The Truth Against the World

by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

  “Don’t tell me you’ve put your full name out there in public,” Mom said, frowning.

  “It’s fine,” I started, ready to rail against my mother’s paranoia, but then finally there was a knock at the door, saving me from whatever I was going to say next.

  “Just a minute now,” my mom warned. I ignored her and jumped up to open the door. Gareth was standing there, and not just him, but his great-granddad too. I felt a million pounds lighter and couldn’t stop the relieved smile that spread over my face. I lunged for Gareth and hugged him.

  He turned pink, which made me grin even harder. I was even happy to see Edward Lewis. Something about him looked different, though I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. He was standing a little taller, maybe? He leaned to one side, peering around me, and addressed my parents.

  “Mr. Evans … Mrs. Evans.” He nodded at them crisply. “I’m sorry if I’ve arrived unexpectedly, but I feel that an apology is overdue. I should have come earlier to express my condolences on the loss of your grandmother.”

  He addressed that last part to my dad, looking at him expectantly.

  It took my dad a moment to recover his composure, but then he said, “Oh, well. We’ve all needed time to cope, anyway. But I don’t see the need … we’re in the middle of a bit of a … ”

  “Well, in light of my prior acquaintance with Rhiannon, I’m afraid my behavior has been a bit poor. But one does what one needs to, to get by, you see.” Mr. Lewis’s thick gray eyebrows beetled into one of his dour frowns. Somehow it didn’t seem as forbidding as it had before.

  Gareth caught my eye and gave me a small smile.

  “Prior acquaintance? So you knew my gran?” Dad still looked perplexed.

  “I did,” Mr. Lewis said. “It’s rather a long story, but I think you might be interested in hearing it. From what Gareth tells me, he and Wyn have been quite busy incurring your wrath.”

  Dad raised his eyebrows at the mention of the two of us. “Perhaps you’d better come in, Mr. Lewis. Can I get you some tea?”

  Mom frowned, but she stood aside as Dad gestured for Gareth and his great-granddad to come in. I started to worry. What had they planned? With all five of us in the small sitting area, the cottage seemed cramped instead of cozy and I felt uncomfortably warm.

  Gareth gave me an unreadable look as his great-granddad settled into the easy chair where I’d been sitting. I brought two kitchen chairs over and sat down in one of them. Gareth sat in the other, pulling it closer to me, and my parents took up their spots on the couch again. I picked up my teacup, now filled with milky dregs, and turned it around and around in my hands, very aware of Gareth sitting just inches away, but equally conscious of my parents and what felt like a sword hanging over my head.

  “This may come as a bit of a surprise,” Mr. Lewis began, “but Rhiannon and I had an … acquaintance … which I think you should be aware of, and I’ve been made to understand that you aren’t.” For once, my parents’ attention was no longer focused on me. They were both staring at Mr. Lewis, and I could tell they were already full of questions. But they held off as he related his sorrowful tale: his evacuation to Cwm Tawel, his growing love for Rhiannon, the birth of their child, and the devastation he felt at having to leave her and the child to find work. By the time he’d finished, I’d refilled and drunk two more cups of tea.

  “But how?” My dad said. He looked drained and pale. “How could this have stayed hidden for so long? And why wouldn’t she have told me? Or at least, told my dad. We don’t have secrets in our family.”

  Mom looked at me pointedly when he said that, but I ignored her because Gareth was pulling out a small pile of letters and putting them on the coffee table.

  My heart stuttered, I was so anxious to see them. But first, I jumped up and got the metal box from my room and placed it next to Gareth’s set of letters. I took out the two letters from Edward to Rhiannon, and also the birth and death certificates.

  “Here’s the proof,” Gareth said, gesturing at the yellowing papers. My parents picked them up carefully and gazed at them in silence.

  “I had no idea about this,” Dad said after a moment. “And you knew?” He looked at me, then Gareth. “How in the world did you find out? I mean, I just don’t understand why Gran wouldn’t have told me any of this.”

