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

tell me what a particular tree had witnessed in history, depending on its girth.” He fell silent, pondering his next words. “Nana said she wished they were time capsules, that she could peel back the layers of bark to relive parts of her life. I never asked her which parts. Perhaps I should have.”

Our eyes met. “Perhaps. Although I think you’re running out of time. Arabella says her doctors feel as if she doesn’t have much longer, yet except for the pallor of her skin, she seems perfectly fit to me.”

He sucked in his breath, then let it out slowly. “That’s why it’s so hard to believe. She has congestive heart failure, and it’s getting worse. She doesn’t want to be resuscitated if anything happens, so yes, we’re running out of time to reunite her with Eva or at least let her know what happened to her friend. And regardless, my father would like to learn his uncle’s fate. But even he seems reluctant, as if the reason why Graham was never mentioned is because his parents were keeping something dark and sinister from him.” He paused, his eyes staring steadily into mine. “What is it about all of our pasts that we’re so unwilling to confront?”

I looked up into the purpling sky, like a bruise on the day to show it had been lived and survived. It might have been the fading light, or maybe the brandy made a confession seem less rash. “It’s odd, but when I think of my past, I see it as a younger version of myself. The me I can’t quite forgive for making so many mistakes.”

I felt him waiting and turned to meet his gaze. He said, “But, Madison, all of your mistakes have made you who you are. And from what I can see, you’re rather wonderful. Except for your inexplicable aversion to going home to a place you apparently love and a family who adores you.”

“You think I’m wonderful?” I hadn’t meant to say that, but his words had taken me by surprise.

“You have your moments.”

I looked away. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, and confused by the rush of blood to my face, I breathed in deeply, the air redolent of spring and growing things and the soft fug of barnyard animals. “I do love the smell of a farm,” I said, eager to change the subject. “Pretty much in the same way I love the scent of the south Georgia swamps. I guess it’s like loving the sound of bagpipes—you’re either born with it or you’re not.”

“So you like the sound of bagpipes, do you?” Colin smiled reluctantly.

“I do. I can’t tell you where I’ve heard them, but I have often enough to know. There’s just something—I don’t know—majestic about them. Haunting, almost. And you?”

“I’ve lived in Great Britain my entire life, so I’ve heard my share of bagpipes. And yes, I do enjoy them. I don’t believe one is allowed to be British and not at least give a show of liking them.”

The distant sound of a cow lowing rolled over the hills, making me nostalgic for something I wasn’t aware I was missing. “How could you ever leave such a place?”

When he didn’t answer, I looked up to find him watching me closely. “Because I know it’s always here. It’s where my childhood memories live, good and bad all mixed together.” A shadow passed behind his eyes, the kind I saw behind my own. He looked away, as if aware he’d given away something he hadn’t been ready to share. Turning to me again, he added, “But that’s what makes it home.”

I stared at him in the gathering dusk, feeling the tiny night insects brush against my cheeks. “Home is a place that lives in one’s heart, waiting with open arms to be rediscovered.”

He tilted his head slightly. “What incredibly intelligent person said that?”

I smiled. “My aunt Cassie. She’s right about most things.”

“She’s certainly right about that.”

I thought about what he’d just said, about home being a mixture of good and bad, and remembered the photograph of the boy who wasn’t Colin. “The photograph on your desk—the one of your parents with a little boy who looks like you. But it’s not you.” I let the unasked question float in the night air, unseen, its weight heavy between us.

Colin regarded me in silence for a long moment before turning away. Looking up, he pointed to the first stars appearing in the ceiling of sky above us. “In the winter, Gemini and Orion are visible. I’ve spent many a frigid evening with my telescope on this very spot.”

I followed his gaze to the pinpricks of light above us, the brandy and the wide-open sky making me dizzy. “When I was little, I was afraid of the dark, so my mama told me that the stars were little cracks in God’s curtains he’d use to keep an eye on us at night. After that, I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

“She sounds like a very smart woman, too.”

“I come from a long line of intelligent women. If I didn’t look exactly like my aunt Cassie, I would think I was adopted.”

“You’re right, you know.”

I looked at him in surprise. “About what—being adopted?”

He smiled, his teeth bright in the gathering darkness. “About going barefoot. I rather like it.”

I gazed out over the fields. The vanishing sun had begun to tuck the hills into shadow blankets for the night, the light loosening its hold on the day and shifting from gold to purple. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, not wanting to disturb the silence.

“It’s not the first sunset we’ve watched together,” Colin said close to my ear, and I realized he’d moved to stand next to me.

“It’s not?” I turned my face, his own near enough to touch.

“At university. Arabella arranged for a group of us to view the sunset from Headington Hill Hall, and you and I were the only two who showed up.”

“I’m not sure I remember,” I said, although that wasn’t completely true. I