The Last Embrace (20 page)

Loud knocking jarred me awake. I sat up in the tub. How long had I been asleep? The water had grown lukewarm, and I was chilled. The sound came again from down the hall. Hurriedly I dried and put on my dressing gown. “One moment.” Had Charlie come to find me?

But it was Teddy who stood in front of my door, his face tight with concern. “Addie, are you all right?” He averted his eyes from the neck of my gown. “When you didn't turn up for work, I was so worried that something had happened.” Ten past ten, read the clock on the nightstand. More than an hour after I should have been there—and it wasn't like me to be late. “The landlady buzzed me in. I should have called first.” But, panicked, he had not. “Are you ill?”

I brushed a piece of damp hair from my eyes. “No, I'm perfectly fine. I'm so sorry to have worried you. Just give me a minute.” I slipped into my room and closed the door, then dressed quickly in a fresh blouse and skirt before opening it again. “Come in.”

But his forehead remained creased. “I rang to check on you last night after you left, to make sure you were feeling all right and had made it home safely. Mrs. Dashani said you had not come home yet.” So his dark look was not only due to my failing to turn up to work. I held my breath, waiting for him to ask where I had been or demand some sort of an explanation. But Teddy was too much of a gentleman for that. And perhaps, since he had seen Charlie at the party, he already knew.

“I decided to walk back,” I offered lamely. My explanation sounded implausible in light of the curfew and the headache that had caused me to leave the club in the first place. “I found a child lost on the street and I had to get him back to the orphanage.”

“By yourself? That was terribly risky. Did you hear about that awful raid by the river?” he asked.

“Yes.” I had not mentioned getting stuck on the street during the bombing raid, since that would make clear I was still out hours after I'd left him. “The little boy—Leo—he's deaf and his sister is still stuck in France.” Tears sprang to my eyes.

“Now, now.” Teddy patted my shoulder.

“I'm sorry I alarmed you,” I said, wiping my eyes. My apology sounded as though it was about something much larger.

“It's no worries. I'm just glad you're safe.” Teddy dipped his hat in front of him. It was filled with flowers, still damp from where he had picked them. “For you.”

“They're beautiful,” I said, touched by the sweet gesture. If only they were from Charlie. I turned away, swallowed by guilt.

He waved his hand at the hat. “Keep it. You can give it back at the office.”

“All right, then.” I lifted the sweetness to my nose. “The morning briefing,” I remembered suddenly the press conference at the War Office. “I'll finish getting ready and meet you there. Don't wait for me or you'll be late.”

But Teddy remained in place, feet planted. “That Charlie... It's quite a coincidence, your old friend from home turning up.” He tried to sound offhand but his voice was pinched.

“It certainly is.”

“What's he doing here?”

I faltered. “He's based out of Duxford.”

“And he just popped down to London to see you?”

“I suppose.”

We stared at each other uneasily for several seconds. “I should go.”

I watched him walk down the stairs, remembering with more than a bit of sadness our dance the previous night. That one moment with Teddy had been simple and joyous, a glimpse of what a normal life might have been like. I had almost been able to forget about the Connallys. But then Charlie appeared, calling me back—as if he had known I was going and somehow had to stop me.

I put the flowers in water and finished dressing. I opened the door to leave, then yelped with surprise. Charlie stood on the other side, hand aloft, just about to knock.

“You!” I exclaimed.

“You were expecting someone else?” He wore a thick brown bomber jacket that gapped just a bit at the neck and I fought the urge to bury my nose there. Charlie's eyes flickered as they drifted to the flowers on the nightstand.

I studied his face, any remaining anger from the previous night disappearing in the soft pools of his eyes. “I know I said I wouldn't bother you again. It's just that bombing raid started so soon after I walked away. I shouldn't have left you alone.” He was haggard around the eyes and faint stubble covered his chin. I could still smell the liquor from the pub the previous night. He had not showered or slept.

“You can see I'm fine.”

“May I come in?”

I stepped back, mindful of Charlie in the too-close space. His body seemed everywhere at once. He glimpsed around the room uncertainly. “Top floor, narrow stairs...something of a firetrap.” He scowled. His tone proprietary, the concerned big brother once more. I bristled. He did not have the right to worry about me now. But the old habits died hard, and at the same time, I was secretly a bit pleased.

He went on, “And even more dangerous with the bombing raids. What was White thinking?”