  “It wasn’t easy for Rhiannon,” Mr. Lewis put in. “There can be a bit of a hostile climate in small towns sometimes, when something happens to disturb the status quo.” He exchanged a glance with Gareth. “We experienced a bit of that this morning, in fact.”

  I looked at Gareth questioningly.

  “Peter,” he muttered under his breath, and I nodded, only a little surprised.

  “What I don’t understand is why this all came to light now,” Dad said to Mr. Lewis.

  “I’m sure that Olwen—Wyn—here can tell you more about it.” Mr. Lewis gave me an encouraging look. It was so different from the glance full of fear he’d directed at me last night that I was taken aback.

  I gathered my thoughts and said, “It’s pretty much like I told you. Gareth found my blog, and the first thing we wondered was, were we related? When nobody knew of any connection, we did some research, and the more we found out, the stranger it got. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept having these dreams about Gee Gee, and weird things were happening to Gareth, too. The girl he saw at the gravesite … ” I stopped, not sure how to explain his ghostly visitations without sounding insane.

  Gareth cleared his throat. “I’m not the kind of person who believes in ghosts,” he said bluntly. “So I assumed it was a prank. But it doesn’t matter. When we found out our great-grandparents were from the same village, we thought it was far too much of a coincidence. It had to mean something. But nobody would tell us anything useful.”

  Mom had a weird sideways twist to her mouth, like she’d tasted something sour. “So you thought it was a good idea to dig up the past,” she said. “Even though people obviously wanted you to mind your own business. You know, there are legal ramifications to that sort of behavior.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “Gee Gee kept talking about how hard life had been, but when I tried to find out more, she wouldn’t answer my questions. I just wanted to know, Mom. Or it would all disappear forever.” I tilted my head at her, willing her to understand. “And then Gee Gee was gone.” For a moment I just sat there, tears sliding down my cheeks and stinging the wind-chapped skin there.

  Gareth put a hand on my arm and I pulled myself back together. “All we could think to do was to go back to where Gareth had found Olwen’s grave—where it all started for him. That’s when we found the box. There’s more in it, too.” I removed the diary and locket and set them in front of my parents, along with my notes translating the diary.

  Mr. Lewis watched closely as Mom and Dad pored over the pages. Dad’s eyes grew wide, and even Mom raised her eyebrows, looking mildly shocked.

  The more amazed they looked, the more I relaxed into my chair. Even if I couldn’t tell them everything, they had the tangible evidence now.

  “Oh, Gran,” Dad said indistinctly, almost to himself. His face was anguished and I felt like going over to hug him. Instead, I said, “It was no wonder Gee Gee wanted to come back. She’d finally be able to rejoin Olwen. And now she can, Dad.”

  “Olwen. I didn’t realize … when she suggested the name Olwen Nia, I had no idea she’d once had a daughter.” Dad thumbed gingerly through the diary and my notes. “I just didn’t have a clue. How could I not have known?”

  “She was good at keeping secrets, Rhiannon was,” Mr. Lewis said with a sad grimace. “Both of us were, evidently.”

  “What made you open up, if you don’t mind me asking?” Dad’s voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “There’s no harm to anyone anymore,” he said simply. “Ellen—my wife—is gone, and nobody else is left
to remember or be hurt.”

  “Nobody who matters,” Gareth murmured, probably thinking about Peter.

  “Olwen remembers,” I whispered. He looked at me with soft eyes, full of understanding, and I leaned over until I was resting my head on his shoulder.

  “Well, now what?” Mom asked, glancing at me sidelong. “We’re only here for a few more days. I don’t see what else we can really do.” She set down Olwen’s birth and death certificates, her face sad. I felt momentarily like I was falling: only two more days until we’d take the train back to London, and then a few days later, we’d be on the plane to San Francisco. No more Wales, no more Gareth. I was about to drop from exhaustion, but it was time to speak up one more time.

  “I think I know what we should do,” I said.

  It was a clear day, one of the few non-gray days we’d had. The sun shone warmly down on my hair though the air was still cold, and I shivered at the contrast in temperature, pulling up the zipper on my coat.

