Into the Darkest Day: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  “Come with me,” Lily said softly. “We’ll get you warm. Sergeant Lawson will take care of your boy.”

  The woman nodded and let Lily lead her away like a child, her hand in hers as they walked down the street, past more bombed-out buildings, the few people wandering around as if they couldn’t believe how quickly it had all happened. A fire engine screamed down a nearby street. Lily felt as if the world had ended, and yet somehow it was still going on. It didn’t make any sense.

  Ten minutes later, they were back at Holmside Road, which thankfully looked as if it hadn’t suffered any damage.

  Carol opened the door, her face tight with anxiety, before relief crashed over as she caught sight of Lily. Then she took one look at the blank-faced woman next to her before giving a quick nod.

  “Tea,” she said. “And brandy. Come inside.”

  In the kitchen, the woman collapsed into a chair, and it wasn’t until Carol had pressed a cup of hot tea laced heavily with brandy into her hands that she began to sob, her body shuddering with the force of it, the reality of her son’s death finally penetrating.

  “What happened?” Carol asked in a low voice as she patted the woman’s shoulder and Sophie looked on from the doorway, her arms folded.

  Lily felt as if she could collapse. She leaned against the table instead, the edge digging into her hip, a reminder that she was here, that she’d survived.

  “We were caught in the raid…” she said numbly. The world still felt muted. “She was across the street. Her son… he couldn’t be more than six…” Lily’s breath caught and she felt the urge to sob the same as the woman, but she swallowed it back. This wasn’t her grief.

  “You poor thing.” Carol leaned over to give Lily’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Such a shock.”

  “I’m all right—”

  “Sophie, make your sister a cup of tea,” Carol barked.

  Sophie, looked at her mother, clearly surprised by her sharp tone.

  “She’s had a shock,” Carol continued. “And she’s been ever so brave. You did the right thing, Lily, bringing her here. It’ll be all right, love.” She gave the woman’s back another pat. “It’ll be all right.”

  Sophie slunk to the table and poured Lily a cup of tea from the big brown pot. As Lily met her sister’s gaze, she saw her eyes narrow, and in that moment she realized something intangible had shifted between all of them again.

  Sophie was no longer the favored child, the laughing girl, who, despite, or perhaps because of, her high spirits, could do no wrong. Thanks to her evening with Tom Reese, thanks to Lily’s actions tonight, something had started to change, roles reversed, or at least forever altered. And as she thrust a cup of tea into Lily’s hands, it was clear Sophie knew it.

  “We,” she said softly, so only Lily could hear, as she poured a splash of milk into her cup. “I wonder who you were with, Lily Mather.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ABBY

  “Abby?”

  Abby closed the door slowly, her heart thudding. Memories tumbled through her mind of a moment like this one—fifteen years ago, her father in the doorway just as he was now, a look of naked grief and disbelieving despair on his face as she’d watched him turn into an old man.

  What have you done, Abby?

  That was all he’d said. He hadn’t waited for an answer, not that she’d had the courage to give one. He’d simply turned around and shuffled into the kitchen. He hadn’t said a word to her for an endless, agonizing week.

  But that was then, and now was completely different. She’d hadn’t been up to anything. Her father couldn’t be angry that she’d spent the afternoon with Simon. She was a grown woman, after all, perfectly entitled to a private life.

  Abby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what you mean, Dad.”

  “I mean the trunk upstairs in the attic that has clearly been opened.”

  What? Abby blinked at him through the gloom of the hallway. How had he known she’d opened the trunk? She’d put everything back exactly as she’d found it, and in any case her dad never went up to the attic. Never revisited all the memories and ghosts that resided there. She was the one who fetched the Christmas decorations or canning jars, who scurried up and down and tried not to look at anything too closely.

  Goodness, but they were a sorry pair, ducking away from the past, trying to forget the truth even as it dominated their lives. Abby was so very tired of it.

  “You went up to the attic?” she asked.

  “You don’t deny it,” he said flatly.

