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

by Kate Hewitt

  He looked so serious that Abby paused. “Yes,” she said at last. “I do. I really do.” She meant it absolutely, but it still felt too simple an answer for what she knew was a complicated question, a complicated life. Yes, she loved it, but as Simon already suspected, she’d never really had the opportunity to choose anything else—college at Wisconsin State, studying a language she’d once loved, a career in a city. Old dreams that had barely begun to take shape before she’d abandoned them for other ones formed by duty and grief.

  “Abby.” Simon’s voice had gentled, and when she turned to look at him, he was smiling in a sleepy way that made her mouth dry. She knew that look, even if she’d never actually seen it before. She felt its response in herself.

  Simon reached for her hand, and it was easy to let him take it, let him pull her towards him so their bodies brushed and their mouths touched, and, yes, they were kissing again, and it felt even better than last time.

  Abby leaned back against a tree, the leafy branches a canopy overhead, the bark hard against her back. Yet, after just a few seconds, she felt her brain going into hyperdrive. What does this mean? Is Simon serious?

  The answers came hard and fast—It means nothing! Of course he isn’t. This is a fling, you idiot, that’s all. And Abby had no experience whatsoever of flings. Simon, she realized as she started to tense, had to know that.

  He broke the kiss first, a slight frown gathered between his brows as he gazed down at her. “All right?” he asked gently, and for some reason that annoyed her, as if he knew she was fragile, as if she needed handling after just one simple kiss.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, a touch aggressively. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Honestly? Because you seemed… a bit removed, towards the end.”

  “You could tell?”

  A smile curved his mouth. “Yes, I could, actually. You went stiff as a board, Abby, which generally isn’t a good sign when you’re kissing someone.”

  “Ah.” She managed a laugh. “Sorry. I suppose I was wondering what this is.” She gestured to the small space between them. “Not to turn all serious on you, but you are going back to England soon, and I’m… I’m not a fling kind of person, if that’s what you had in mind.”

  He raised his eyebrows, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he rocked back on his heels. “And you think I am?”

  “I have no idea what you are.”

  He flinched slightly, and she realized she’d hurt him with her words. Simon, who seemed so light-hearted, so easy-going, had a woundedness of his own. She forgot that, because of his carefree friendliness. But he was divorced, after all. He’d said he was emotionally unavailable, even if she’d never seen that herself.

  “I don’t mean that unkindly,” she said. “It’s just that we barely know each other. And if you’re thinking of an actual relationship, considering the distance, I can’t see it going anywhere.”

  Simon was silent, and Abby wished she hadn’t said anything.

  Why had she? She’d been enjoying it all—the flirting, the kiss, the feeling of expectation, that something was finally happening to her. Why did she have to go and ruin it before it had barely begun? And yet, even so, she didn’t regret stating the obvious; maybe they both needed reminding.

  “I must confess I hadn’t thought through things as much as that,” Simon said finally. “I like you. I wanted to kiss you. That’s about as far as I’d got, to be honest.”

  “Okay.” She tried to keep her expression neutral. It shouldn’t hurt her, that his mind hadn’t leapfrogged ahead the way hers had. Most people’s probably didn’t, or maybe here was the emotional reserve he’d told her about. “Well, this is probably a good time to tell you that I don’t want you digging into Matthew Lawson or Tom Reese anymore.” Actually, it probably wasn’t a good time at all. It seemed she was in self-destruct mode now, but she couldn’t help it. She had a weird urge to push him away, as strongly as if she’d placed her hands flat on his chest and shoved. This was all getting a bit too much, a bit too close.

  “You don’t?” Simon looked surprised, more surprised than Abby had expected him to be. Surely he’d understood her reluctance all along, even though she’d brought him the medal?

  “No, I don’t. I spoke to my father after I came back from the lake, and he was pretty upset. He really doesn’t want either of us digging into either of their histories, and he definitely doesn’t want you to write a book.”

  “And he has the final word?” Simon’s voice wasn’t cool, but almost.

  “It’s his family.”

  “It’s my family, too.” Simon’s eyes had narrowed, and Abby lifted her chin.

  “I respect his wishes, and I hope you will, too.”

  Simon stared at her for a long moment while Abby waited, her heart starting to thud. She didn’t like the look on his face, and already their kiss felt like a million years ago.

  “I’m sorry, Abby,” he finally said quietly. “But I can’t do that.”

  SIMON

  “What?” Abby blinked at him, mouth agape, and Simon tried for a conciliatory smile. He hadn’t meant to sound so obdurate, and he didn’t know how their conversation had driven downhill so quickly, but somehow they were here, both of them feeling aggressive, shoulders back, chins lifted, any memory of a kiss evaporated.

  “I’m not willing to let this go,” he said, as gently as he could. “It affects my family, as well. It’s my history as much as yours.”

  “How? It’s my grandfather—”

  “And my grandmother.”

  “You don’t even know if your grandmother knew this Matthew Lawson—”

  “Actually, I do.”

