46. May 22, 1932 London, England
The bathroom ceiling is a blur of light and shadow through the tepid water, the sounds of the world outside the claw-foot tub distorted and distant. Her eyes don’t burn anymore. Not from the bathwater, not from her tears. Beatrix stopped crying hours ago anyway.
This will accomplish nothing. Not what you are hoping for, at least.
Her throat is tight, her lungs full, burning with her last breath. She tries to clear her mind, to block out the voice that sounds like hers, even though it isn’t.
But it isn’t your last breath, is it?
The panic swells as the ache in her chest deepens to pain. Her heartbeat thunders in her ears.
Would you like it to be?
She’ll do it this time. Breathe in the water to make it all stop—the world, this pain, time—find peace, if only for a single moment.
I could make it last. You don’t have to hurt like this. You don’t have to be alone. Let me help you.
Beatrix closes her eyes and turns her world dark, opens her mouth and screams where no one can hear her.
A hand grips her arm, pulls her to the surface. She slumps over the edge of the tub and takes a gulping breath.
Oliver plunges his arm into the water and pulls the stopper out, letting the water drain away. He sags onto the tile floor, his face pale, his eyes wide, his shirtsleeve soaked through.
A torrent of ugly emotions threatens to drown Beatrix, like the water couldn’t. She spits the words at him, the most hurtful ones she can think of. “Get out.”
Oliver’s gaze snaps to hers, blue skies overwhelmed by a storm of fear and hurt and confusion. “Bea—”
“Get out!”
He clenches his jaw. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Just looking at him hurts, her chest squeezed tight like she’s still underwater, a breath before drowning. She’s going to lose him.
No. She is losing him. Right now, with every beat of her undying heart. She is losing him without even realizing she is. Just like she lost Anna.
Anna is gone.
But she can’t be. The woman she found collapsed on the floor of the workroom yesterday morning can’t be the same woman she rode bicycles with the evening before, can’t be the same woman she had over for tea two days before that.
Can’t be the same woman who always said “see you tomorrow” instead of “goodbye.” Anna had her whole life ahead of her, Anna was young and healthy and so, so alive, and that woman was still and empty and—
Beatrix shudders. Oliver drapes a towel around her shoulders, his anger gone. He is young, too. He had his whole life ahead of him. He is still dying.
He kneels in front of her. “Talk to me, Bea,” he whispers. “Please talk to me.”
She pulls the towel tightly around her body. Her voice is hoarse, her throat raw. “Did you know when you found Anna for me—” She chokes on the name. “Did you know she was going to die yesterday?”
The color drains from Oliver’s face. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
She searches his anguished gaze. “What is the point of loving someone if you are just going to lose them?”
He takes one of her clammy hands in both of his. “The loving is the point.”
“And the pain? What is the point of that?” In all her years, she has never felt anything so terrible.
“It’s grief,” Oliver says. “And that’s love, too.”
She tips her forehead against his and squeezes her eyes shut. She breathes in the scent of an oak wood in spring and summer-fresh lavender, and her heart aches. She wants to rip it out of her chest. Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “It hurts too much.”
Oliver squeezes her hand. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice a choked whisper. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Hey.” Oliver catches her eye. “I’m not leaving.”
He helps her out of the tub and pulls her close, his arms warm and strong, wrapped around her. She wants to sink into him.
“I used to hate it when people told me it gets better,” he says. He kisses her wet hair. “But it does. I promise.”
She wishes she could believe him.
Beatrix peers through her bedroom door. Oliver sits hunched on the end of her sofa, his elbows on his knees, his gaze picking out some pattern on her parquet floor. She smooths the collar of her plaid dress and steps into her sitting room. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Oliver looks up sharply. “Understatement of the fucking century.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Beatrix assures him. She perches on the edge of the cushion next to him. “I would have been all right.”
He takes her face in his hands, warm and rough on her skin. “You would have survived. That’s not the same thing.”
She swallows against the ache in her throat. “I just wanted a moment of peace.”
“And then what?” Oliver asks. “After you drowned and lived and drowned, until someone found you in that tub.” His voice breaks and his hands fall away.
“Try to forget her.” The words taste like ash in her mouth. Her best friend. Her only family. Gone.
Her gaze trails to the low oval table set in front of her sofa, to the two matching cups of cold, half-drunk tea. Tears spring to her eyes. Thomas left only an hour before Oliver arrived. She had made him tea instead of Anna. Because Anna was gone, and they were both lost without her.
They sat together in silence. Until Thomas spoke, and Beatrix wished he hadn’t.
He told her Anna had died in the best way possible.
She was sewing at the shop, doing what she loved.
The examiner said her death was painless, instantaneous, but Beatrix doesn’t care.
She isn’t grateful. She is angry. Anna is gone, and that’s all that matters.
“Why would you want to forget her?” Oliver asks.
“She was a mistake.” The words twist like a knife in her chest, but if she says it enough, thinks it enough, believes it enough, maybe it will hurt less.
Oliver gives her a sidelong glance. “Is that what this is?”
Beatrix doesn’t answer, and that is answer enough for Oliver. He stands abruptly.
“You don’t understand,” Beatrix says. “How else am I supposed to survive?”
Oliver turns to her. “With help. With friends who care for you. With people who love you.”
“They’ll leave me. And then I am left with nothing.” Nothing but pain and heartache and an eternity without them.
“You’ll have your memories. They’ll be with you forever.” His words are meant to be a comfort.
“Memories are all I have left,” Beatrix says. Memories of her parents and her sisters and William. Of too many Londons to count. Of Anna, and soon Oliver, too. “I am tired of memories.” Or maybe she is just tired. “I want something real.”
