by Pam Jenoff
“I can manage myself. You don’t have to stay,” she offered, hoping to buy a few minutes alone here to gather what she needed.
“We have orders to see you out,” he said, awkwardness creeping into his voice. She stopped with surprise, her hand hovering midair. In just moments, her whole world had been turned upside down. She searched his face, looking for answers, or at least some sign of the mentor she thought she knew. But his eyes were blank.
She turned away blindly. “I have to organize the files.” The thought of turning over her papers in less than perfect order was unthinkable.
“It isn’t necessary,” he added. “The military will be coming and packing everything up.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Where are they taking it?”
He did not answer. She noticed then a military police officer standing at the door of her office, waiting to escort her out and make sure she left. Something inside her hardened. She was being cast out like a foreign invader from the very place she had created.
She stepped away from the desk, trembling with rage. The Director held out papers to her. “This is for you. They came through yesterday.” Her citizenship papers—the one thing she had always wanted. They seemed now a sorry consolation prize for the girls she had lost. She pushed them back at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
And then she was dismissed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Grace
New York, 1946
The next afternoon, Grace climbed the steps of the rooming house in Hell’s Kitchen. She was exhausted, as much from everything that had happened in Washington as the trip itself, and she was glad to be back home. She was also eager to see Frankie and get back to the ordinary business of her life. It was late Friday, though, and she had already booked the day off. And it wasn’t entirely a bad thing that she had the weekend to rest and sort herself out before returning to work.
Grace reached the top floor of the rooming house and turned her key in the lock to her apartment. She opened the door, then froze.
Sitting in the lone chair, clutching her black patent leather purse, was Grace’s mother.
Her mind whirled. How had her mother found out where she lived? And how long had she been here? Grace’s eyes darted from the unslept-in bed to her wrinkled clothes from the night prior. She searched for an explanation that would make the sight less awkward, but found none.
“The landlady let me in,” her mother said in her birdlike voice, as though that explained everything. Her hair was swept back beneath a salmon velvet cloche hat that matched her Elever swing coat perfectly. Grace could imagine it, the charming smile, little tinkle of a laugh as she talked her way into the apartment.
“Darling, I know it’s awful just to pop in like this,” her mother continued, smoothing the gloves she’d laid neatly on top of her purse. “But you didn’t answer my calls. I was so worried.” Really, that was only part of the story. Grace’s mother wanted to see what she was doing here, what her life was all about.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I went in to Hartford to do some shopping and I ran into Marcia in the dressing room at G. Fox.” Grace flushed at the mention of Marcia’s name—her alibi. She imagined the scene in the department store. Marcia would have been nervous, caught off guard by the unexpected encounter. It wouldn’t have taken much pressing for Grace’s mother to get the address, which Grace had given Marcia so she could forward mail.
“I’m sorry for not telling you myself,” Grace said, perching on the edge of the bed.
“It’s all right,” her mother replied, putting her hand on Grace’s. “We were just so worried.” It hadn’t been just about the appearance of things for her mother—she had genuinely cared. Somehow lost in the haze of her own problems, Grace had lost sight of that.
But that didn’t mean she wanted to go home.
“So this is where you’ve been staying.” Her mother looked around the tiny room, her nose wrinkling involuntarily with distaste. “If I help you pack, we can be gone in an hour. If you don’t want to stay with your father and me, your sister Bernadette offered her spare room.” Staying with her older sister and her three pugnacious children, Grace reflected, might be the only thing worse than going home.
“Mother, I can’t just leave. I have a job.”
Her mother waved her hand as though Grace’s work was irrelevant. “You can send a note.”
“It’s not a cocktail party, it’s a job. And also there’s this.” She reached past her mother and picked up the newspaper she’d left on the nightstand before her trip to Washington. “I saw this happen.” She pointed at the story about Eleanor.
“That woman was killed by a car. How awful. The city is so dangerous. I don’t know why on earth you would ever want to stay here.”
“The woman who was killed left behind photographs of some girls who went missing during the war and I’ve been trying to find out what happened to them.” She left out the part about going to Washington with Mark.
“And is this part of your job?”
Grace faltered. “Not exactly.” She had shared the story hoping it would help to make sense of her staying in New York. But it just seemed to confuse things.
“If these girls have nothing to do with your job, then what are they to you?”
Her mother’s question, a refrain of Frankie’s on the phone a day earlier, nagged at Grace. She had no connection to the girls. They were strangers, really. Only she had been following this so intently, she had gotten wrapped up in their world and struggles and, for a little bit, had nearly forgotten about her own. Perhaps that was the attraction of it. “It’s hard to explain. Anyway, it’s over now.”
“So you’ll be coming with me then?”
“I didn’t say that.” Her words came out more snappishly than Grace intended.
“You belong with your family,” her mother pressed. “It’s time to come home.”