  She stared at him for a moment, looking even more flummoxed. Her face was flushed, her hazel eyes glittering, a strand of dark hair stuck to her cheek. She swiped it away with an impatient hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “I rang my sister the other day, after I saw you. Eleanor, she’s a bit obsessed with our genealogy, although she’s done research on my father’s side rather than my mother’s. The Irish side.” He smiled, but Abby just stared at him, and so, resolutely, he continued. “I asked her to look through some boxes of photos and memorabilia, stuff that’s been kept in her loft since my grandmother died, when she took command of it all. It took some digging, but she found a photo. She sent it to me—I can show it to you.” He reached for his phone and swiped the screen, scrolling through his emails to find the relevant one. “Here.”

  He handed her the phone, and Abby took it without a word. She gazed down at the photo that had mesmerized Simon when he’d first seen it—two men in 82nd Airborne uniforms, standing before the front door of a terraced house, shoulders back, a determined yet haunted look in their eyes.

  “It was dated June 1944. Right before D-Day.” He paused. “The back of the photo had their names and the place where the photo was taken, in my grandmother’s handwriting—Lieutenant Tom Reese and Sergeant Matthew Lawson, Holmside Road.”

  She stared at the photo for another moment—Tom so blond and assured, his small smile a little cocky despite the fear in his eyes, while Matthew was dark-haired and eyed, the expression on his face so serious, it had unsettled Simon a bit. The two men couldn’t have been more different, and it had made him wonder all the more how they were connected.

  Finally Abby looked up. “Why didn’t you tell me?” It wasn’t quite an accusation, but almost, and Simon understood why, just as he’d known, on some level, why he hadn’t told her right away. Because he’d feared this very reaction, because he could feel their relationship already becoming complicated, and that scared him. Because part of him preferred Abby when she was quiet and reserved, and it was his choice whether to wake her up or not.

  “I was planning to today,” he said. “And I just have.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Were they arguing? Something prickled in Simon, something old and remembered. He hated arguments. He hated confro
ntation. Had dreaded it as a child, when it felt like an explosion that came out of nowhere, and he’d still loathed it later, when it had been more reasoned and understandable. The result was he’d done his best to avoid it whenever he could. Much easier simply to smile, offer a light laugh, defuse any tension by pretending it wasn’t there.

  Yet all afternoon Abby had been sharp, unsheathing claws he hadn’t realized she’d had, making little digs that were becoming harder and harder to ignore even as he’d tried to.

  “I suppose,” he said after a moment, “I didn’t want you to get skittish on me.”

  “Skittish? I’m not a horse.”

  They really were arguing. “I’m sorry. Wrong word.”

  Abby looked down at the photo again and then thrust the phone back at Simon. “I mean what I said. This has to stop.”

  He didn’t think she was just talking about his research. “Abby, I understand why you want to protect your father—”

  “You really don’t.”

  “Then tell me?”

  She stared at him hard, and for a second he thought she’d say—what? He had no idea, but he knew there was something there, something hidden, something dark and painful that she needed to say but wouldn’t.

  “All I’m asking, Simon, is for you to stop researching my family. I think that’s a reasonable request.”

  “Matthew Lawson is not your family,” he returned quietly.

  She jerked back a little at that, as if he’d hurt her. He hadn’t meant to, but he knew he wasn’t going to back down. For her sake as well as his. As well as history’s.

  “I know you may find this hard to believe, but I’m saying this because I care about you. And I don’t think dropping this simply because your father said so is the right thing to do—”

  “And you think you have the right to decide what’s best for me? To make decisions for me, as if I’m a child?”

  “No, of course not. But this is about my family too, my history, and I don’t want to leave it here.” He thought about telling her what else he’d found—the group on Facebook for veterans of the 82nd Airborne and their families, the message he’d sent to a veteran named Guy Wessel, who had written back saying he remembered Matthew Lawson very well. He lived in a senior living facility outside Minneapolis and had invited Simon to visit him. He hadn’t said any of that to Abby yet because he’d been afraid it might be too much for her to take in. Now he knew it was.

  She stared at him for another long moment. “So you’re refusing,” she said flatly.

  Simon could feel himself start to shut down. It was an instinctive response, like an animal retreating into its shell, a door closing firmly shut. A part of him went dark even as he kept his voice light. “I don’t think we need to put it quite like that,” he said with a little smile. “Let’s just think about this sensibly—”

  “I don’t need to think about it at all,” she snapped. “I asked you to stop doing something and you won’t. That’s the end of it now.” Her meaning was clear, as were her actions, as she strode away from him, back to the farmhouse, Bailey clambering up to follow her at a trot, the leafy green branches of the apple trees soon swallowing them both up so Simon was left alone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  March 1944

  In the days after the air raid, Lily walked around in a daze, her mind a welter of indecision. One moment she was certain she should report Matthew to the proper authorities, show the paper she’d tucked in the back of her underwear drawer, and let those in charge take care of the matter. The next moment she told herself to stop being so silly, of course Matthew wasn’t some sort of spy, and she should destroy the slip of paper and simply get on with things.

  She thought of trying to translate the few words on the paper, as if that might make a difference, but she didn’t know any German speakers, and she was afraid to ask for a German dictionary from the library, if they even had one, in case it aroused suspicion. Who wanted to know German these days? Then once again she’d tell herself to stop being so ridiculous.