“Memories are real,” Oliver says. “The love that made them is real.”
“Then I want something that can last,” Beatrix clarifies. Someone who can stay.
Oliver runs a hand through his hair. “You can get what? Eight, ten, twelve years with someone? That’s a hell of a long time from where I’m standing.”
It isn’t, she wants to say. It’s not enough. A blink. A breath. A heartbeat. But how do you say that to a man with only months left to live?
“Trying to forget Anna won’t work anyway,” Oliver says.
“How would you know?”
He offers her a weak smile. “I met a wise and beautiful stranger who told me a secret.” He sits next to her on the sofa. “It’s hard to regret someone once you’ve loved them.”
And she had loved Anna. How else could it hurt like this?
“Loving someone isn’t a mistake,” Oliver says. “Pushing them away because you’re afraid of getting hurt is.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
Oliver tucks a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “Remember her.” He pulls her close.
She leans against him, feels the steady rhythm of his heart under her palm, alive and here and now.
“My mom loved to dance. Ever since she took her first ballet lesson when she was four. And she loved to share dance with others. She had her own studio. That’s where she taught me, every day after school. Whenever I dance, I remember her.” He falls silent, waits for her to speak. To remember.
Beatrix lays her head in Oliver’s lap and curls her legs on the sofa. “Anna would have given you such a hard time.” She tips her head to look up at him. “But she would have loved you.” Her heart cracks a little at the thought.
She tells him about returning to London, about bicycles and trousers and picnics in the forest. About movies and dancing, crosswords and tea. About Anna’s beautiful, short life and their beautiful, short friendship.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her,” Oliver says. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was,” Beatrix says. Remembering Anna has made her heart soar and sink, ache with happiness and sadness. She feels full and drained all at once. “She really, really was.”
Oliver leans down and plants a gentle kiss on her forehead. “It gets better. I promise.”
And this time, Beatrix thinks it might be possible. “Anna would have loved to meet Amelia Earhart. She’d be so jealous of you.”
Oliver’s brow furrows.
“What?”
“I didn’t meet Amelia Earhart. When you weren’t at the train station, I waited for the next train. When you weren’t on that one, I stayed at the station in case you came. After twelve hours, I was recalled. It killed me to leave without knowing what had happened to you.”
“You came back?” The realization hits Beatrix like a punch in the gut. Of course he did. How else could he be here with her?
Oliver nods. “I had to wait another week before Lucy could send me here.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“The telegram you sent to the station,” Oliver says. “Your address was listed under sender.”
She forgot she sent it. Two days ago, to let him know what train she would arrive on. Before she found Anna. Before the world stopped.
Beatrix sits up to look at him. “I’m sorry, I should have sent word—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Oliver says.
“You missed your adventure.”
Oliver shrugs. “It wouldn’t have been any fun without you anyway.”
“You wasted your time,” Beatrix protests. “I wasted your time.”
Oliver tips her chin until she is looking into his eyes. Blue-gray and as hard as steel. Her breath catches. “You are never a waste of time.”
“How long do you have left?” she whispers.
Oliver hesitates, as if he is afraid his answer will prove her point. His hand falls away. “About two months.”
Whatever comfort Beatrix took from remembering Anna melts away, replaced by a cold twisting pit in her stomach. She should have seen it sooner. The angles of him are sharper, and there are shadows beneath his eyes that weren’t there last time. “Is that all?”
Oliver twines his fingers through hers. “Forget it. I have the rest of the night with you. That’s all I care about right now.” Because now is all they have, all that is ever promised to anyone.
Everyone, except for her.
She leans forward and kisses him. Tonight—now—she can pretend he will stay, pretend he will live. She kisses him harder and heat blooms through her, warms her for the first time in days. She presses her body into his, aches to lose herself in him, to forget it all.
Oliver pulls back. “We shouldn’t do this, Bea,” he says gently. “Not when you’re hurting.”
Which is precisely why she wants to do this. “It’s fine. I want to.”
He shifts away. “I don’t.”
Beatrix retreats to the other end of the sofa. Her face might feel cooler if it was on fire.
He grimaces. “That’s not what I meant. I want to, I do. But not tonight.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I—it’s just—I’ve never had—”
Beatrix’s eyes widen. “Oliver, are you—”
He flushes scarlet. “No!” He groans and slumps into the corner of the sofa. “I’ve made this the most awkward conversation in the history of talking, haven’t I?”
“You’re at least in the running,” Beatrix agrees.
“I’ve never had it mean anything. That’s what I was going to say.” He catches her eye. “But I’d like it to.”
Beatrix looks to her hands, twists her ring around her finger. “All right.” She can’t look at him. She’s made a complete fool of herself.
“Should I go?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “I want you to stay.”
His smile is easy. Relieved.
She smirks at him. “Shall we do something we’ve never done before?”
“Like?” he asks.
She stands and pulls him from the sofa. “How do you feel about peeling potatoes?”
“Is that some weird English euphemism?” Oliver asks. “Or do you actually want my opinion on peeling potatoes?”
She laughs. “I want to know if you’ll cook dinner with me.” Is it a silly idea? He has traveled the world, seen history as it was being made. Maybe he doesn’t want something so ordinary. “Or we could do something else, if you like. I know cooking in my flat isn’t as exciting as Amelia Earhart.”
Oliver squeezes her hand. “I would love to peel potatoes with you.”
She gasps and reaches for her throat. “How scandalous.”
“Okay, I totally deserved that.” He kisses her on the cheek. “Lead the way to the kitchen.”
“Is that a weird American euphemism?”
Oliver shakes his head, but his mouth tilts into a smile. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Not tonight.”