“Mother, I don’t want to.” It was the first time she had said those words aloud to anyone but Mark. She watched the inevitable hurt that crossed her mother’s face and waited for her to regroup for another argument. “I love it here. I have a job. And my own place.” The flat wasn’t much, but it was hers.
Her mother’s face softened. “You know, part of me is jealous,” her mother confessed. “I always wanted a life like this.” Grace was surprised. She couldn’t imagine her mother anywhere but the life she was in.
“I auditioned for a Broadway show once,” she added. Grace tried to picture her reserved mother, who mouthed the words to “Happy Birthday” at parties instead of singing them, getting on stage. Suddenly she seemed like a whole other woman with a life and dreams of her own, someone Grace didn’t know.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds. “You don’t have to make the same choices as Bernadette or Helen,” her mother said finally. “I just want you to be happy.” It had always felt to Grace like her mother was disappointed that she hadn’t been more like her sisters, hadn’t fit into the life she expected for her. But maybe the expectation had been in her own mind.
“You know, when you were little and you got hurt or scared, I could make it all better with a hug or treat. But when your children get older, it becomes less and less easy to heal their wounds. And then when Tom...” Her mother paused, as if unable to say it. “I just felt so helpless, like I couldn’t reach you at all.”
Grace put her hand atop her mother’s. “It wasn’t your fault, Mom. No one could. It was just something I had to go through alone.”
“I brought you these.” Her mother picked up an arrangement of orange wax flowers from the table. It was everything Grace hated about home.
But it was also a gesture—and an acknowledgment that Grace might want to stay. “Thank you,” she said, taking them.
“You’ll come home to see us at the
holidays,” her mother said.
Grace nodded. “I will,” she replied, trying to sound certain. Christmas was such a long time away. Who could say what would happen by then?
Her mother was really trying, though. “Maybe you could come back in a few weeks and we could go shopping,” Grace suggested, wanting to make the effort, too. “Or we could visit the botanical gardens when it gets warmer.”
Her mother smiled. “I would love that.” She stood, buttoned her coat and adjusted her hat. She smoothed Grace’s hair like she did when Grace was a child, and she kissed her daughter on the top of the head. “We’ll be there when you’re ready,” she said. Then she walked from the apartment.
Watching her mother go, Grace was filled with gratitude and relief. She had permission to be who she wanted, to live life on her own terms. She felt a bit of sadness, too, that living the life she wanted might mean she and her mother would always be at a distance.
Grace sat alone in the silence of the apartment, which seemed larger somehow. She noticed then a white envelope lying on her bed. “Mom, wait...” She started after her mother to tell her she had forgotten something. But the envelope was addressed to Grace at her parents’ house, from an unfamiliar office address in Washington, DC.
Inside there was a letter from a law firm regarding the estate of Thomas Healey, along with a check from his lawyer made out to her in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Tears formed in her eyes, causing the words to blur. She had not known that Tom had taken care of his affairs or provided for her. Where had this money even come from? She held the check, overwhelmed with sadness. Tom was looking out for her still, even after he was gone.
It seemed like somehow a sign: time to move on. She needed to put the matter of the girls behind her and focus on her job and her life here. Nothing to do but move forward.
She would return the photos to the consulate, Grace decided. She pulled them out to look at them a final time. She knew that the girls had been killed and that Eleanor had betrayed them. She would never know why, and she had taken the matter as far as she could. Her part in it was over. It would have to be enough.
* * *
On Monday morning at nine, Grace stood in front of the British consulate once more. Time to return the photos and get to work. Inside, the same receptionist sat at the desk. “Ah, Ms....”
“Healey,” Grace finished for her, not at all surprised that the woman did not remember her name.
“You’re back,” the receptionist noted, sounding none too pleased.
“Yes. I was wondering if you had learned anything more about Eleanor Trigg.” Though Grace had come to return the photos, she could not help but be curious.
The receptionist hesitated, as if unsure whether to answer. “The police returned Miss Trigg’s personal effects to us.” Grace had been so focused on the suitcase and its contents, she hadn’t considered any possessions Eleanor might have had on her when she died. “We’re still looking for a next of kin.”
A flicker of hope rose in Grace and she tried to tamp it down. She should go. It was time to walk away. But she had come this far; she needed to know. “Can I see them?” she asked in spite of herself. “Her effects, I mean.” She expected the receptionist to refuse.
“Why? These are her personal belongings. You aren’t a relative.”
“Because I’ve spent the past several days trying to find out more about Eleanor. I’m not asking to take them, just to see what she was carrying.” The receptionist looked unmoved and Grace was certain she would refuse. “Please. It will only take a minute. Perhaps I can help you figure out where they should go.”
“Fine,” the receptionist relented at last. “I suppose if you find someone, it will save us a lot of paperwork for the death certificate, that sort of thing.” To her, Eleanor was still nothing more than a bureaucratic hassle. She produced a large envelope. “Put everything back just as you found it.”
