The Bungalow (32 page)

“Yes,” I said. “I am she.”

He handed me a small envelope. “A telegraph for you,” he said, grinning. “From Paris. If I can just get you to sign right here.”

My heart lightened as I scrawled my signature on his clipboard and ran up the stairs to my bedroom. Safe behind the closed door, I ripped open the envelope. A yellow slip of paper with five typewritten lines nestled inside. I held it up to the light and took a deep breath:

I stared at the paper for a long time, letting the words sink in until the haze of shock lifted. “
No!
” I screamed.
Not Mary. Not you, Mary.
I remembered the sadness in her eyes, the hesitation. She’d endured more heartache than any woman should, but to end things like
that
?
How could she?
Tears trickled down my cheeks as I crumpled the paper and threw it to the floor.

Moments later, my pulse raced faster.
Dear God, when did Stella say she hung herself?
I retrieved the scrap of paper.
September 18. No. No, this can’t be.

I stared at the wall in horror. Mary never made it to her shift the day after we’d visited the hospital. She died before she had a chance to deliver my note to Westry.

“Are you ready?” Gerard stood in the doorway on the morning of our wedding, two weeks later. Spurning tradition, he had insisted upon picking me up and taking me to the church before the ceremony, maybe because he was worried I wouldn’t come any other way.

I looked at him in the doorway, dashing in a tux, with a perfect white rose pinned proudly to his lapel. Mother’s words rang in my ears:
When you marry, make sure he loves you, really loves you.

I thought of Westry and Kitty’s tender moment in the Paris hospital.
How naive I was to assume he’d wait for me, to assume he still loved me. And what does it matter now if he got the note or not?
I looked at Gerard with new appreciation.
He loves me. He will always love me. That will be enough for a lifetime.

“Yes,” I said, gulping back the hurt, the pain, the ghosts of my past and weaving my hand in his. “I’m ready.”

As I stood, my gold locket dangled from my neck, before settling itself once again over my heart.

“S
o you married Grandpa,” Jennifer said, her voice pulling me back to the present. The sun had set, leaving just a line of pink on the horizon outside the window.

I smiled, wiping away a tear with the handkerchief in my hand. “Of course I married Grandpa. And aren’t you glad I did? After all, you wouldn’t have been here any other way.”

Jennifer looked dissatisfied with the answer. “So I owe my existence to your heartache?”

“Nonsense,” I said reassuringly. “I loved your grandfather.”

“But not in the same way you loved Westry.”

I nodded. “There are all sorts of love. I’ve come to realize this in my life.” I thought of Gerard—strong, sure Gerard. I missed the way he’d nuzzle my cheek or greet me with the morning paper and a poached egg on a plate with golden brown toast. He’d devoted his life to me, giving me his whole heart freely, when I let him have only a piece of mine. For in my heart, I’d kept a room locked, where a candle burned for someone else.

“Oh, Grandma,” Jennifer said, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me this story sooner? How lonely to keep it to yourself all these years.”

I patted my locket. “No, dear,” I said. “I have never been alone. You see, when you share love with someone, even for a time, it always remains in your heart.” I unclasped the locket and let the tiny bit of wood from the bungalow’s floor fall into my palm. Jennifer hovered over it, marveling at the sight.

“No,” I said again, “I have never been alone.”

Jennifer frowned. “But what about Kitty? What about Westry? Didn’t you ever try to find them?”

“No,” I said. “The day I married your grandfather, I vowed to let it all go, each of them. I had to. It was only fair to him.”

“But what about the bungalow, the painting? And what about your promise to Tita? Remember what she said about finding justice?”

I felt a deep exhaustion setting in. “And I haven’t forgotten,” I said honestly.

“I’m coming with you,” Jennifer said, nodding with determination.

“Coming with me?”

“To Bora-Bora.”