  It had taken some time to convince everyone, but now it was afternoon and we were on our way to the cromlech, one final time. We’d packed a bag with the now-empty metal box and the two containers of Rhiannon’s ashes, and then all five of us piled into the rental car and drove down to the beach. Even Mom was quiet as we made our way slowly along the grassy path. It felt like there was an expectant hush in the air. But there was also a feeling of rightness, like leaving Gee Gee’s ashes as close to Olwen as possible was the right thing to do to bring them together again. We’d scatter some in the sea, like Gee Gee had always said she wanted—but I had other plans for the second container.

  Finally, as we reached the clifftop just before the bend in the path, Dad stopped.

  “I remember this place,” he said, his voice incredulous. “I haven’t been here since I was a toddler, but I’ve been here before. Gran and Gramps must have brought me.”

  He set down his bag and pulled out one of the containers of Gee Gee’s ashes. With the crisp, salty breeze blowing out toward the sea, he upended it and set the ashes drifting down onto the choppy waves far beneath. He was quiet for a few minutes, looking out at the blue-gray water. Mom went over to him and put her arm around his waist, and they stood there silently, the wind tossing their hair into wild snaky shapes. Finally, they turned back toward us.

  “Shall we continue?” Dad said, his voice hoarse. He walked back from the cliff edge and put his arm around me. “Come on, Wynnie. I think we’ve got a fence to climb.”

  In the end, we didn’t have to do any climbing. If Gareth and I had been more patient, or less tired, we could have walked along the fenced-off area for another quarter mile and found the gate where the construction worker had entered. There was a large gap between the fence and the gate, which was secured in place by a padlock on a chain. With some difficulty, and a disapproving look from my mom in her fancy sweater, we all squeezed through the foot-wide opening. Gareth and I took the lead, walking along the path to where the ruined church lay. It looked just as it had a week earlier—deserted, mid-construction. My parents and Mr. Lewis followed us over to where the cromlech stood, stolid and unchanging, the humble cairns piled over to one side.

  When I showed them the plaque marked Olwen Nia Evans, Gareth’s great-grandfather slowly dropped to a crouch in the dirt and bowed his head.

  I moved a short distance away. I couldn’t help thinking about Mr. Lewis’s story. He’d said it was awful during the war, leaving his home in London, where he had nothing left, for a place where he was a complete stranger. But because of how he’d acted, Rhiannon had had to leave her home too. She was forced to leave everything she knew. Had she felt, in the end, that it had all been worth it? Or had she regretted leaving some things behind?

  When Mr. Lewis looked up, it seemed to unfreeze our quiet tableau. Dad opened the backpack again and took out the metal box, empty now, and Rhiannon’s small memorial urn, which was a plain wooden cylinder with a lid. He knelt down next to Mr. Lewis. Gareth and I crouched on either side, and Mom stood behind Dad, watching.

  My dad carefully, reverently, placed the urn of ashes inside the metal box and closed the lid, taking out the tiny key to lock it up again, forever this time.

  “Wait,” I said. I reached around behind my neck and unfastened Gee Gee’s locket—the one with the baby picture. I placed it inside the box next to the urn. I would keep the other locket forever, the one with the photo of Gee Gee and Olwen, but this one felt like it had to be returned to Gee Gee.

  Dad took out a trowel we’d borrowed from the gardener’s shed and carefully dug a shallow hole just in front of Olwen’s grave marker. He reburied the metal box and covered it with dirt. Gareth picked one of the lilies that grew semi-wild nearby and laid it on the freshly tamped-down earth.

  Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion … The old melody floated through my head, vivid and clear, but this time the words carried a sense of peace with them that hadn’t been there before. Nothing was going to be quite the same, of course, but I’d known that for a while now.

  I turned to Gareth as he got up, and we walked together, lagging behind a ways, as our group left the fenced-off area to hike back to the car.

  “Did you hear—?” he whispered.

  I smiled and reached for his hand, inordinately happy when he laced his fingers through mine. We walked like that for a while, not talking, his hand keeping mine warm in the cold, windy air.

