Three Words for Goodbye

by Hazel Gaynor

  A soft knock came at the door before it opened a crack.

  A nurse stuck her head inside. “There’s someone to see you, Miss Sommers, if you’re up to another visitor?”

  Behind her, I caught a glimpse of dark hair, broad shoulders.

  As he stepped into the room, his gaze settled on mine and my heart swelled.

  Limping with the help of a cane, Daniel approached the bedside, concern etched across his face. “How are you, my darling?”

  I couldn’t find any words but cried tears of relief at seeing him. I reached for his hand.

  With his handkerchief, he gently dabbed my cheeks. “You don’t need to say anything.”

  I looked at Clara and then at this wonderful man who I’d met over a game of poker and whose life had intersected with mine in the most unfathomable way, and I knew, with a certainty I’d never felt before, that life was better with him in it. That I loved him.

  Daniel took the chair on the other side of the bed, and we talked for a long time about what had happened, and how fortunate we were, and the terrible loss of so many lives. When the nurse came to tend to my dressings, he brushed his lips to my forehead.

  “Get some rest so we can get you home. You still haven’t shown me your poker tricks, and I can’t let you keep on beating me.”

  I smiled weakly but he looked into my eyes and saw the truth laid bare within them.

  As the pull of sleep enveloped me, I surrendered to its healing calm, safe in the knowledge that the two people who meant the most to me were still with me. We had stared death in the face, all three of us, and I knew we would never look at life the same way again.

  Clara

  Veneto Estate, East Hampton

  May 1937

  The ocean led us home, the road beneath the Lincoln twisting and turning as I pressed my foot to the accelerator. Every minute on the road felt like precious moments we should be spending with Violet. Beside me, Maddie rested, her eyes closed. She was still recovering, but nothing would stop her making the trip to Veneto with me.

  The Hindenburg tragedy had provided a much-needed reminder that life was too short. There was no time to spend any of it going in the wrong direction, or putting up with things that didn’t make your heart sing. From now on, I would follow my passions, and I would spend time with people who filled my life with love and joy, not misery and doubt.

  People like Edward Arnold.

  He’d visited me in the hospital, rushing back to America as soon as he’d heard the dreadful news of the accident. I’d often wondered how I would feel when I saw him again, and something about the fragility of it all—the hospital room, my injuries, the shocking events of the crash—left no room for hesitation. When he’d quietly told me Annabel had left him, I’d reached for his hand and felt anchored for the first time in my life.

  “She’s moved back to the south, to be closer to her mother and sisters in Virginia,” he’d explained. “She said there was no point denying that we made each other miserable.”

  “And where will you go?” I asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure. Possibly back to Venice.”

  “What about the gallery? Will you sell it?”

  He’d smiled and given me a small silver key with a lavender ribbon tied to it. “I wondered if you might consider taking over the gallery?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you! It would mean so much to me to know it’s in capable hands. I can’t think of anyone better.”

  It was the greatest gift he could give me: not just the gallery, but the encouragement to fulfill my ambitions. I would start my Women on the Move collection there. It was perfect.

  “And perhaps, in time, you could visit me, in Venice?” he’d offered. “We never did get to the Doge’s Palace.”

  I’d smiled and told him I would like that. Very much. In time.

  Maddie yawned beside me. “Are we there?” she asked, opening a sleepy eye as I turned into the driveway, came to a stop, and killed the engine.

  I nodded. “Home.”

  We stepped from the car and linked arms as we walked inside the house together. I breathed in the familiar scent of tea roses and hyacinth, but looked with new eyes at the familiar paintings and vases, and I relished the creak of the old floorboards with new and purposeful steps. Everything was so familiar and yet so different.

  “It feels smaller, doesn’t it?” Maddie whispered beside me.

  “I think we are the ones who have grown,” I replied.

  In the entrance hall, the grandfather clock ticked the minutes idly away with its gilded hands, just as it had since I was a little girl, staring up at its ivory face. For a moment, I felt as if we’d never left home, and nothing had changed.

  We paused outside the sitting room.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Maddie nodded. “Ready.”

  We pushed open the door and stepped inside, our breathing in sync, our steps matching each other’s as we crossed the continents and oceans of wooden boards and Persian rugs and mapped our way steadily back to our beloved grandmother.

  She was resting, her face turned to the window and the ocean beyond, a slight smile at her lips, a touch of rouge in the apple of her cheeks.

  We sat quietly, one on each side of her. Maddie took her left hand. I took her right.

  I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Everything was in balance, everything as it should be, and then the lightest touch against my hand, a gentle squeeze.

  “My girls,” she said as her hand tightened around mine. “You came back to me.” She let out a long sigh. “Two sets of sisters, together again.”

  I glanced at Maddie, her face as puzzled as mine.

  “Two, Violet? I think you mean one.”

  She shook her head as the door opened behind us, and I turned to see a familiar face.

  “Margaret?”

  I watched in awe as our great-aunt Margaret crossed the room and bent in front of Violet, resting her hands on top of each of ours.