I smiled. “Oh, honey, you’re very sweet, but I really don’t think—”

“Yes,” she said, ignoring my apprehension. Her eyes looked wild with excitement. “We’ll go together.”

I shook my head. The retelling of the story had opened up old wounds that felt raw again, as painful as the day they were inflicted. “I don’t think I can.”

Jennifer looked deep into my eyes. “Don’t you understand, Grandma? Don’t you see? You have to.”

The airplane rattled and shook as it made its descent over the Tahitian islands. “We’re experiencing a little more turbulence than normal, folks,” a male flight attendant with an Australian accent chirped over the intercom. “Sit tight. The captain will have us safely landed in no time.”

I closed my eyes, recalling the flight into Bora-Bora so many years ago, with Kitty by my side and a cabin full of eager nurses listening, with bated breath, as old Nurse Hildebrand warned us of an island full of danger. I sighed, remembering the way Kitty had softly touched my arm, thanking me for coming and promising me that I’d be glad I did.
Would I take it all back if I could?

The plane jolted violently, and Jennifer turned to me. “Don’t worry, Grandma,” she said lovingly.

I squeezed her hand tighter as I looked around the cabin filled with young couples, presumably honeymooners. A young man in a seat to our right gently smoothed his bride’s hair, kissing her hand as the two looked out the window to the island below. I couldn’t help but feel envious.
How lucky they are to have found the island this way, without the complications of war or time.
I longed to be twenty-one again. To start over again from this point forward, with Westry seated beside me.

“Ready?” Jennifer asked, rousing me from my thoughts. The plane had landed, and I stood up quickly, following my granddaughter to the open door, where passengers were already making their way down the steps.

A flight attendant pinned a purple orchid to my shirt, so deeply colored I wondered if it had been spray-painted. “Welcome to Bora-Bora, ma’am,” she said. “You will love this island.”

“I have always loved this island,” I said, smiling, taking in a breath of the warm, humid air. A bustling airport stood where a single runway had seventy years prior. The emerald hillside was now dotted with homes. Everything had changed, and yet the familiar floral scent lingered in the air, and the turquoise water sparkled in the distance, beckoning me to its shore. I knew it then: My heart was home.

“Take my hand, Grandma,” Jennifer said, reaching out to steady me.

I shook my head, feeling stronger, steadier than I had in years. “I can do this,” I said, making my way down the steps.
Yes
, I said to myself,
I can do this.

A shuttle deposited us at our hotel, the Outrigger Suites, just a mile from the airport. Jennifer pushed the key card into the door, and we set our bags down in the air-conditioned room.

“Look at that view!” Jennifer exclaimed, pointing to the window ahead. A set of French doors framed a stunning picture of sand and surf, which is when something familiar caught my eye.

“My God,” I said, walking closer to the window. “The formation of the sand . . . it’s remarkable.”

“What is it?” Jennifer asked, running to my side. “What do you see?”

“Well, I may be mistaken, but I think this hotel was built on the old base!” I cried. “I know that beach, the way it hooks up at the shore. The reef below the sparkling water.” I shook my head, expecting to see Nurse Hildebrand or Kitty, or—I sighed—Westry walking toward me from the sea. “To be here again, it’s just . . .” I opened the doors and walked outside onto the balcony. Jennifer didn’t follow.

“Take all the time you need, Grandma,” she said quietly. “I’ll be inside.”

I sat down in a wicker chair on the balcony and let my mind, my heart become mesmerized by the familiar waves.

I ventured back inside the room an hour later, and found Jennifer asleep on one of the beds. I took a spare blanket from the hall closet and spread it over her softly before reaching for a pad of paper on the desk nearby. I knew where I had to go.

I reached for my straw hat and made my way outside the hotel, beyond the pool, where women in bikinis lay baking in the hot sun; past the bar by the beach, where couples sipped fruity cocktails; and out to the open shore, which, aside from an occasional home nestled along the edge of the sand, was just as quiet, just as pristine as it had been the day I left.