Promise Me This (52 page)

Please divide the final sum, giving half to Aunt Maggie and Uncle Daniel for payment of their mortgage and loans and for the prospering of Allen’s Run Gardens, and retaining half for me. Please subtract from my portion your fees, plus a quarter of the remains to be used as a gift for you and Mrs. Sprague and Connie—some investment or enjoyment that will bring help and happiness. I know this plan would have pleased Owen. It pleases me. You may forward the necessary papers to this address.

If, perchance, Aunt Eleanor found a way to disinherit me after all, please do not fret. I will not, save for the gifts I cannot give.

Do you remember, Connie and Mrs. Sprague, when we fed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square? Oh, that we were girls once more, Connie; that we could turn back the clock and begin again.

But if I have learned anything, it is that time is not to be regained. The tide of our lives moves quickly; if we do not conform to its continuous ebb and flow, we will be washed away as surely as if we were sands upon the driven shore.

Forgive me—I feel old and tired tonight but curiously free.

I am at last forever free of Aunt Eleanor and all the Hargraves’ troubled past, but at such terrible cost. Michael told me of her death. If only he had not come for me, he might . . . And yet, I confide, those weeks with him in Verdun were the most precious of my life. I will not know such joy again.

Know that I love you all dearly. I shall come to you soon, perhaps with Phillippe. I want you to know him, for you and his mother will be our family.

Your devoted Annie

Connie folded Annie’s letter and tucked it into her pocket. She sighed. It all seemed so final.
She is not happy about this marriage. She’s trying to please, to be dutiful again. Perhaps she is wise. Our generation of men is gone—an entire generation lost to the stupidity and brutality of war. Spinsters and widows abound in Britain and France—everywhere. Does it matter if we’re happy? What right have we to happiness now?

Connie sat up. “What insanity am I thinking?” she said aloud. “Marriage to someone you don’t love is a stupid idea, Annie Allen! Your most stupid idea yet—and you’ve had a few, if I might be so bold!”

Connie did not know what she would write her parents. When she had signed on to take extra hospital shifts through the holidays, they had at last consented to go on extended holiday for the Christmas season. She hoped they would stay away at least until spring. Her mother so desperately needed the change, and her father had aged so that she was certain Annie would not easily recognize him. She was not about to interrupt their much-needed and well-deserved rest with news of Annie’s ridiculous marriage scheme. And yet wouldn’t the news of Annie’s safety be a tonic for them? Shouldn’t she forward to her father Annie’s request for the liquidation of her assets? Dared she withhold a letter written to them all?

Connie creased the letter again and again. She determined to think her course of action through carefully. Once she expressed her relief and thanksgiving to Annie for her safety, she would do all in her power to set the young woman straight.

Dr. Narvett packed the last of his books and nailed closed the crate. He’d delayed as long as possible. The hospital board in Paris would not wait past the first of April. Already Glenda had opened their new apartment. She had expected him in Paris for Christmas, and he’d disappointed her. She demanded he come before Easter. Good wife that she was, he must not disappoint her again.

He closed his empty desk drawers, removed his certificates from the wall, and set the remaining half-filled boxes in the hallway for the movers. He would follow them on the morning train.

He had transferred his records to the new chief of staff and spent two days walking him through the wards, detailing special cases—unnecessarily, he knew. But these men were
ses enfants de temps de guerre
—his wartime children—and he hated to leave them before he felt they had reached their full potential.

That night he said his good-byes to staff and patients alike. When he came to Michael’s ward, he sat beside him on his hospital cot. “
Tout est arrangé, Michel.
You will go to England within the month. There is a convalescent center in London where I think you will have good opportunity to continue your progress.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Michael responded, but without enthusiasm.

“Do not be discouraged, my son. The mind is a tricky member. It seems to work best when we tax it least. Let it open itself to you.”

“I remembered a name today.” Michael looked at the doctor and frowned. “Owen.”

“Owen? Who is Owen?” Dr. Narvett probed.

Michael looked at his shoes. “I don’t know.”

“Yet.” Dr. Narvett smiled.

Michael nodded. “Yet.”

Dr. Narvett pressed Michael’s shoulder. “I would have liked to have known you before the war, my son.”

Michael grinned lopsidedly. “I would have liked to have known me too, Doctor.”

“A good sense of humor.” Dr. Narvett laughed, reaching for Michael’s hand. “Keep it always. It will help you through many, many days.” He stood. “So for now—good-bye,
Michel
. Someday, when you remember more, you contact me. This is my address in Paris.” He tucked the paper in Michael’s shirt pocket and stood to go.

