
“That’s not really why I needed to see you. Something else happened,” she whispered. In the light of day it seemed almost silly. Still, Claire knew she couldn’t live with the uncertainty any longer.
David waited.
“I heard a voice. I mean, it was like someone spoke in my mind—a clear and deep impression, more than a voice—someone I don’t know.”
David’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Claire almost laughed in frustration. “Neither do I. I was hoping you might.”
“What did the voice say?” David released one of her hands but kept hold of the other.
That small pulling away, the dropping of one of her hands, made Claire feel less connected, more alone. She withdrew her other hand and wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing she’d not started this conversation. But she needed help, needed to talk it through.
In for a penny, in for a pound. “It said—it knew—I was afraid.” There. As outlandish as it sounded, she’d said it. “It even seemed to understand my fear of loving Aimee, of loving anyone.”
David’s eyes probed hers. “Sounds like the Holy Spirit to me.”
“The what?”
“God the Holy Spirit . . . our guide, our comforter.”
“It came out of the blue,” Claire whispered. “And then it said, ‘I love you.’”
David smiled, his eyes shining. “Definitely God.”
“But how do I know? How can I be sure—either that He is really there, or if He is, that He means this, that He wants me? How do I know He won’t lead me to believe He loves me and then rip my heart and moorings away? Jerk me like a puppet on strings?”
“Like Arnaud?”
“Arnaud didn’t—” She couldn’t finish, but turned her eyes away. “Maybe I was the only one in love . . . or maybe I was in love with love. I don’t know. But this is different.”
“To get this love you want—to really own it—you have to surrender to God your greatest fear and trust Him, even for your greatest desire. Do you know what those are?”
“I can’t trust anyone.” It was an angry truth Claire clutched close to her heart.
David started to speak, but she rushed over his words. “If He loves me, why did Arnaud die? Why didn’t He give me what I wanted?” Claire pulled farther away. “I don’t know whether it’s worse to believe or not believe. One might be ignorance, but the other is to live in terror that He’ll take away whatever He’s offering . . . or that He’ll punish me because I can’t buy into that. Worse, He might punish those I love—like Arnaud, or Josephine.” The words choked her and the tears of confession, of release, came.
“That’s because you don’t know Him—yet. You’re not seeing Him; you’re looking at your circumstances and confusing those with Him. Life is hard. We all have circumstances.”
Claire’s defenses flew up. “‘Circumstances’? And what ‘circumstances’ do you have? Who has ever betrayed you by loving the person you love or by dying, by being shot in the street? Who has ever abandoned you the way my father abandoned me—disowned me? Or my mother, so caught up in her own grief that she had no time for me. She couldn’t even leave off her drink long enough to come to my college graduation. She forgot!”
“I’m sorry, Claire. I’m so sorry. I know the pain of—”
“Of what? Of no one caring? No one wanting you? How would you know? How would you have any idea?” She spat the words. “Don’t tell me you understand or that you know anything about abandonment. Don’t tell me to trust this God of yours, because I know He’ll let me down, just like every other person in my life.”
“You’re right about one thing.” David’s reply came in a whisper, through nearly clenched teeth.
“What?”
“Every person you ever meet will let you down. Arnaud is just the latest. They might not abandon you, but they will fail at some point to be all that you need, all that you want.”
Claire felt the earth shift. This wasn’t what she’d wanted from David.
“There is only One who will never leave you or forsake you. There’s only One who said and really meant, ‘Though a mother forgets her suckling child, I will not forget thee.’ There’s only One ready to carry our wounds and forgive us our worst, and still love us with everlasting love.” Tears filled David’s eyes, but he didn’t wipe them away.
What pain does he know? He knows something. Claire almost reached for his hand but stopped herself.
David searched her face so long she couldn’t pull her eyes away. “You said your mother kept you at bay.”
Claire nodded. “That was a polite description of our relationship.”
“Mine didn’t. The sun rose and set for her in our family—my father, my sister, and me—I thought.”
“You’re lucky. I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“My parents emigrated to the Appalachian Mountains soon after I was born.”
“So you really are Scottish?”
“Aye.” He smiled sadly. “My dad was a second son—not the firstborn to inherit the family estate. That went to my uncle. Dad had been a gold leaf worker in Edinburgh—leather bindings and front leaves of books, that sort of thing. An artisan. There was no call for such work once machines came on to do the work faster, more uniformly. That’s why he emigrated, looking for a fresh start in the land of golden opportunity.” David snorted. “There was certainly no call for gold leaf work in the mountains of West Virginia. No golden opportunity, either.”
“What did he do?”
