The Lost Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  True. That wasn’t like her at all.

  If there was one manner of decorum Vi had always taught her granddaughter, it was that a lady never fidgeted. Fidgeting meant a lack of solidarity. An unwillingness to trust. A woman mustn’t ever sacrifice those things. They were important to her once, but the bleak world of Alzheimer’s toyed with that reality enough that those virtues had wasted away along with the rest.

  “She’s been like this most of the day.”

  “What? Just standing by the window?”

  Laine nodded. “Yes. Standing. Pacing. And wringing her hands—” Vi turned her hands inside-outside again. “See? Just like that. And then she rests her palm over her lapel and closes her eyes.”

  Ellie’s heart slammed in her chest. “She’s not in pain, is she?”

  “No.” Laine reached out and patted her hands. Ellie hadn’t even realized she’d extended them until the warmth of two palms encased her own and squeezed, offering reassurance. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I don’t think it’s that kind of pain, Ellie.”

  Laine’s usual smile had faded behind a creased brow: one of those half smiles that meant she put on a brave face, but was showing real concern at the same time.

  “What did Kathy say?” She was the charge nurse on staff and ran a tight ship. If anything was amiss, Kathy would have been the first one to notice it.

  “She checked her vitals first thing this morning. And we called the doctor in before I telephoned you. Grandma Vi is not in any physical danger at the moment. It’s just . . . she’s very anxious. I hated to call you from work, especially when I knew you’d drop by this evening for your usual visit, but I thought you might be able to settle her.”

  “What about music?”

  No—not this time, by the downturn of Laine’s eyes.

  “Billie’s been singing all morning without making a dent. Reading aloud didn’t work either. She couldn’t seem to sit still for it. Nor to eat. The doctor said we could give her something to calm her down, but it’s your decision.”

  “No. Let’s not go the medication route just yet. If she’s awake and alert, she’d want to remain that way—that much I’m certain of.” Ellie sighed, letting go of a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d held captive in her chest since the drive over. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll recognize me today. At the very least I could open the family albums and get her talking about the old days. She’ll like that.”

  Laine nodded. Her brand of empathy was simple but steadfast: encouragement that could only come from a friend who’d become family herself.

  “You’re brave, Ellie. You just have to keep on being brave. For her. For yourself too.”

  Brave.

  It was the last thing Ellie felt.

  Terrified maybe. Unsure. Staring down loss every day. Those were adversaries that felt far more real than any companion of bravery. She hovered in the doorway, feeling a sting in her chest as Grandma Vi hovered in front of the drapes.

  “Everything . . .” Ellie stopped, the words lost. Why was it emotion could strangle her voice at the very moment she needed it most? She cleared her throat. “Everything I have left in the world is in that room, wearing a lavender cardigan.”

  “I know. And that’s why I’ll be here. And I’ll be honest, no matter what.”

  Honest. A strange thing to reply. Ellie turned back, still lingering in the doorway. “Honest about what? Has something happened?”

  “Grandma Vi was asking for her brooch today.”

  “The brooch.” Ellie hung her head.

  Of course. Now it made sense. If Grandma Vi wanted her heirloom brooch, no doubt her thoughts had stalled around the memory of Ellie’s grandfather.

  Married for more than sixty years meant that past memories were now stronger than her present. The cherished memento from their first year of marriage was probably a sign she was waiting on her sweetheart to come walking through the door, when he never would again.

  Laine hesitated, sympathy edging down over her features. “She insisted on wearing it this morning when Kathy came in to check on her. And now she’s been looking for it everywhere since. I didn’t learn of it until I came in this afternoon. It may mean nothing, but we still thought you should know.”

  Thank you, she mouthed, wishing some of that bravery Laine thought she had could see fit to show up. “I’ll see what I can do.” Ellie drew in a deep breath and stepped inside.

  Billie Holiday’s sultry voice was on constant loop, lilting from a stereo on the bureau. Grandma Vi stood by, tapping an index finger against the windowsill in offbeat time with the music.

