Catching the Wind(90)

Bridget traveled to London twice a year and took Jocelyn out for afternoon tea at the elegant Palm Court. She was a lively girl, just like her grandmother and mother. And she loved beauty and joy. When Jocelyn was eleven, Bridget asked Hannah if she could spend the summer with her, and for those months, they’d hiked over the dales, sung songs, and pretended to fly. She was what Bridget might have been if she’d stayed a princess for a few more years.

Childhood is fleeting, and she’d wanted Jocelyn to dream like she and Dietmar had once done.

As she and Jocelyn played, Bridget wondered again what happened to the boy who’d helped her in spite of her fears. The boy who’d saved her life.

Though Dietmar, like her, had probably changed his name, she still searched the phone books whenever she was in London, but she had never found a listing for Dietmar Roth. She’d stopped letting herself think that he’d died during the war. Instead she imagined him with a houseful of his own children, spread out on the floor with dozens of the wooden toys he’d liked to carve, charging the grand castle he’d built for generations of Roths.

Autumn of 1979, Hannah was offered a part in The Music Man on Broadway. New York City. Bridget had said good-bye to the two people most dear to her, not knowing what the future held. Then she counted down the days until they returned home.

But those weeks turned into years. Each time Hannah thought she could bring Jocelyn home, another commitment delayed them. Hannah invited Bridget to New York, but her old fears flared, chaining her to England. She’d even stood one morning at the door to a Jetway, pilots and passengers alike encouraging her to walk down the corridor, but between the narrow walls, all she saw was the dark hold of a fishing trawler, the walls caving and crawling over her, waves hurling her and Dietmar back and forth.

She couldn’t move. Nor could she breathe. An attendant wheeled her back to the ticket counter, and the plane left for New York without her.

Her body betrayed her when she so wanted to be strong. If she’d known what the future held, she would have forced herself to fly across the pond.

Seventeen years passed before Hannah’s stilettos stepped back onto British soil.

Jocelyn never returned.

Fame for Hannah had been like the apple for Snow White: one bite and she was hooked again. After New York, she answered the call of a Hollywood producer. Her career on the silver screen flourished at first, four films that gave the illusion of success. But somewhere in her rise to stardom, she misplaced her daughter.

All it took was one bad film to kill Hannah’s film career. Hollywood rejected her, and while she was still recovering from the loss, she received a call from a hospital in Orlando. Jocelyn had died from a drug overdose.

Bridget’s heart broke at the news. She could have been there, should have been there, to rescue Jocelyn before she ran away. Then to protect her from the anonymous man who’d given the ambulance driver Hannah’s name.

For years she’d hated herself for not intervening, and Hannah hated herself for abandoning her child, like Rosalind had done to her.

But God can redeem even the bleakest of situations. After she returned, Hannah never left England again. The two women—sisters—partnered together in their regrets and redemption.

God could still love, they discovered, even when they’d failed.





CHAPTER 55





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Lucas carried two new suitcases into his parents’ stately home in Brentford, the brick walls of the old house a pale pink. They’d spent the day driving through the dales of Yorkshire, asking about Adler House.

When they didn’t find it, Lucas suggested they fly back to London and stay at his parents’ house for the night—the police in Newhaven hadn’t located the gray lorry, and he didn’t want Quenby to spend the night in her flat.

Until police found the lorry driver, she didn’t want to spend the night alone either.

Mrs. Hough greeted them warmly, and Quenby thought the woman looked quite regal with her tailored blue suit and white scarf tied neatly around her neck.

“Welcome,” Mrs. Hough said, shaking her hand.

“Thank you for having me.”

“I’m pleased you came. Please roam wherever you’d like.”

Lucas held up their bags. “Right now, we’ll roam upstairs.”

Quenby climbed the winding staircase behind him, and he placed her bag beside a bed in one of the guest rooms. The bedcovering and wallpaper were striped with a tangerine color, and two oil paintings hung at the end of her bed—an austere-looking man with a white wig and a pretty woman wearing an elegant mauve-and-gray gown with a lace bonnet and satin bow.

Lucas pointed toward the portraits. “My great-great-great-grandparents . . . or something like that. They lived here more than a century ago.”

What would it be like to have a family heritage that stretched back for centuries? A story that was beyond yourself?

He reached for her hand, holding it as he’d done the entire flight and the car ride here. He blamed himself for the accident, though she’d told him repeatedly he’d done nothing wrong.

Outside the dual windows, twilight made the pool behind the manor glow pink and orange. “It’s lovely,” she said.

“Indeed.”

But when she turned, Lucas wasn’t looking outside. His eyes were on her. Nervous, she released his hand and reached for her handbag before scooting toward the door.