“Coal mines, and all that goes with them. Bent back, black lung. He was an artist, not a laborer, and the work belowground wore him down. He died when I was ten. My sister was six.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“We’d had a good life, the four of us. Poor enough, but that didn’t matter. Food on the table and shoes beneath . . . sometimes.” David stared into the lamp as if he saw his story written there. “But when Dad died, there was no income. I left school to go down into the mines, but Mother pulled me out, swearing she’d not lose another to the dark and dank.”
“Did she go to work?”
“After a fashion.” David looked at Claire, and then away, just as quickly. “She sold herself to the foreman of the mine.”
Claire straightened, the breath pulled out of her.
“There wa
s no work for women in the mining towns. We were on the verge of being forced from our house. The mine owned everything, and we were in debt with the doctor, the company store, even the undertaker.”
“I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for her.” Claire didn’t know what else to say.
David knotted and unknotted his hands. “She went to him two weeks after Dad died. Hardly the grieving widow. I suspected that there must have been something between them even before Dad died. Maybe that’s not fair.”
He stood and walked to the hearth, kneading the back of his neck. “She asked him to take us all in. I begged her not to, swore I’d find work. I’d already quit school. I would find something else if she wouldn’t let me go to the mines—move to the flatlands, anything. I begged her to write Uncle Hamish—my dad’s brother, the one who’d inherited. Surely he’d send money, maybe even bring us all back to Scotland.”
“Did she?”
“She said Dad had died for her a long time before, when he first got sick, and that she had no claim on his brother.”
“Do you think she was telling you the truth—about their marriage, I mean?”
“I believed her then, and hated her for it. But what did I know? I was ten.”
“So she went to live with—with the foreman?”
“We all did. He had the decency to marry her; I’ll give him that. But he wanted none of me. I don’t think he wanted Kirstine, either, but Mother would never part with her. He had Mother write to Uncle Hamish after all, tell him to take me. If Uncle Hamish hadn’t, Jared Smith swore he’d have thrown me into the orphanage in Elkins.”
“But she wanted you, surely. . . . She had no say.” Claire tried to comprehend the woman’s position, the idea of being trapped.
David turned to face her. “She didn’t want me, Claire. I reminded her too much of my father. I begged her, day after day, not to marry Smith; then when she did, I begged her to leave him. She said she couldn’t forge a new life by hanging on to the past, that I’d drag her down.” Despite his clenched jaw, the muscle near David’s eye twitched. “The way it was all arranged—so that I couldn’t go back, didn’t even know when or where I was going until I was actually on my way—I never even got to say good-bye to my sister. I never said good-bye, and I never saw her again.”
“After this war, surely you can—”
“Someone—I never found out who—sent me a newspaper clipping two years later giving Kirstine’s obituary.” He choked on the words, stopped, took a deep breath. “She died of diphtheria. It sounded as if an epidemic swept the area. I wrote to Mother, but the letter was returned, marked Refused in her handwriting.” David pushed long fingers through his thick hair. “All those years I waited for a letter, a word from her. I wrote her—and my sister, while she was alive—regularly at first. But every letter came back. The only word was when Mother wrote to Uncle Hamish telling him to make me stop writing, that he should see to it that I got on with my life. That I had no future with her or her family.”
“I’m so sorry. Her husband must have made her do that.”
“I wanted to believe that at first, but it made no sense. I even sent a letter to the house of a neighbor, a woman I was sure could get word to her privately. Now, with things I’ve seen, with what I know you’ve been through . . . I don’t know. I sometimes wonder if she thought she was doing me a favor, sending me to a different life.”
“What do you mean? How is that like me?”
“What if Arnaud sent you away, made you think you had to go without him not because he couldn’t get there or deserted you, but to save you? What if he intended to get you out of France all along because he knew what was coming?”
Time stopped for Claire. That’s what Josephine said. But I don’t know. Is that possible?
“Regardless, here we both are, and missing those we love. You miss your friends. I miss my sister.”
“That’s why you’re so good with the children here . . . so compassionate. You understand them.”
“I know what it is to be sent far from home and not be able to go back. I don’t think any of these kids were sent away because they were unloved. They were sent to safety because they were much loved.”
That was true. The children’s parents loved them; Claire was sure of it. And if that was true, perhaps Arnaud had loved her, too, in his own way . . . like a parent? Claire cringed. Had she misread him? Had he misled her? There was no way to know now, no way to be certain. How was she to live with that?
After breakfast and before morning lessons, Claire made it up the stairs, her heart heavy and her brain spinning so much her head hurt. She closed her bedroom door, leaned her back against it, and slid to the floor, wishing so much that she believed in God enough to ask Him for help, for guidance, for information, for something to help her be strong and resilient and all she needed to be.