My anger rose at his criticizing the flat of which I was so proud. “Teddy had nothing to do with it. I found this place on my own. I love it here,” I persisted. But I suddenly saw the space through his eyes, small and not enough.

“So you were okay last night during the bombing?”

“Yes. You?”

“I had just made it to the underground station, thankfully. It was the worst one since I've been here. I'm glad you're all right,” he added.

“I was—and then the most unusual thing happened.” I told him about Leo and the other children. “The war is bad enough, but surviving it as an orphan would be horrible.”

“They aren't all orphans,” he pointed out.

“Leo is,” I retorted. My mother and father had still been alive when I'd come to America but I remember feeling completely alone, parentless.

Outside, a clock chimed half past ten. “I have to get to work.”

“I'll walk with you.” I opened my mouth to argue, then decided against it.

It was a brisk spring morning as we made our way along the northern edge of Hyde Park, the grass and bushes damp as though it had rained the previous evening. The fences had been torn down, melted for the war effort and patches had been cleared and tilled for victory gardens.

We passed a line of couples outside a church, women dressed a bit too smartly for the weekday morning, men mostly in uniforms. “A lot of people getting married,” Charlie mused. We might have had a wedding, nothing fancy, just a justice of the peace and perhaps a small party in the Connally living room. I watched, feeling the lost promise of what might have been ours if things had turned out differently.

Then he stopped and turned to me. “I'm sorry.” It was the first time I had ever heard Charlie apologize. “I got it all so very wrong last night. I couldn't bear to leave things that way between us.”

“It's all right. We've been through worse.” I tried without success to make this last bit sound light.

His face remained troubled, suggesting something more. “What is it?” He bit his lip.

He looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice, unable to hold back any longer. “Like I started to say last night, I've been doing some reconnaissance missions and that sort of thing, over northern France.” A chill ran through me. He had already been over to the fighting and I hadn't even known. “Being with the boys up at Duxford is cover. This is top secret stuff. None of the Brits—and only a few Americans—even know. We can't risk leaks, especially now. I'm not supposed to talk about it—I already said too much.” But the words spilled out and he was trusting me now, as he once had. “I'll be leaving soon and I probably won't be coming back to London. I had to see you again before I go.” He faltered, unable to say more. But his face betrayed the danger of the mission that lay before him. It all clicked into place: his meetings in Washington, and turning up in London just now.

“Oh, Charlie!” The magnitude of what he was doing finally hit me. Why couldn't he just enlist like everyone else? Because once Charlie had a plan, a way that his whole life was going to be. But that was gone now, blown to shreds.

“I'm sorry I couldn't tell you the whole of it earlier,” he said, as we neared Whitehall.

I understood then that the darkness I'd sensed in him last night had not just been about Robbie but the mission that stood before him. I wanted to tell him that he could save a thousand boys and that still wouldn't bring back his brother. But he needed to do this. I embraced him and drew his head to my shoulder, feeling his breath warm through the fabric against my skin.

In the distance a clock chimed eleven. “I've got to go.” It would not be fair to leave Teddy waiting and worrying again. But I looked desperately over my shoulder, not wanting to abandon Charlie. “There's a charity fete tonight at the Savoy,” I offered. “I know you hate those sorts of things.”

“I do, but I'm willing to suffer through it just this once. For you.” He smiled, causing my stomach to flip just as it had when I was sixteen.

I stopped short of the entrance to the War Office. Though Teddy was surely inside, it felt as though he was peering out one of the many windows, watching me with Charlie. “Until tonight, then.”

The briefing was breaking up as I entered. “I didn't think you were going to make it,” Teddy said, the mildness in his voice forced.

“I couldn't get a taxicab.” I followed him out onto the street, waiting for him to press my explanation.

“You didn't miss much, but there's a story I want to get filed before the fete tonight.”

“Yes, I wanted to speak with you about that.”

He stopped and turned to me expectantly. “Don't tell me you're going to try and get out of going again.”

“No, I'm still going...but I've invited Charlie.”

“Well, there will be plenty of American soldiers there, I should expect. Good to make him feel welcome.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.

We reached the office, and I followed Teddy through reception and up the stairs. When we reached his office, he closed the door behind me. “There's something else. I did some checking with one of the girls over at the American embassy.” Teddy had an endless network of contacts across London among the women who worked in the government agencies and elsewhere, whom he'd either charmed or dated and somehow left on stunningly good terms. “She said there's been loads of activity around the old airstrip at Wellford, lots of supplies headed that way. I wonder if Charlie's being here has anything to do with that.”

