Chapter Forty-one #3
“I wouldn’t have agreed to this chat if I didn’t think you have the ability to secure one of those spots.
You’re not the only one who has been interviewing today.
I have been listening to everything you say as intently as you’ve been listening to me.
I have chosen you to write down my history.
You are the one who will give me what I’ve wanted all my life now that I am at the end of it. ”
For a moment or two I can only stare at her in confusion. I can’t resurrect her long-dead bridal gown career or her deceased sister. And I can’t give her anything in a newspaper article except perhaps the return of her real name.
But that is not what she’s wanted all her life.
She inclines her head toward me, coaxing me to remember all that she has told me from the history of her life in the short time I have spent with her. What did she always want? What did she want before she found Julia?
Before she lost Julia?
Before she sketched the first wedding gown?
Before she stood on a sunny beach with her toes in the sand and her mum at her side?
“You wanted your mother to be proud of you,” I whisper.
Isabel nods once as tears rim her eyes.
“You can give Mum the honor of having flesh and blood and a name again. I want people to know the sacrifices she made for me and Julia. Anne Louise Downtree is a forgotten soul, Kendra. She is nothing but a three-word entry in the record of the war’s dead, remembered by no one except me, her daughter, Emmeline.
I don’t know that she can see me from where she is, but if she can, I want her to view me as I stand at the end of my existence.
I want her to see that I understand there are no secrets to a charmed life.
There is just the simple truth that you must forgive yourself for only being able to make your own choices, and no one else’s. ”
Astounded at what she is suggesting I am able to do for her, I hesitate a moment before responding. “If I’m going to write this paper the way you’d like, I need to know why you’ve waited until now. You’ve had more than fifty years to come clean about who you are.”
“I’m not the historian you are. All these years I’ve failed to see what you historians already know. I’m an old woman and I have a grand opportunity with you, so I’d best take advantage of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘what historians already know’?”
“Surely you’ve not forgotten what you said about history when you first walked into this room, Kendra?” She is half grinning at me, half frowning.
I think back to when I had arrived a few hours ago and Isabel and I were talking about the value of recording the past. I had asked her what was the good in remembering an event if you didn’t remember how it made you feel. How it impacted others. How it made them feel. You would learn nothing.
“You want to pass on what you have learned, don’t you?” I say.
“Well, aside from the fact that it seems a good thing to do, I think Mum would want me to. I think she would be proud of me if I did.”
I let her answer settle over me for a moment. “This is just one article in one newspaper. I’m afraid you will be disappointed.”
“A great many movements have begun from one article in one newspaper. I am only responsible for my own choices. I am choosing to tell my story, Kendra. Who listens to it is not my burden. Telling it is.”
We hear a knock at the door and then Beryl pokes her head inside. “Everyone’s here. It’s time for the party, Auntie.”
“We’ll be right out, Beryl.” Isabel turns to me. “You will stay, won’t you? There are people you need to meet.”
“I would like that very much.”
She rises a bit unsteadily and I move quickly to help her. Isabel thanks me when she is firm on her feet, and then draws a manicured hand gently across her brow to brush away a stray strand of hair. “How do I look for a ninety-three-year-old?”
“I’d say you don’t look a day over ninety.”
Isabel tips her head back and laughs. “Julia would have liked you, Kendra. Oh my. Yes, she would have.”
“I would’ve liked her, too.”
Her laugh ebbs away but her grin remains. “I’ve been a coward most of my life, you know.”
At first I say nothing. Sages of the past would say we are—all of us—just imperfect people on a flawed planet who are trying to hold on to what is good and lovely and right.
“On the contrary,” I finally reply, “I think history will prove that Emmeline Downtree was actually very brave, considering all that she had to endure.”
Isabel regards me thoughtfully, then crinkles an eyebrow in contemplation before reaching for my arm. “Shall we?”
We make our way down the hall, into the kitchen, and through the laundry room, where the garden door is ajar and sounds of celebration are skipping on the breeze.
On the threshold, the eyes of those who have been waiting for the guest of honor turn expectantly toward us.
Among the many faces, I see Professor Briswell, standing a few feet away from a woman who looks very much like a younger version of Isabel, as well as more than a dozen happy children who’ve not a clue what war is like.
As we pass the open door’s window, a bit of lace curtain lifts on a ribbon of air, caresses the back of Isabel’s neck, and then falls away like a discarded bridal veil.
We step out onto the terrace and the people, young and old, begin to sing.