She wondered if she’d ever truly been in love with Arnaud or even wanted the life of Hemingway or Sylvia Beach and her friends. Or had she been mesmerized by their glittering lives . . . by their pursuit of fame, their tantalizing wit and charm and dreams of . . . of what? Red wine swirling in the bottom of cracked crystal? It had been like living in the pages of a novel being written—a novel that wasn’t her own life or her own voice.
What exactly had she wanted when she’d thought their lives were the be-all and end-all of romance? Had she been in love with writing or with fantasy? Had she been in love with Arnaud or in love with love? What was love, anyway, and how did one get it, let alone give it? How did a person become worthy to achieve it?
Claire had no idea. She sat alone in the still-blacked-out room, not wanting to let in the daylight.
At last she stood. She might have no idea what love was or whom or how to trust, but she knew someone who might, someone Aimee had found a faithful friend outside the confines of Bluebell Wood.
Claire sat at her writing table, turned on the lamp, and drew stationery from the drawer.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
You don’t know me, but I’ve read your book and listened to your wireless broadcasts each week, and you’ve given me much to think about. You’ve also been so kind as to write to a little girl I care very much about. Your letter has been an encouragement, a help to her in these uncertain times, so I hope you might be willing to help me understand. . . .
A half hour later she sealed the letter and set the stamp, half daring to hope for clarification, for a friend. When she drew open the curtains, daylight, and a flickering of anticipation, flooded the room.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CLAIRE KNEW that Rabbi Meir had sacrificed much in making the long journey to work with Bertram in his Hebrew studies, often staying overnight to avoid travel on Shabbat.
Peter had coached his friend in between—a beautiful thing to see. Bertram had worked willingly and hard. Claire marveled at how the boys had set aside their differences and even their national pride to work closely in pursuit of something higher, something clearly more important to each of them.
The day of the anticipated bar mitzvah at Bluebell Wood broke bright and cold, the skies awash in brilliant sunshine, billowing white clouds, and October blue.
Claire claimed a chair between Mrs. Newsome and Aimee in the library, her aunt conspicuously absent. “Where is Aunt Miranda?”
“She’s done in, poor dear, and sends her regrets,” Mrs. Newsome whispered.
“She’s not coming down?” Claire knew her aunt had seemed more tired of late, the violet circles beneath her eyes darker. But she couldn’t imagine that she would miss Bertram’s bar mitzvah for anything short of catastrophe. Her eyes reached for Dr. MacDonald, who’d slipped into the back of the room at that moment, but he was focused on Bertram. What were Mrs. Newsome and her aunt not telling her? What had she missed, taken up as she was with her own worries?
“She spoke to Bertram this morning, in her room, and told him how very proud she is of him.” Mrs. Newsome smiled through shining eyes. No one could hav
e looked prouder than Mrs. Newsome, who sniffed repeatedly into her handkerchief as Bertram stood with the rabbi, surrounded by those who had come to love him.
Before Claire could think more of Aunt Miranda, the service began, and she marveled at the outpouring of love for this young man. To be loved by everyone who knew him—such a feat loomed unknowable, unachievable to her. And yet Bertram’s never asked for that gift. He simply receives it, all the while being himself.
She’d asked Mr. Lewis to explain love: love from the God of the universe and love between people—what it meant, how it was done, how it could be earned. She’d asked him about Jesus and how His ransom worked. Her face warmed to think of the things she’d dared to ask. He must think me ridiculously young and naive. She almost hoped the letter had never reached him, that it had gone astray through some wartime mishap. But more than her embarrassment, her utter vulnerability, she wanted to know, and she hadn’t known whom else to ask. Writing her questions on paper had seemed so much more possible than asking them to the face of another human being.
Claire breathed deeply. She so wanted to understand.
Though Claire could not translate a word of Bertram’s melodic Hebrew chanting as he read from the precious yellowed scroll—the scroll the rabbi said had come from Jerusalem over one hundred years before—she grasped his mix of pride and fierce loss in performing the ceremony without his own father. Her heart ached for the fine young man.
She remembered what David had said about their raising the children, about being the only family they had now, and the reality that there was no way to know if the young people would ever see their parents again. Claire had not wanted to believe that, to own any of it. But now she swallowed the choke in her throat.
Until the war ended, Rabbi Meir had lamented, there would likely be no way to purchase a traditional prayer shawl—what he’d called a tallith—for the young man. Mrs. Newsome had kindly offered to whip something up on the treadle sewing machine for Bertram; she declared she would have been that glad to do it, and to add whatever knotted tassels they wanted. The rabbi and Bertram had respectfully declined Mrs. Newsome’s offer, exchanging meaningful glances that Claire couldn’t decipher.