“I told you, he's with his unit.” I wished I did not know so much.

He eyed me levelly. “He hasn't been to Duxford in a week.”

“You were checking on him?” How had Teddy managed that so quickly?

“No, of course not.” Teddy looked away. “I just think that Charlie's being here could be about something much bigger.” He stood and began pacing as he did when he was excited, running his hand through his hair. “I'm going to head out to Wellford today and see what I can find out.”

He stopped midsentence, seeing my face. “What is it, Ad?” I hesitated. If Teddy followed up on the story, he could jeopardize Charlie's mission—or Charlie himself, but I couldn't admit that without letting him know he was on to something.

“Maybe we should hold off.” He looked up, staring at me with disbelief. “I just think that with the launch coming, we might compromise something important.”

“And Charlie?” Teddy asked sharply. I braced myself for the confrontation that I had been dreading. “What does he think?” He blinked and conflict registered on his face, the journalist trained to ask the hard questions, but who could not bear to know the truth. “Charlie...he's more than just an old friend, isn't he?”

“No. That is, we dated briefly. But that was all over a long time ago.” I shifted, unable to lie to him. “Yes, we were together.” But it was so much more complicated than that. I told him everything then about Robbie and that fateful night.

“Last night when we were dancing, I thought that maybe things were finally starting to happen between us,” Teddy ventured. He looked at me hopefully, wanting to hear that Charlie's reappearance changed nothing. He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry about his brother. It's tragic. But it's in the past. This is personal, and it's clouding your judgment.”

“I'm not asking you to leave this alone for Charlie, but for the good of operations. You know that, don't you?” He did not reply, tacitly admitting the truth of what I'd said. “Please.” Sensing a crack in his resolve I put my hand over his. “Do this one thing for me.” I watched him wrestle with his instinct to follow the story and how it clashed with his feelings for me. “So you'll hold off?” I exhaled slightly. “Thank you, Teddy.” I kissed him short and full on the lips, in a way that should have been so much more. I tried not to think about how much of it was gratitude, and whether or not I was using him.

“Don't ever ask me again,” he said, and stormed away.

Charlie was waiting for me out front of the Savoy that evening, breathtaking in his crisp dress uniform and freshly combed hair, framed against the eggshell-blue early-evening sky. He watched me somberly as I neared. “You look like you did the day I came home from training.” I smiled. In fact, the dress I wore now was reminiscent of the one I'd worn that Thanksgiving night in color only, the light fabric of this one so unlike the heavy velvet of the first. I'd put that one away for good, the memories it bore too painful to wear again.

We walked into the club and stood awkwardly by the bar as a sea of partygoers swam around us on all sides. The evening dresses were a step up from what they'd been at the Swan the previous evening, lots of last season's Schiaparelli and Chanel. Close beneath the festive atmosphere, though, there was an air of weariness. The festivities must go on—to stop would be to admit defeat. But the war had taken its toll and people with no reason to celebrate in their hearts were simply here because they were supposed to be. There were fewer soldiers than I might have imagined, their numbers thinned, and most of the men were civilians, tuxedo-clad.

Charlie gestured toward the wide ballroom floor and the orchestra which played on the far side. “Would you like to dance?” Our brief relationship had been one of solitude, preciously few stolen moments and quiet nights alone on the bay. It felt strange to be out together in public, a harsh and unfamiliar light shined on us. We had, in fact, never danced.

But as his arm circled my waist and his other hand took mine, we fell into an easy rhythm. We might have been anywhere, just the two of us. “I had the craziest dream last night,” the singer, a colored woman, crooned smoothly. “Yes, I did, I never dreamed it could be. Yet there you were in love with me.” I rested my head on his shoulder.

As the song ended, Claire came up and cut between us. “Darling!” I stepped back reluctantly. She kissed me on both cheeks, European style. She looked impeccably chic in a maroon silk dress with cascading lace that suited her large frame.

“May I introduce Claire Churchill.” I watched Charlie's face as he processed the name.

“You must be Charlie,” Claire said, as he took her hand. I had called around to Claire's flat after work that afternoon to tell her about Charlie's reappearance. “The one who broke Addie's heart.” He dropped her hand abruptly as though it scalded him. “Do it again and I'll kill you.” She laughed, as if to take a bit of the edge, but none of the meaning, off her words.