  “No, I can’t. I wouldn’t. I mean, I’m not going to lie about it.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I was curious about Grandad.” Abby tried to lighten her voice. “Does that have to be such a big deal?” She managed a smile as she walked towards her father. He didn’t move from the doorway and she slipped past him into the kitchen, Bailey following her, determined to lend some sort of normalcy to this situation.

  David turned around slowly. “It’s a big deal because you knew my feelings about it. I didn’t want the past all dug up. I told you so.”

  “Because there’s something to hide?”

  “Because I don’t want it!” David’s voice rose. “Even if it doesn’t make sense to you, why can’t you respect that?”

  Abby cringed, not at her father’s angry tone, but the despair and grief she saw on his face. Guilt corroded her insides, reminded her of all she had to make up for—would always have to make up for, no matter how hard or long she tried. “I’m sorry, Dad. I just… I don’t understand why this is such a big thing. Grandad’s been gone for thirty years. Whatever happened, whatever he did, surely it doesn’t matter anymore?”

  “It matters to me.” David heaved a heavy sigh. “Memories matter, Abby. The way you think of someone, what you know about them, how they live on. Surely you can appreciate that? Especially when they’re all you have.”

  “I know that,” she said quietly. Of course she knew that. She could never forget it. Her mother and brother were frozen forever in time, forty-five and fifteen. She sank into a chair at the kitchen table, and Bailey immediately put her head on her knee, her liquid brown eyes gazing up at her unblinkingly. “But I didn’t realize your memories of Grandad were…” She paused, her thoughts so tangled. “Complicated.”

  “It wasn’t complicated, what I asked,” David returned flatly. “To drop it.”

  Abby kept her gaze on Bailey, her hands sliding almost mechanically over her fur. Of course she’d known this was painful for her father. He’d made it plenty clear, and she’d kept her meetings with Simon secret for a reason. She’d tried to hide that she’d gone into the attic at all. Guilt, her constant companion, pressed even closer. “I’m sorry,” she said after a long, tense moment. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Why can’t you just leave it alone?” He sounded weary, which was worse than if he’d stayed furious.

  “Why can’t you tell me?” The challenge was unexpected for both of them. Abby never challenged her father. She managed him, it was true, with careful, gentle handling, but she didn’t oppose or question him. Yet now, for a reason she couldn’t quite fathom, she was. “Why can’t you tell me whatever it is you’re hiding about Grandad?” she asked, trying to keep her voice reasonable. Gentle. “Is it something about the war? Something you don’t want people to know? Who is Matthew Lawson?” The questions spilled out of her, surprising them both.

  David’s face darkened as he shook his head, a vehement back and forth that reminded Abby of an angry bear. “I don’t want to talk about this, Abby.”

  “I know you don’t, but it’s my family too. Don’t I have a right to—”

  “No.” The word was flatly spoken, an absolute. When it came to their family, she didn’t have any rights, period. She’d lost them.

  “That’s not fair,” Abby said quietly, her voice so low she half-hoped her father hadn’t heard her.

  “Not fair?” he
repeated. “Do we really want to talk about what’s not fair?”

  “Dad.” The word caught in her throat. She couldn’t bear him to dredge up that.

  “Please, Abby.” The anger drained away, leaving her father looking like a broken man, his shoulders slumped, his voice faltering. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you, and it’s all old history, but… I can’t stand the thought of that guy writing our family’s history in a book. Poking and prying into private matters.”

  “He wouldn’t have to put in a book,” Abby said quietly. “And even if you told me, I wouldn’t necessarily tell him. Not if you didn’t want me to.” Although she hadn’t exactly respected her father’s wishes in this matter so far.

  “It’s not worth knowing.” David slumped into the chair opposite her, and detecting a mood as ever, Bailey moved her head from Abby’s knee to her father’s. With a sad smile, he stroked her head. “Remember when we got this old girl?”