  “You reminded me how much I’d missed my sister,” she said. “You reminded me how important family is.”

  The sound of more footsteps caused me to turn around again.

  “Helga?”

  She smiled at me, walked to Margaret, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. And in that moment, I understood that Margaret had come to say goodbye, but also to ask for Violet’s blessing. For all we’d seen and done during our journey, for all the exciting departures and arrivals, nothing mattered more than to have brought Violet’s sister back to her.

  “We have a gift for you, Violet,” I said, motioning to Maddie, who placed our journal in Violet’s outstretched hands. “A memento of our trip, so that you can experience it for yourself, just as if you were right there with us.”

  The journal was tied with a ribbon we’d chosen together from a shop in Venice. I’d illustrated the title page with images of steamships and locomotives, hot air balloons and airships. And on the first page, Madeleine had added a quote from the book Nellie Bly had written about her remarkable race around the world.

  They can talk of the companionship of men, the splendor of the sun, the softness of moonlight, the beauty of music, but give me a willow chair on a quiet deck, the world with its worries and noise and prejudices lost in distance, the glare of the sun, the cold light of the moon blotted out by the dense blackness of night. Let me rest rocked gently by the rolling sea, in a nest of velvety darkness, my only light the soft twinkling of the myriads of stars in the quiet sky above; my music, the sound of the kissing waters, cooling the brain and easing the pulse; my companionship, dreaming my own dreams. Give me that and I have happiness in its perfection.

  For hours we talked, telling Violet everything about finding Grandpa Frank, and the time we’d spent with Matthias and his family. She sat quietly, absorbing it all, asking occasional questions and sharing a memory or two of her own. When she grew tired, we left her to rest awhile, Margaret beside her, their heads bent
together as they watched the ocean.

  Madeleine and I walked along the stone path to the place where we used to stand as little girls, searching for shapes in the clouds.

  “Where to next?” Madeleine asked as she bumped my shoulder gently with hers. “What’s our next adventure going to be?”

  I linked my arm through hers and we turned our faces toward the horizon. As the sun glittered on the water beyond the garden, I understood that the real journey wasn’t out there, in Paris or Venice or some other distant place. The real journey, the most important of all, was right here, within the maps and contours of our everyday lives, among the friends and family who traveled alongside us.

  In the end, that was what really mattered.

  Adventure was everywhere. We just needed the courage to look for it.

  Epilogue

  NEW YORK TIMES, DECEMBER 4, 1942

  Excerpt from “Women Lead the Charge to Keep America Running”

  By M. Sommers, special war correspondent

  They tell us to stay home, that our duties as homemakers mean we must forgo our passions and dreams. Yet roughly one-quarter of all women are already in the workforce as typists and teachers and seamstresses, and in rare cases, jobs typically filled by men. Now, as our brothers, fathers, and husbands face the enemy abroad, we’re given a new opportunity. A chance to prove that we can work as hard, and as well, as our male counterparts.

  Hundreds of thousands of women are now employed in a variety of positions in factories, defense plants, and the aircraft industry. We are being called to war as nurses and operators and support personnel. We are needed. We are valued.

  This is a dark time as we watch our loved ones battle an evil regime and mourn the devastating loss of innocent lives at the hands of a cruel dictator. But for many women, it is also a time of great change. We are ready to do our duty for our country, for ourselves, and for our mothers and grandmothers, who paved the way, and for whom such opportunities were denied.

  In these turbulent days, I am reminded of a brave young woman, a talented journalist and family friend, and an inspiration to us all: Nellie Bly. As one of the few female journalists to report from the Eastern Front during the Great War, she believed the public had a right to know what we were fighting for, and what it truly meant to be at war. She also fought for women’s suffrage, for divorce law reform, for social justice.

  In her groundbreaking 1885 letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch, in which she anonymously replied to a reader’s question “What shall we do with our girls?” Nellie Bly answered as follows: “Instead of gathering up ‘the real smart young men,’ gather up the real smart girls, pull them out of the mire, give them a shove up the ladder of life, and be amply repaid both by their success and unforgetfulness of those that held out the helping hand.”

  Nellie Bly showed us exactly what girls are good for—and now it is our turn to carry that legacy on. Let us unite in a common cause, for a brighter, and more equal, future. One and all.

  Sisters, together.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was an enormous challenge, to say the least, but if our previous two books together had taught us anything, it was that even when socially distant, it is entirely possible to cowrite a book. We were well-rehearsed, but the struggle was still very real. Worry, distraction, disruption, homeschooling, other writing projects all conspired to make this, at times, feel like an impossible task, but we prevailed! This is why we dedicated Three Words for Goodbye to each other. Cowriting comes with a huge amount of trust and teamwork. We have often been each other’s greatest cheerleader over the past year, a shoulder to cry on, and a friend to laugh with when the going got tougher than ever.

  In the end, we felt fortunate to be able to escape from reality, to continue to do the job we love, and to travel the world between our pages at a time when we could hardly leave the house. It was a gift to lose ourselves among the streets of Paris and the canals of Venice, and to sit in the audience of a Viennese opera house. For all that, we have to thank our wonderful editor, Lucia Macro, who believed in us, and took this journey with us, as our story morphed and changed. As all the best editors do, she helped us shape this into the best book it could be.