Charlie's mouth fell open. “Excuse me, I'll go get us drinks,” he said, recovering a moment later before escaping.

“He's a handsome one!” Claire exclaimed when Charlie was barely out of earshot. She was a bit unsteady, I noticed then. It was not like Claire to drink to excess. I scanned the room, looking for Lord Raddingley, but did not see him. “Does this mean you're together now?”

“It's not that simple, Claire.”

“So you're going to just keep running?” I did not answer. “If you want to be with him, then be with him. Poor Teddy,” Claire mused. Her face hardened unexpectedly. “What is it about you, Adelia?” She cocked her head. “You're not so terribly good-looking.” There was a forthrightness to her words that made them blunt, but not unkind. “Yet every man seems ready to fall on his knees for you.”

“It's not like that,” I protested. Though I'd pined for Charlie for what seemed like a lifetime, I hadn't asked Teddy to like me as well.

“Don't you know I'd give anything to have a man feel about me like either of those two do about you?” She had almost everything—money and purpose and connections, but not love.

“I don't see Lord Raddingley,” I offered, changing the subject.

Claire's expression fell. “Alastair has an early morning tomorrow so we said good-night.” Was that just another lie? My anger burned white-hot as I recalled Lord Raddingley and the girl in the bomb shelter the other night. Claire should know the truth about him. But I could not bear to tell her that her married lover was in fact cheating on her as well.

I cleared my throat, changing the subject. “I'm going to go check on that boy I found tomorrow or the next day.” I had told Claire earlier about the Leo and the other children. “See what he and the others need. Maybe I can find them some secondhand clothes. You should come with me when you get back.”

“Me?” Claire tossed her head. “I'm awful with children. I may actually be allergic.” She chuckled at her own joke. Then her face grew serious. “But I'm glad that you've found something useful to do. I just wouldn't want you to become too attached.”

“It's just so sad, all of these children with no place to go.”

“They have to have sponsors to come here,” she replied, with the distance of one who had become callous to the harsh realities brought on by war. “At least some have made it here. The Americans haven't taken any.”

Charlie was returning now, balancing three glasses of champagne. “Enjoy your evening,” Claire said before he could hand her one. She sailed off.

Across the room, I glimpsed Teddy speaking with two women and trying hard not to stare at me. Was he still mad about not running the story? There was no anger on his face, just sadness. I did care for him, but my feelings were dwarfed by what could not be denied between Charlie and me. Having felt the difference, I could not be with Teddy now—but I didn't have to be with another man in front of him. “Do you mind terribly if we go?”

Charlie looked from me to the untouched drinks in his hand and then back again. We'd scarcely arrived. Surprise, then relief, crossed his face. “Of course. I only thought that you would want to, you know, do the ordinary things.” He handed me one of the glasses of champagne, then downed both of the other two. “No sense wasting it.” I took a sip, then set mine down on a table.

We slipped from the club, walking as we had the previous night in the direction of the river. In the distance, a clock chimed nine. A group of young women in snug-fitting dresses rushed past in the opposite direction, giggling excitedly, leaving a cloud of perfume in their wake. As we neared Embankment, the cool night air washed over my face like fresh water. I lifted my chin to study the fog-shrouded sky above the smokestacks of a factory on the far bank. Quiet, at least for now. The fog had cleared to reveal a blanket of stars.

“Claire Churchill, huh? How did you meet her?”

“It's a long story.”

“She quite something.”

“She's swell.” Despite Claire's cutting words a few minutes earlier, I was suddenly defensive of her. First my flat, then my friend: Who was Charlie to come in here and judge my life? “I'm worried about her, though. Last night, when the raid started and I had to go to the shelter, I saw the man Claire is involved with, only he was with someone else. It will hurt her terribly.”

“Then don't tell her.”

“How can I not? She would be living a lie.”

“Maybe she would prefer it that way.” There was a deeper note to his voice. “We can't always help who we love, even if it's the wrong person.” His words seemed a refrain of his mother's so long ago.

Was I that person to Charlie? I didn't ask, fearing the answer. We walked in silence for several minutes in the fragrant spring evening air, our destination unclear. “Do you miss home?” I asked.

“The old home, sure. I miss my family, even after everything. But it's easier sometimes being away, you know?”

I understood: here it was almost possible to imagine that none of it had happened. “Because of Robbie, you mean.”