  “Yes.” Her father had brought Bailey home one spring day, a golden fluffball of fur, after their old sheepdog Sam had died. Abby had been delighted with the puppy, who seemed less of a working dog than the loving companion they both needed—and still did. “She’s been a good friend.”

  “Yes.” David’s gnarled hand rested on top of Bailey’s head. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, and Abby tensed in surprise. Her father never apologized. “I know I seem unreasonable. But this is painful for me. I don’t… I don’t want it dredged up. Any of it. I know it may not seem important to you, but… some things are better left unknown.”

  Abby’s throat felt tight. The deep sadness, and even grief, in her father’s voice made her eyes sting. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I know you didn’t.” But she had. With a sigh, he heaved himself up from the table. “Let’s just leave it,” he said, and Abby felt as if that were the catchphrase of their lives. Leave everything behind, never talk about it, and yet still it loomed, forefront and center of their lives.

  David didn’t wait for her reply, and Abby watched miserably as he shuffled out of the room. She listened to the sound of the front door close—a soft, despairing click, rather than an angry slam—and she brushed at her eyes impatiently.

  This was why she never lost patience with her father, never left Willow Tree. Instead of being coldly furious, he became pathetically broken. And it was her fault. She knew she had to make peace with that somehow—Shannon had told her many times, a therapist she’d seen briefly had told her repeatedly, she knew it in her bones—but conversations like this one had the old, awful guilt rearing up, taking over. It’s my fault he’s like this. My fault our family is broken.

  Abby took a deep breath and tried to focus. Mechanically, she went to the fridge to take something out for dinner. Her mind felt frozen as she started chopping an onion, her eyes smarting from the activity, which was better than crying because she felt so frustrated, so despairing, so sad.

  Fifteen years. Fifteen years she’d lived with her dad, lived with the guilt. Found happiness in small but significant ways, yes, thank goodness. Shannon. The shop. Harvest festivals and summer fairs, chatting with customers, having dinner with a few friends. Bailey. She’d made a life, but she knew, at some basic heart level, she hadn’t been truly happy, not deep down, in a contented, settled sort of way. She’d always been looking for something.

  And you think you’ve found that with Simon?

  The scoffing voice in her head almost seemed audible, a silent, sneering echo that reverberated through the room. Abby paused, knife in midair. Was that what was going on here? She was clinging to some pathetic romantic fantasy that belonged in a romcom or a frothy novel, not real life? Simon might have kissed her, but she barely knew him, and in any case, he was going back to England—when? A few weeks, he’d said. She was being ridiculous.

  She’d let her interest in Simon guide her actions, make her dig into her grandfather’s past even though she’d known—she’d absolutely known—that her father was reluctant. More than reluctant, even. Whatever secret her father was protecting—and Abby could not even begin to imagine what it was—it wasn’t her right to dig it up and expose it to the light, to cause him more pain than she already had.

  Abby resumed chopping the onion, determined now, her movements swift and purposeful. When Simon came, she’d tell him he needed to stop his research into her family, and the mysterious Matthew Lawson. She didn’t want to know who he was, or why Tom Reese had his medal, and Sophie Mather had his. She didn’t need to know any of it. She didn’t even want to, anymore. It didn’t matter. She could choose for it not to.

  She pushed the pile of chopped onion aside, her eyes still stinging. She took a deep breath and willed herself to feel calmer. After a few moments, she did.

  Two days later, Abby stood on the front porch, just as she had a little over a week ago, watching Simon’s rental car come down the dirt road. The air was full of the sweet smell of freshly mown grass, reminding her of sunny summer afternoons a lifetime ago, when she and Luke had lain in the backyard, staring up at a cloudless sky, while their mother churned ice cream on the back porch.

  Thinking back on it now, it sounded almost ludicrous—like something out of The Waltons, and yet it had happened, many times. Snowy Christmases, sledding on the big hill out back, catching fireflies on the front porch, a childhood’s worth of a Norman Rockwell painting that she hadn’t even appreciated. It had been real, all of it, even if it felt like a fantasy now, sepia-tinted, a montage of poignant moments set to sentimental music.