  Then she’d walk past one of the posters by the Underground, and see the stern warnings about careless talk costing lives, “Tell Nobody—Not Even Her”, and a shudder of apprehension went through her, and she knew she had to do something.

  “Do you think there are many spies in London?” she asked Iris during their lunch break. Iris was prising apart her sandwich and licking off the potted meat, something Lily found revolting, especially when it was accompanied by one of her drippy sniffs.

  “Spies? You mean Germans?”

  “Yes, what other kind would there be?”

  “Oh, I’m sure there are heaps,” Iris said in the lofty tone of someone who liked to think they knew what they were talking about. “Ever so many. One hears things, doesn’t one?”

  “Hears things? What do you mean?”

  “Well, one only has to look at the posters,” Iris said with a shrug. “A single word and—boom! A plane goes up.”

  “Yes, but that’s just to scare us, surely.” Lily was quickly realizing that, as usual, Iris knew no more than she did. She just liked to talk as if she did. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “They wouldn’t put all the posters up if they didn’t have reason, would they?”

  “I suppose, but surely they’re just being cautious.”

  “Why are you asking, anyway?” Iris leaned forward, her eyes alight. “Do you suspect someone? I’ve always wondered about Miss Challis.”

  “Miss Challis!” Lily gave a huff of disbelieving laughter as she quickly checked to see if their supervisor was listening. “Oh Iris, don’t be absurd.”

  “She’s so keen. It’s obviously a cover.” Iris let out a hoot of laughter before she licked her bread again. “So who do you suspect?”

  “No one,” Lily returned sharply. “I was just wondering.”

  “Back to work, girls,” Miss Challis called out, and Iris gave Lily a laughing look before turning back to her typewriter with a sniff.

  A few days ago, the HMS Spartan had been sunk by a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb, with a loss of five officers and forty-one enlisted men. Their trays were full, and there was no time to worry about spies.

  As the days passed without her acting, Lily feared her indecision might cost someone something—who even knew what or how much? If Matthew was passing on information from the 82nd Airborne… she pictured the poster Iris had mentioned, of a man shaking hands and wishing a pilot good luck for tomorrow, and then, below, the plane going up in flames. What if her silence caused something like that to happen? What if the letters filling her tray every day were actually her fault?

  It was too hideous a thought to contemplate.

  But then she reminded herself that Matthew might not be doing anything of the sort. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the pigeons, the note in German. The last thing she wanted to do was get him into trouble, or waste precious time and manpower investigating someone who was perfectly innocent. There had to be a reason for it all. It was just that Lily couldn’t think what it was.

  But then it was too late to do anything, because she came home from work one evening just a few days after the raid, to find both Tom Reese and Matthew Lawson on the doorstep, looking very smart in their dress uniforms.

  “They’re here to say goodbye,” Sophie cried in a voice whose gaiety sounded almost manic. Lily had barely spoken to her sister since the raid; lost in her own circling, worrying thoughts, she hadn’t paid much attention to Sophie’s huffy silence. “I said we simply must have a photo.” She brandished their father’s Selfix that usually only came out on holidays.

  “Oh, I see.” Lily glanced at Matthew, who was looking at her in concern. “Are you leaving right away?”

  “In the morning,” Tom said. “Up to Lincolnshire until the invasion.”

  “But they’ll be back to visit, won’t you?” Sophie turned to Tom with a bright smile. “You promised to take me to The Berkeley again, you know.” />
  “And I will, of course I will,” Tom rejoined as he jangled some change in his pocket. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He smiled at Sophie, who smiled back, and Lily looked at Matthew, who said nothing.

  So this was it, then. They were going. Perhaps they’d return, perhaps they wouldn’t. Lily knew it wouldn’t be the same, and she’d missed the opportunity to tell someone about the pigeons, the paper. She felt a treacherous relief, that it was out of her hands.

  Then she remembered Matthew telling her he thought she’d be brave when it mattered. Now she knew she wouldn’t be.

  “Do be careful,” she said, and Sophie called out for them to stand in front of the door. Lily watched them take their places, Matthew looking so very grave, and she felt a cry catch at her throat. This was goodbye. It felt too awful, too final. There was still so much she wanted to say, and it had nothing to do with that wretched little piece of paper.

  The picture was taken and Carol and Richard came out to say their farewells, and Lily stood on the side and felt as if it were all happening to someone else. She met Matthew’s gaze and he smiled at her, and she tried to smile back but found she couldn’t.

  And then they were leaving, with another round of shaking hands and a chorus of farewells, and through it all Lily found she could barely speak at all.

  “I hope I see you again,” Matthew said, as he pressed her cold fingers against his own. “I’ll come back on leave, if… if you want me to?” His dark gaze moved over her face as if looking for answers.

  “Yes,” Lily managed, and did not say anything more, although words—so many words—crowded in her throat and lodged in her mouth. Are you a spy? Do you care for me? Be safe. No matter who or what you are, I don’t want one of those awful letters to be written about you.

  Then they were gone, swallowed up by the darkness of blackout London, and Lily stared after them disconsolately, hardly able to believe she’d stayed so silent.