  Framed black-and-white photos—the ones artfully displayed on her grandparents’ cottage mantel for decades—were still present, though some silver had tarnished and the mass of them were now pressed in a smaller space on a sideboard against the wall. Picture postcards documented her grandparents’ life on a pin-board over a twin bed. Hawaii. The Grand Canyon in 1953. Niagara Falls. Even Hackensack, New Jersey, once: a flat-tire diversion on one of their many cross-country road trips through the early years of marriage.

  And though her grandmother didn’t read any longer, books packed every inch of built-in bookshelf space spanning the wall beneath the window: lovely worn spines lined up in perfect rows, story after nostalgic story, still so much a part of who this woman was that Ellie couldn’t have pictured Lady Vi without them.

  “Grandma?” Ellie tilted her head to the side, looking to the far-off point her grandmother had settled on outside the window. The view showed trees, leaves flirting with autumn, and a parking lot full of cars that glistened in the sun.

  She eased in. One soft step forward. Then two. “Grandma Vi?”

  “Yes?” Vi turned, only then having realized a guest was behind her. She stared through Ellie with unfocused eyes, like she was nothing more than a vapor in the room.

  “It’s me. It’s Ellie,” she whispered, holding her fingertips in a self-point at her chest. “Your granddaughter.”

  See me, her heart willed. Look at me and really see me . . .

  “Yes, dear. Come in.”

  Her grandmother was far too gracious to admit she didn’t know Ellie. That was usually the way of it. Vi would pretend, out of ingrained politeness, and Ellie would be yet another strange guest who’d come to haunt her.

  This was likely one of those days.

  “I’m Ellie.” She paused, praying anything she said could trigger something concrete in her memory. “Do you . . . do you know who I am?”

  “Of course I know who you are.” Vi’s eyes behind her glasses focused on Ellie, her brow wrinkling as if she was troubled by something. “You needn’t keep telling me.”

  A laugh bounded from Ellie’s lips before she could stop it.

  Yes, this was Lady Vi Carver. The petite Englishwoman was back, if only for a moment—her wit and spark still a drumbeat beneath the surface.

  “Right, then. It appears we won’t need to say that again.” Ellie took her by the elbow and kissed her cheek gently, hoping to lead her to the wingback chair waiting behind them. “How are you, Grandma? Would you like to sit?”

  “No. I’ll stay at the window.” She patted Ellie’s hand but eased her elbow free nonetheless. “The rain has stopped.”

  “But the chair is just there. You can still see out the window, and at least you won’t tire out. I can sit with you if you’d like.”

  Vi kept her hand over the lapel of her sweater, fingertips running along the seam and winding around the edge of a button, as if grazing an imaginary something in its place. “My brooch? I can’t seem to find . . .” She turned, scanning the shadows in the room. She drifted knotted hands over the table surfaces nearby, breaking Ellie’s heart. “I’ve misplaced it.”

  “The brooch is at home, Grandma. Remember? You asked me to keep it at the cottage.”

  “The cottage . . .”

  “Yes. The home Grandpa built f
or you? Your brooch is there. But I can bring it for you anytime if you’d like to wear it. How about tomorrow?”

  Vi turned away again. Had she followed any of the last bit of conversation? Ellie exhaled and surveyed the room. They needed a distraction to draw her grandmother away from the imagined world that held her captive at the window.

  Ellie retrieved the leather-bound album from the bedside table. “Would you care to look at photos while we wait?”

  Those violet-gray eyes sparked to life when Ellie approached and opened to the photo mounted on the first black page. Vi settled onto the chair, though noticeably perched on the edge of the cushion, in the event she needed to spring up.

  It was so like her to agree, but to do so on her own terms.

  Vi ran her finger over the edge of a photograph of a young man in an officer’s uniform. His hair light, his smile a soft crease without teeth showing. “He’s handsome.”

  Ellie leaned in closer, resting over the arm of the upholstered chair. This was the difficult part—navigating conversations when Grandma Vi remembered only pockets of the past. She’d tread carefully. Not stir up anything too bittersweet if she could help it. “Yes. Quite handsome. Very distinguished, I’d say.”