  Simon pulled up in front of the house and came out of the car with an easy smile that reminded Abby of that closeness they’d had the day before yesterday, when they’d lain on a blanket by the lake and he’d kissed her. Forty-eight hours later, it still made her insides give a shivery little dance that she tried to suppress, because things were different now.

  He bounded up the stairs with a wide smile, and when he leaned forward to greet her, she froze, not knowing what he meant to do, only for them to bump noses awkwardly and a bit painfully.

  “Sorry,” Simon said with a laugh as he rubbed his nose. “I only meant to kiss your cheek.”

  Abby muttered something unintelligible, and fussed with Bailey for a few seconds to avoid looking at him. “So are you ready for the grand tour?” she asked a bit too brightly, to cover her embarrassment. She suspected Simon saw right through her.

  “Yes, absolutely.” He glanced around in silent enquiry, and Abby answered the question he didn’t ask.

  “He’s out today, getting some supplies in Milwaukee.”

  “Right.”

  “He’s not scary, you know,” she added.

  “He is, a little bit, you have to admit.” Simon cocked his head, his gaze sweeping speculatively over her.

  “He doesn’t mean to be,” Abby said quietly. She thought of the way her father had shuffled out of the kitchen after their argument, an old man broken by memories. No, he wasn’t scary, not to her. Just sad, which made it so much worse.

  “I think you really believe that—”

  “That sounds so patronizing,” Abby returned, her voice sharpening, surprising them both, but she still felt raw from the argument. “I know it. Don’t act as if you know my father better than I do, Simon, because, trust me, you don’t.”

  Her words seemed to reverberate between them, like the echo of a slap.

  Simon blinked once, twice.

  “Noted,” he said softly.

  Abby flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound quite so aggressive.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He smiled. “I’m the one who’s overstepped.”

  On that uncertain and somewhat sour note, they started the tour of the farm. Abby breathed in the scent of mown grass again as they headed across the front yard to the main barn, Bailey trotting faithfully beside them.

  Now that they were talking, Abby realized there wasn’t all that much to see—the barn, the trees, the sh
op.

  “That’s the tree the farm’s named after,” she said, nodding towards the large willow with its fronded, drooping branches in front of the house. “I suppose that’s obvious.”

  “It’s lovely.” Simon paused to give the tree in the center of the front yard his full attention. “How old is it?”

  “Seventy years or so? I think my grandfather planted it when he first bought the farm.” Willow trees only lived seventy or eighty years total, Abby knew. She didn’t like to think about losing the farm’s emblem, the end of an era, worryingly symbolic.

  As they resumed walking towards the barn, she tried to think of a friendly way to tell Simon that she didn’t want him digging into Matthew Lawson or Tom Reese’s pasts anymore. It had been so clear a decision after talking to her father, but now she felt full of uneasy doubts. Was it too bossy, to ask him to stop? It wasn’t as if Matthew Lawson was a relative of hers. Would she be the one overstepping?

  She shelved the conversation for later as they stepped into the cool dimness of the barn and she began to show him around—the cider press, the cold atmosphere storage. She handed Simon an apple from the storage and laughed when his eyes widened at how crisp it tasted, despite being a year old.

  “We used to have refrigerated storage, but we moved to controlled atmosphere a couple years ago. Keeps the apples very fresh-tasting.”

  “And you make cider?” he asked, nodding towards the press and the stacks of fermenting apples.

  “Yes, but it’s more of a sideline, for the farm shop. We mainly sell apples to supermarkets through Wisconsin and Illinois.”

  They strolled through an orchard of Comstocks, and she explained about the “June-drop”, when the trees naturally shed fruit, and then how they had to thin again in July, to make sure the apples remaining were healthy and of a good size.

  “Do you love it?” he asked seriously as they paused beneath the sheltering branches of a tree, and Bailey flopped at their feet for a rest. “Do you love what you do?”