Grace opened the envelope. There were a few dollar bills and some reading glasses, shattered into pieces from the impact of the crash. A dark blue passport was nearly bent in two. Grace picked it up and paged through it carefully. The passport, despite the damage, looked relatively new. It bore entry stamps for France and Germany just weeks prior to Eleanor’s arrival in America. Eleanor had been traveling in the days before she came here. But why?
“Thank you,” Grace said, and returned the passport to the envelope. She pulled out the photographs and started to hand them to the receptionist. But something made her pause.
“Do you want to keep them?” the woman asked, noticing Grace’s hesitation.
Grace shook her head. “They aren’t mine anymore.” But then she thought better of it. She handed over all but the picture of the dark-eyed girl, Josie, a souvenir from the journey she had never expected.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eleanor
London, 1946
The knock came unexpectedly at the door to Eleanor’s house before dawn. “There’s a car here for you,” her mother called. Eleanor’s mother had said mercifully little about her daughter’s departure more than a year and a half earlier from the government job she’d never thought suitable in the first place. Surprised, Eleanor peered out the window. At the sight of the familiar black Austin, her heartbeat quickened. She was being summoned back to headquarters. But why, after all this time?
Eleanor dressed carefully and quickly, fingers trembling as she buttoned the crisp white blouse that, along with her navy skirt, had served as an almost-uniform during her days at SOE. She approached the black Austin that idled silently at the curb outside her flat. A thin finger of smoke curled from the driver’s-side window, mixing with the low fog. “Dodds,” she said, using his name as greeting. She smiled at the familiar silhouette, black bowler hat drawn low over his white fringe of hair that she had not seen in more than a year and a half. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“The Director,” he said simply, and that was enough for Eleanor. She climbed in the back seat and closed the door. The summons was a refrain of the last time Dodds had come unexpectedly for her. But the women’s unit was gone now, relegated to a footnote in the history of SOE. She could not fathom what the Director might want.
Dodds put the car into gear. As ever, he did not speak, but kept his eyes squarely on the road, turning smartly at the red phone booth on the corner. The car wound silently down the shuttered streets of North London, deserted except for the occasional lorry driver packing his load for the early morning deliveries. Though the blackout had ended months ago, the streetlights were still dimmed, like a habit not easily shaken. It was January 4 and a few Christmas decorations still hung in the windows. The holidays had been a dismal affair—as though no one remembered how to celebrate in peacetime. Hard to feel festive, Eleanor supposed, when basic staples like coffee and sugar were still in such scarce supply—and when so many were observing the holidays without the loved one who had never come home.
It wasn’t until they reached the corner of Baker Street that she saw it: Norgeby House had been destroyed in a fire. The slate roof was peeled back like an open can and the window frames stood hollow, spectacle rims charred with flame. Stone and wood smoldered on the ground, seeming to give off heat even through the closed window of the car.
“What on earth?” she said aloud, wondering when the fire had started, calculated whether the story would make the morning newspapers and decided it would not. Though Eleanor didn’t know exactly what was going on, she had a keen understanding that it had to do with why the Director had summoned her so unexpectedly.
Eleanor desperately wanted to get out and have a closer look, but Dodds did not stop the car. Instead, he drove her down Baker Street to Number 64, the main headquarters building for SOE. He ushered her through the door of the building, which, although only slightly larger than Norgeby House, felt infinitely more austere. Inside the foyer, a cluster of se
nior army officers brushed by. Though some of their faces were familiar to Eleanor, none of the men acknowledged her.
Dodds led her up three flights of stairs to the anteroom of an office and closed the door behind her without a word, leaving her alone. Eleanor did not hang her coat on the stand in the corner, but folded it over her arm. A furnace hissed menacingly and a cigarette not quite extinguished gave off an acrid smell from an unseen ashtray. Eleanor walked to the window, which overlooked the rear of the building. Over the lip of the rooftop, she could just make out the remains of the burned house, the war room where they had met daily. Tattered bits of their maps and photographs, once closely guarded secrets, now fluttered through the broken window like confetti.
Had it really been a year and a half since she had last been here with her hat in her hand, asking to go find her girls? So much had happened since then, D-Day, victory in Europe and, finally, the end of the war. The last time she had been here, the Director had dismissed her, turned her out callously from the place that had once been hers. Even now, it made her insides ache to remember, the pain as fresh as though it had happened yesterday.
The click of the door jolted Eleanor from her memories. Imogen, the receptionist, eyed her coolly, as though they had never met. “He’ll see you now.”
“Eleanor.” The Director did not stand as she entered. But there was a warmth in his eyes behind the businesslike exterior, acknowledging the bond they had once shared. The distance he had shown the day he’d dismissed her was gone, as if it had never existed. Eleanor relaxed slightly.
The Director gestured for her to sit. Closer now, she could see the toll that the war had taken on him—as it had on herself. His sleeves were rolled up, his collar unbuttoned, and the stubble on his cheeks and chin said that he’d been there since the previous day. He’d always been impeccably groomed, but now he looked unhinged.