  As always, we are indebted to the many, many book bloggers, Instagrammers, booksellers, and librarians who support us and spread the word about our books. Many of you have become our friends, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

  To our families, who replenish the coffee and wine and administer essential hugs regularly, and to our fellow authors who understand the struggle of the soggy middle, the waking in a panic in the middle of the night, and the bravery it takes to share your art with the world—thank you all. You are our tribe, and our constant inspiration.

  To our superstar agent, Michelle Brower, without whose support and constant encouragement we would—like Clara and Madeleine in Venice—be hopelessly lost! Thank you for everything.

  And finally, we are especially grateful to you, our readers. Thank you for trusting us, and for spending time with our stories. It means the absolute world.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Authors

  * * *

  Meet Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

  About the Book

  * * *

  Authors’ Note

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Authors

  Meet Hazel Gaynor

  HAZEL GAYNOR is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of A Memory of Violets and The Girl Who Came Home, for which she received the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romantic Novel of the Year award. Her third novel, The Girl from The Savoy, was an Irish Times and Globe and Mail bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. In 2017, she published The Cottingley Secret and Last Christmas in Paris (cowritten with Heather Webb). Both novels hit bestseller lists, and Last Christmas in Paris won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award. The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter was an Irish Times and USA Today bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award. Meet Me in Monaco (cowritten with Heather Webb) was shortlisted for the 2020 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romantic Novel award. Hazel’s most recent novel, When We Were Young & Brave (The Bird in the Bamboo Cage) was an Irish Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Novel of the Year. Hazel was selected by Library Journal as one of Ten Big Breakout Authors for 2015. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages and is published in twenty-three countries to date. Hazel lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.

  Meet Heather Webb

  HEATHER WEBB is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of Rodin’s Lover and Becoming Josephine, as well as Last Christmas in Paris and Meet Me in Monaco (cowritten with Hazel Gaynor), both of which were award finalists and winners. Her upcoming novel, The Next Ship Home, about the dark secrets of Ellis Island and two unlikely friends who confront a corrupt system, releases in early 2022. Heather’s works have been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in New England with her family and one feisty rabbit.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  Authors’ Note

  The day we knew we had to write a book inspired by Nellie Bly’s trip around the world, we were sitting in a brasserie in Nice, France (which is a great place to find inspiration, by the way). We’d just returned from a long day of research for Meet Me in Monaco. We were beat, but we were also buzzing with that creative energy that comes from filling ourselves to the brim with fascinating sights, smells, and sounds. What could be better to accomplish that task than travel? This got us to thinking—were there trailblazing women who enjoyed travel as much as we did? For many centuries, it was unseemly for women to travel alone—or at all—but
we knew if we looked hard enough, we’d find a woman who stood out from the rest, one who broke the rules of stuffy convention. Such women are always there if you look hard enough. We like to believe they are waiting for their stories to be told; for their voices to be heard again.

  After a lovely meal of fried squash blossoms and salades Niçoises, and one or two Aperol spritz cocktails (when in France!), we pulled out our cellphones to do a quick search. One name flashed across our screens at exactly the same time, and we knew instantly she was the one to inspire us: Nellie Bly.

  Born Elizabeth Cochran, and eventually taking Nellie Bly as her pseudonym, Nellie was a trailblazer in many aspects of her life and career. She is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking report on the Blackwell’s Island asylum in New York City, for which she had herself declared insane in order to be committed so that she could witness the terrible conditions up close, but it was her trip around the world in 1889 that got us excited. Nellie Bly circumnavigated the globe in seventy-two days, alone and with one dress. Why? So that she could break the carefully calculated fictional record set by Jules Verne’s character, Phileas Fogg, in his 1872 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. What a woman! She even inspired another female journalist, Elizabeth Bisland, to challenge the record herself. Bisland wrote for Cosmopolitan magazine, a very different publication then from the one we know now, and set off to race around the world in the opposite direction, only hours after Nellie! But Nellie was not to be beaten and she returned triumphantly to a New Jersey train station seventy-two days later.

  What was especially interesting to us about this whole adventure was not so much the places Nellie traveled to, or what happened to her along the way (having rushed through the countries she visited, she’d actually observed very little of the local culture or sights); it was the hysteria her trip created in America that really caught our attention. The newspapers followed Nellie’s progress carefully, turning her into something of a celebrity and household name, and many thousands of Americans entered a competition to guess the time it would take for Nellie to circumnavigate the globe. The person who guessed the closest to the actual time it took her would win a trip to Europe as their prize. This is where history becomes fiction: who might have won that trip, we wondered? Why did they enter, and what impact did a trip to Europe have on the individual who had become so invested in Nellie’s journey? These questions formed the basis of Violet’s story, and the legacy of her experience in Europe became her granddaughters’ story, and that, in turn, became the book you are holding in your hands.