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked, finally breaking the silence.

  “I think I’m going to stay with my great-granddad for another week,” he said. “We finally had a decent conversation about everything this morning. He could use the company right now.”

  I nodded. It hadn’t been easy for any of us, especially Mr. Lewis. But things would be better now. I was still going back to the U.S. in a few days, with a packed sightseeing schedule between now and then, and I didn’t know when I would see Gareth again. But I had no doubt we would stay in touch. After all, Gareth was my first and only faithful blog reader.

  I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. I could sense him smiling even though he wasn’t looking at me.

  I would be back. I didn’t know when, but I knew. And one day I would read Gee Gee’s diaries for myself. I didn’t know when that would happen, either, but despite everything else coming to an end, I felt like time was stretching out ahead of me like a promise. Like rolling green hills, like an ocean.

  I felt a sudden prickle at the back of my neck, as though the wind was stirring the tiny hairs at the base of my skull. Reflexively, I turned around. For just a moment, I thought I heard a snatch of melody, thought I could see a mother and child standing together on a grassy knoll overlooking the sea. And then, like a waking dream, it was gone.

  Acknowledgments

  This is the first novel I ever wrote to completion, and since I finished that long-ago initial version about ten years ago, I owe a lot of people a lot of gratitude.

  This book would never have left the safety of my brain in the first place, or reached new heights, without my YA writing group. Thanks to those of you who were there during the early days: Katina Bishop, Tanita Davis, Jaime Lin-Yu, Erin Blomstrand, JoNelle Toriseva, Meeta Kaur, Jennifer March Soloway, Kim Yan, and Sarah Zacharias. And thanks, too, to those who read more recent versions: Tanita and Jennifer, Yat-Yee Chong, Kelly Herold, Sara Lewis Holmes, and Anne Levy. You are all amazing and extremely patient. Special thanks to Jennifer for a phone conversation that changed everything (and saved my sanity).

  More people without whom this story never would have existed: Kathryn Reiss, Tom Strychacz, and the Mills College MFA Program in Creative Writing. Thanks also to Shin Yu Pai, Corey Sattler, Beth Tevebaugh Maday, and my mom, Bonnie Pavlis, for feedback and encouragement in those early days and beyond.

  Major gratitude to a huge list of people for helping me with historical, cultural, and linguistic information,
even though I’m sure they’ve long forgotten doing so by now (which makes it even more fun to thank them here): Harry Campbell, Carwyn Edwards, Roger Fenton, David Lewis, Louise Ostrowska, Andy Whittle, and especially my good friends Greg Cooper and Mark Stonelake, as well as numerous others from Cymdeithas Madog and the (sadly now defunct) Clwb Malu Cachu listserv. Thanks to my cousin-in-law Sam Horner for helping me not to butcher current British slang. (Any remaining butchering may be blamed on me.) I also owe a huge debt to Raynes Minns (Bombers and Mash) and Leigh Verrill-Rhys (Parachutes & Petticoats and Iancs, Conshîs a Spam) for their wonderful books about the lives of British and Welsh women in the Second World War; to the OpenLibrary.org copy of The Proverbs of Wales, compiled by T. R. Roberts, 1885; and to the extremely entertaining Effingpot British Slang website.

  I am forever and always thankful for my far-flung online network of writing and blogging friends, who are always there with words of encouragement and support. I am honored to be part of the Kidlitosphere with you.

  Some people I’ll never be able to thank enough: Brian Farrey-Latz and Sandy Sullivan at Flux, for sharing—and sharpening—my vision over the course of the past few years. Jennifer Laughran, who is as smart and hilarious an agent as I could ever hope to have. And my family, especially Rob.

  Photo by Lee R. Bailey

  About the Author

  Sarah Jamila Stevenson is a writer, artist, graphic designer, introvert, closet geek, good eater, struggling blogger, lapsed piano player, ukulele noodler, household-chore-ignorer, and occasional world traveler. She is also the author of The Latte Rebellion and Underneath. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two cats. Visit her online at www.SarahJamilaStevenson.com.