  “I know him . . .”

  “Yes. He was Dr. Frederick Carver—your husband.”

  Vi stared, head tipping in a soft nod.

  “Grandpa. You married him after the end of the war.” Ellie turned another page, filling in the blanks she knew were there. A toddler in a cowboy hat stared out from the vintage photo, smiling with a six-shooter stuck in the waistband of his denim. “And you had a son, Eric. This is him on his third birthday. It’s always been one of your favorite photos.”

  Vi nodded, but whether she remembered who they were was a gamble. She turned from the photos, gaze drifting to a far-off world outside the window. “Is he coming to see us?”

  “Um . . . no, Grandma. Not today.” Ellie swallowed the lump in her throat. “Both he and Grandpa have been gone for many years now.”

  “He understood, you know. The day at the chapel changed everything, but he still married me. He was a good man.” Vi turned the page back and ran a fingertip over the edge of her husband’s photo. She brushed Ellie’s hand with her index finger, then tapped the photo again. “A very good man.”

  “Yes, Grandpa was a very good man. You’ve always told me that.” Ellie tilted her head, trying to follow despite her grandmother’s frequent mental rabbit trails. “But you said he understood something. What changed?”

  “I did.” Vi shook her head and drew a hand up to her lips, carefully pressing them against her fingertips as if kissing something good-bye.

  Ellie eased back and closed the album cover. “Maybe that’s enough for today. Hmm? Why don’t we go to the dining hall? Or order some tea and sit on the veranda? It’s not too chilly for it if we find you a quilt.”

  “No.” A firm refusal was new. Vi again tapped the spot where the brooch would hang. As the song on the radio drifted into Benny Goodman’s “Always and Always,” she smiled—a faint, far-off look that washed over her countenance. “I need to wait.”

  “Grandma, wait . . . for what?” Gently, slowly, Ellie whispered the words. “Who do you expect is coming?”

  Vi issued a glance so sharp it struck like an arrow.

  A huff was all she offered before turning to the bookcase in a nimble move that had Ellie jumping to her feet with her. Vi squinted and ran her index finger over the spines, searching through the rows of books.

  Ellie stood behind, her hands aching to brace her grandmother against the potential of a fall. In her zeal to find whatever she sought, Vi could have an accident in a blink. Ellie peeked out the door to find Laine watching from the hall. All she could do was shrug, standing by clueless as her grandmother continued her search.

  “Grandma, can I help you? What is it you’re looking for?”

  Vi pulled a volume down from the low shelf; one tucked away and forgotten, perhaps for its condition. Any title printed along the spine had faded, and the leather cover was cracked and worn thin at the edges.

  “It’s this one.” Vi settled back on the edge of her chair to keep her attention fixed on the window.

  Ellie stood behind as her grandmother gave a loving pat to the title, embossed on a rust-toned cover with elegant gold leaf design: Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé.

  “But it’s . . . French?”

  “Oui.” Vi nodded, as if it should need no further explanation. “La Belle au bois dormant—The Sleeping Beauty.” She offered the book to Ellie, seemingly rushing her about the business of finding the fairy tale in the book’s pages.

  Ellie obeyed, thumbing to the Contents section, trying to decipher the French she’d heard and find anything close in print. “La Belle . . .” she started, searching, flipping pages, skimming through hand-tipped illustrations that might match the story of a sleeping princess.

  She hadn’t a clue what she’d do when she got there, given she couldn’t translate more than a few phrases in French. But perhaps Grandma Vi would simply enjoy holding it. Seeing the illustrations. Maybe falling back into whatever memory she’d associated with the text.

  Something slipped from the binding and fluttered to the floor.

  “I’m sorry. I . . .” A card, faded and forgotten, stuck halfway under the edge of the chair. She stooped and picked it up, then turned it over in her hand.

  Vi looked back at her, her eyes focused.

  Too focused.

  “See?”

