The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

died when I was fourteen. Because he hadn’t tried to make it better. Because he’d known; he’d understood that nothing could ever do that.

“You should go,” he said.

I looked at him in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

He kept his eyes on the path ahead when he spoke. “Because life is short.”

For the second time that day, I felt the old bruise throb, pressing on my heart, stealing my breath. “Yes,” I said. “It is.” Surprised to find my palms damp, I rubbed them against my thighs. “I miss my family. But there are other things waiting at home that are hard to face.”

“You should go,” he said again.

“You don’t understand. . . .” My words drifted away. I didn’t know how to complete the sentence. Or maybe I wanted Colin to finish it for me.

“Did you have the chance to say good-bye to your mother?”

I swallowed, remembering. “Yes. I would never want anyone I love to go through that. It’s too hard.”

He looked at me sharply. “Are you dying?”

I shook my head. “No.” Not yet. I glanced away toward a grassy area, not seeing anything except flashes of life. Just like we’d been led to believe our last moments on earth would be. Without looking at him, I said, “We’re all dying, aren’t we?”

He was silent for a moment. “Yes, presumably. But today you’re living, and you have a family who loves you, inexplicably perhaps. Nevertheless they wish you to spend Christmas and attend a wedding with them. It’s a week or so out of your life, and then you can return to your work or what have you and resume living each day as if you were dying if that’s what makes you happy.”

“I didn’t say it makes me happy.”

“Then why do you do it?” His voice was quiet, his question not meant to be antagonistic or even answered. Yet it made me angry.

“You know nothing about me.”

“Correct. You make a point of not sharing very much about yourself.”

I shook with anger at his audacity and presumption: that he could calmly interpret what would make me happy. I turned on him, my hands clenched into fists, the need to lash out too strong to hold back. “My grandmother and my mother died of breast cancer. They passed on the gene to me, which pretty much guarantees I’ll get it, too, eventually. When I’m home, all I see is the pity in the eyes of my sisters, who were lucky enough to bypass that genetic lottery. And I remember what my mother’s death did to all of us. I don’t want to witness them going through it again.”

He silently regarded me for a moment, his blue eyes showing no shock or pity. Only understanding. I wondered again about his own past, how he knew the way to react in the face of grief. “I think it’s rather simple, really. Your family loves you, Madison. And you love them. As an ignorant outsider, I can say that it seems you should go home.”

The word conjured up the smells of frying bacon and Aunt Lucinda’s biscuits baking in the oven, loud voices talking over one another interlaced with shouts and laughter. My anger dissipated, leaving behind a glowing river of memories and faces. Of running barefoot through warm summer grass. Of the buoyant feeling of being loved.

My phone buzzed again, and I stared down at the screen. “You make it seem so easy.”

“Perhaps because it is.”

My phone stopped buzzing for a brief period before it started again. Perhaps because it is. Before I could change my mind, I texted my answer and hit “send.” “I’ll call her later, so you don’t have to hear the whole conversation.”

“Are you afraid she’s going to start talking about menstrual cycles again?”

The unexpectedness of his words made me bark with laughter, and I turned to him, surprised. “I don’t remember you ever having a sense of humor.”

Colin gave me a lopsided grin before returning his focus to the path ahead. “And I didn’t think you’d noticed anything about me at all.”

I sobered quickly. “I know that you expect people to say good-bye when they leave.”

“Just some people.”

I turned away, watching George’s bushy tail sway to and fro as we walked in silence, and considered all the reasons I never said good-bye, ignoring the niggling thought knocking at my conscience, telling me maybe I’d been wrong.

CHAPTER 11

LONDON

MARCH 1939

As Eva stepped off the bus on Marylebone Road and hurried along the sidewalk, she smelled spring, a ripe green scent of new grass that reminded her of home. Except here in London, it was mixed with the acrid tinge of wet pavement and burning petrol from the ever-present motorcars and red buses lining the roads and carriageways. She wondered if she’d miss the scent of London when she returned to Yorkshire, and if she’d become homesick for the city. But of course she wouldn’t. Because she would never go home. Not now, when she’d managed to shed Ethel Maltby like an old coat, one she would never wear again.

Eva ran up the stairs and paused outside the door to catch her breath, eager to finish packing up the kitchen area. They were moving to the new flat right after the big fashion show. And she wanted Precious to see the gorgeous yellow frock she’d paid five shillings for from the back room at Lushtak’s. It was from last season’s show and had a huge hole in the front, which Mrs. Williams had cleverly disguised by adding pockets. She and Precious would get a lot of wear out of it, Eva thought, which justified her paying so much for it. Her mother would have been appalled at her spendthrift ways, but she did her best not to think about her mother, except when she sent her money from every paycheck.

She put the key into the lock, then paused, hearing voices—one decidedly male—on the other side of the door. Pushing it open, she