Michael began to speak but could not seem to command the words.

“Oui,”
Dr. Narvett returned. “I understand.” He pressed Michael’s shoulder once more, then walked away.

Michael did not like the railway-carriage journey to the channel port. He liked even less the choppy channel crossing and the hospital ship, full of sour-smelling sick and wounded men and pasty-faced nurses. It was as though he had experienced everything before but could not remember when or where.

The convalescent home was early-spring dreary, the late snow outside the windows covered in black soot. Michael hated most of all the smell and dirt of the black coke used to warm the house, but he could not think why.

By the middle of April, Michael wished he might never taste porridge or beef broth again. He longed for the fresh peas of spring that wound up white trellises and mingled with fragrant sweet peas in Dr. Narvett’s hospital garden, and for a salad of lettuce and radishes and tender dandelion greens—the kind Uncle Daniel grew. And then he wondered,
What are dandelion greens and where have I tasted such a thing? And who is Uncle Daniel?

Each day brought new memories, new pieces of a great puzzle.
If only,
he thought,
I could lay the borders—the pieces might make sense!

In late April, Michael began to help the groundskeeper dig and rake the garden. The fresh air and exercise became a balm; Michael could barely wait for the morning light to begin a new day. While digging, Michael found that he remembered all the words to his Christmas carols, stanza by stanza. He sang at the top of his lungs, no matter that the groundskeeper thought him a fool.

When Michael stooped and turned his spade, he found two worms struggling in the rain-wet earth. He cocked his head as if to listen and suddenly remembered two men struggling for coins and pints in a squalid flat.

As he removed his boots that night, memories of hobnails, his uncle Tom’s sharp boot thrust flush against his ribs, and the crack of a leather belt singeing his back flashed before him. No one touched him, but Michael experienced the excruciating pain just the same.

That night began a series of dreams: a railway-carriage ride over miles and miles of countryside he’d never seen; a small girl’s hand tucked into his own, her eyes blue like his own; peppermint sticks, a pair, separated by the hands of a trickster in a tall black hat; flashes of gold coins dropped into the palm of a beefy hand; and his Megan Marie, her eyes puffed from crying, her coal-colored ringlets damp and mangled, and her bow-shaped lips screaming, over and over, “Michael! Michael!”

New images swept through his brain, faster and faster: a giant ship listing, its whistles blasting long and loud, then exploding into a million stars in the night; cold such as he’d never known and ragged cries torn from his own throat of “Owen, Owen, Owen!”; a newly mounded grave beside a smiling, nearly silver-haired woman named Maggie; a girl—just the back of her long and lovely golden hair—always running, running, running away.

Michael flailed his arms, jerking free of the tangled, sweat-wet sheets wound tight about his neck. His heart drummed loud and erratic against the walls of his chest, pulsed in his eyes and in the space of his brain; he could not draw his breath, and he could not swallow the huge and aching gourd in his throat.

The evening orderly rushed in. The groundskeeper was roused to help, and even the matron herself tried to sedate him. But Michael pushed them all away. He could not separate the voices in his head from the din of yammering outside him. Even so, the pieces of the great puzzle, in all their stark colors, slid slowly, locking into place.

Sweet Jesus, how could I have forgotten her? Where? Where are you, Annie? Help me find her, Sweet Jesus. Help me find her!

“Influenza—there is no doubt. He must be moved to London General. If we leave him here, every man will be infected by morning. Even now it may be too late.”

Michael heard but could not differentiate the voices above his pounding, aching head—a sledgehammer’s thrust upon thrust, just behind his eyes. He saw the swarm of masked medical personnel moving in and out of the room as if they all dragged through warm treacle toffee. He wanted to shout at them to leave him alone, to let him go, tell them that he desperately needed to find Annie, and why didn’t they understand?

But his body ached as though he’d been run over by the exploding lorries at Verdun, even as he alternately shivered and sweat, and his nose kept pouring something bright—something red. He coughed and coughed; his mouth spewed vomit. It would not form the words he needed. Even his brain, though it knew what he meant, what he wanted, betrayed him.

He knew he was being lifted and moved, and he had no power to stop it.
How will Annie find me?

The dreams rushed, flashes of memory and nightmare fought and twisted, on and on, without end. After two days of thrashing, he fell into semidarkness against his pillow, certain only that he would drown in the putrid vomit of his own hell.