“Because of everything. I've never moved on or gotten over you,” he confessed, reaching for my hand. I hesitated, just for a fleeting second but long enough for him to notice. What were we doing here anyway? He stepped back. “I'm sorry. Old habits and all that. I know this isn't what you want anymore. I won't try to make it happen again. I understand you keeping your distance. You must blame me terribly.” His words came out staccato.

“Blame you?”

“For what happened with Liam.”

“Not at all. We were just children ourselves. We couldn't have known.” In truth, I blamed both of us, Charlie for not listening to me, myself for not trying harder to make him hear. But it wasn't that simple: the night it all happened, I was the one who stopped Charlie from going after Robbie as he ran from the house to find Liam. No, none of us were innocent, but I wasn't going to tell Charlie that now, as he raced off headstrong on a suicide mission to redeem himself. I reached for him.

But he stepped back, leaving my arm floundering. “You tried to warn me.”

“Yes, but even I had no idea how wrong it would all go.”

“You told me Liam was in trouble. I was so caught up in my own world, college and then the army. If I'd slowed down even a little bit, things might have been different. But I didn't—I never saw him.” Laid bare before me was the depth of the guilt to which he clung. “I could have done more to help him,” he continued. “But I was too wrapped up in my own life to do anything about it. It's my fault.”

“No.” I turned and took his hands. “You couldn't have stopped him.” But the question nagged at me: What might have happened if Charlie had tried to help his brother? My mind reeled back to the night it all happened. “He asked me to go with him that night,” I confessed aloud. I saw Liam standing on the porch of the Connally house. In retrospect, it seemed more like a plea. My guilt rose. Surely it all would have turned out differently if I had agreed.

“Liam?”

“To the bar or wherever he was going. If I had, I could have brought him home.” I saw the night then as a movie with a different ending, coaxing Liam back to the family gathering, all of them together and safe. But I hadn't gone—because I was waiting for Charlie.

“You couldn't have possibly known. Don't blame yourself.”

“Isn't that what you are doing?”

He pulled away. “It's different. I'm his older brother.”

“He's my brother, too. You know that.” Even now.

“I was older, I was supposed to keep him safe. And God help me, part of me didn't want him to come home that night drunk and angry,” he said, his voice hoarse with guilt. “I wanted everything to be perfect and I didn't want him to mess it up.”

“I know.” I had felt exactly the same. “Are we really going to spend tonight fighting over who can take the blame?” I asked, cutting off the refrain before it could begin anew. “It won't change anything.”

“No, but I'm trying to understand. If you aren't angry at me about Liam, then what's keeping us apart?”

“You left,” I blurted, fully realizing the reason myself for the first time. “In Philadelphia, I mean.” There it was, out on the table between us.

“I didn't.”

“The day after the funeral I came to the house and you were gone. All of you.”

“No, Addie. It wasn't like that. Mom was so devastated she couldn't go back to the house. I helped Dad take her away, because he wasn't much better off himself. I got them settled with my aunt down in Florida. But by then my leave was up and I had to report back to the base. I wrote to you and tried to tell you. Letters and letters.” I could tell from his expression that he was telling the truth. “You never got them?”

“Not a one.” It might have been the war and the mail, of course. But had someone intercepted them, hoping to keep us apart? I found it hard to believe my aunt and uncle had intercepted them.

“I assumed you never answered because you were angry. I came back in June on my next leave to make things right. But you were gone, and your aunt and uncle wouldn't say where. I figured you didn't want me to find you.”

So he had come for me—too late. The realization threatened to overwhelm me. All of this time, I had told myself that he had not cared enough. But some part of me had never believed it. And now I knew the truth. “I had no idea.” I scuffed my foot against the pavement.

“Now you do. There hasn't been anyone else,” he added. “In case you were curious. Not for a single second.”

Floodgates of relief opened within me. He held his arm out. I hesitated and then took it, burying my fingers against his side for warmth. Walking this way we might have been any couple, happy and unscarred. “Did you ever wonder what it might have been like if that night had never happened?” I asked.

“All of the time. You and me together somewhere, living a normal life.”

“Or maybe it wouldn't have worked.”

He squeezed my hand tighter. “Nah, it was always going to be the two of us.”

Charlie stopped again, turning to me. “How long are we going to keep trying to do this, Addie, trying to outrun each other? Maybe for once we could run in the same direction.”

“Being together again won't change the past.” It had not just been Charlie, but his whole world I had fallen in love with. Could we still work together now that that world no longer existed? “I don't want to be loved for a memory.”