  That was just it; Ellie could see. And she couldn’t for the life of her understand what she was holding. The card wasn’t a forgotten bookmark, but a photo—one she’d never set eyes on before. It lay in her hand, weathered and colorless except for the vintage tint of sepia.

  The image showed a young woman sporting victory rolls, the coiffed barrel curls framing her face in ebony, with a telltale dimple in her left cheek and a 1940s-style notched-collar dress highlighting her figure. She sat atop an old stone wall. Barefoot with legs demurely crossed at the ankle, she was luminous, beaming up at a man in the photo. He stared straight on to the camera, an arm casually draped around her waist—a young, sun-kissed soldier type with wind-tousled waves covering his forehead, and a grin that went on for days.

  He was dashing, to be sure. And the romance of a couple in the midst of a sun-drenched vineyard in goodness knew where might have been one of the most enchanting things Ellie had ever seen. It could certainly set a romantic’s heart to beating. And Ellie had always thought she owned such a heart, but in this instance, she was forced to retreat from the notion.

  Because while the woman was her grandmother, the man was most certainly not her grandfather.

  Ellie flipped the photo to the back, finding no comment to place or name them. Just a penciled date: June 5, 1944.

  “Grandma?” She held the photo out, tapping her index nail just under the young man’s face. “Who is this?”

  “I had to keep him there—with The Sleeping Beauty.”

  Ellie looked to the book again, flipping through the pages to see if any other secrets were tucked away in its binding. But there was little else than a penciled word—an uneven Criquet scrawled in the front cover. A child’s hand practicing letters? That told no tales on its own.

  “You mean you wanted to keep the photo in the book? By the fairy tale?”

  “No. The castle.”

  And that, she hadn’t expected. “A castle . . .”

  Ellie had been sorry for some time that she’d never pressed Grandma Vi for more stories about her life during the war. She’d shared some, of course—the courtship with Ellie’s grandfather, how she’d gone back to London for a time after the war, and was one of the first women to graduate from Cambridge in 1948. But Grandma Vi had always glossed over the war itself, summing up the years with a sentence or two about what their generation had fought for.

  “There’s a castle. A real castle . . . in France
somewhere?” A nagging sentiment pricked her insides, that there were stories—secrets no one knew. Maybe not even her grandfather. Or her parents. Were they hidden, like an old photo? Forgotten so long, their story had faded with the black-and-white image?

  “Why have you never mentioned any of this before?”

  Vi tendered a graceful tip of the lips—a knowing smile? “Because I was not ready to share him.”

  That declaration was soft but witty. And the hint of a smile too? Classic Lady Vi, but the timing was breaking her heart all over again.

  “This man. Is he family?”

  “Not any family you would know.”

  So much for that angle. “A friend, then? Maybe an acquaintance of Great-Uncle Andrew? Or someone you met during the war?”

  “He said I could find him in the chapel, the one at The Sleeping Beauty. If I wore the brooch, he’d know my answer the moment I stepped through the door.”

  “The brooch? I thought Grandpa gave it to you.” A wave of doubt washed over Ellie. “You wore it in your wedding photos. So I thought Grandpa . . .”

  “He wanted me to have it.” She paused, long seconds ticking away from the clock on the wall. Tears? Were those . . . tears forming in her grandmother’s eyes? “It was all he had to give.”

  It had been ages since the last time Grandma Vi had been able to feel anything enough to cry. It must have been important, whatever memory she was lost in, if she was so overcome that its remembrance could stir an emotional response to defy even the firm grip of Alzheimer’s.

  Ellie slid to the floor by Vi’s lap, covering her grandmother’s delicate hand atop the book’s cover.

  The turn in the conversation had made her almost too afraid to ask, but Ellie drew a deep breath and whispered, “Who were you waiting for? Is it . . . ?” She swallowed hard, charging headlong into a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to. “Is it this man?”

  “He said he’d come back for me.” Vi looked out to the grove of trees again, her eyes cloudy and wet behind her glasses. She shook her head, gazing down at her empty palms. “I should have stayed behind, like he’d asked. But I was scared. And so young . . . And then, I couldn’t. It was too late.”