The Keeper of Happy Endings(40)

“What happened, Rory?”

“My fiancé,” she whispered finally. “His name is Hux. Well, it’s Matthew, actually, but everyone calls him Hux. Nine months ago, he left for South Sudan, to work with Doctors Without Borders. He wrote to me all the time, two or three times a week, like clockwork. And then all of a sudden, the letters stopped. It took a few weeks—there was some confusion about his next of kin—but they finally confirmed that he and several colleagues had been abducted.”

Soline’s hand went to her throat. “Mon pauvre enfant. Was he . . .”

Rory stared at the wadded napkin in her fist. “I don’t know. No one does. There wasn’t a ransom demand, and there’s been no news for months.” She paused when her voice began to wobble and cleared her throat. “They have no idea where he is or who has him. Or if he’s even alive.”

“How long has it been?”

“Six months. I lie awake every night, imagining a thousand different scenarios, terrible things. And yet, I can’t make myself believe he’s gone. I know it’s crazy, but I feel like I would know if he’d been killed, that I would have sensed it somehow. Does that sound silly?”

“Not to me.”

The empathy in her voice was like balm on a wound. Kindred spirits. Perhaps they were. “I’ve been reading a lot of books,” she blurted. “The kind where the hero always wins and love always triumphs. It’s like an addiction. But they’re not real. In real life, things turn out badly.”

“That’s why you wanted to know my story,” Soline said gently. “You were hoping for a happy ending. A real one this time.”

“Like I said, silly.”

“No. I know what it is to wait, to not know. You grab on to anything to get through another day.”

Rory dragged the elastic from her hair, blowing out a breath as she raked a hand through the heavy waves. “I’m such a mess. Sometimes I think I’d rather . . .”

“Know the worst?” Soline supplied quietly.

Rory clamped a hand over her mouth, ashamed of the thought. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? To even think something like that. It’s just, this limbo is torture. When you got the news, were you—” She stopped, realizing they’d never spoken of it. “How did you get the news?”

Soline sat very still, her eyes suddenly clouded. “There was a telegram saying he’d gone missing. They found his ambulance abandoned . . . and a lot of blood. Someone reported seeing German soldiers marching him into the woods at gunpoint.”

Rory felt herself go pale. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that people talk about closure, about it being easier once you know, and I was wondering . . .”

“No,” Soline said before Rory could get the rest out. “It wasn’t easier. At least not for me. We tell ourselves we want to know. But when the truth finally comes, and it isn’t what we’d hoped for, we’d give anything to go back to that place of waiting, where even a flicker of hope still exists.”

“The other day, you said there comes a time when we have to let go of what’s gone. But how do you know when that time is?”

Soline’s face softened. “I was speaking of myself, chérie. Only of myself.”

“But how did you know?”

Her eyes dipped for a fraction of a second before coming back to Rory’s. “In the beginning, I couldn’t believe it. I was certain there’d been a mistake. And even after . . . For years, I would take out Anson’s shaving kit and open the empty cologne bottle, because I swore I could still smell him, like a cool breeze coming in off the sea. And then one night, I couldn’t smell him anymore. He was just . . . gone. That’s when I put the box away, when I realized there was nothing left to hold on to. But it’s different for you. You have time, Rory.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to have faith.”

Rory cleared her throat, determined to stave off another rush of tears. “What you said before, about the gallery filling the hole in my life . . . It’s true. It was Hux’s idea for me to open the gallery, and I was so excited. Then, when they told me he was missing, I stopped caring about everything—until I saw your building. It felt like fate was sending me a message. But sometimes I wonder if it’s just a way to hold on to him, by doing the thing he wanted me to do.”

“Do you have a picture of him?”

“I keep one on my nightstand.”

“May I see it?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll go get it.”

Moments later, Rory returned with the photograph. It was a shot of them standing arm in arm, beaming like the newly engaged lovers they’d been when it was taken. “He asked me to marry him the day before it was taken. We drove out to the cape to celebrate.”

“You’re beautiful together,” Soline said, studying the photo. “And just look at that smile. You make him happy.”

Rory found herself smiling too. “It’s mutual. I never felt like I fit anywhere until we met. Everyone had all these ideas about who I was supposed to be. The only thing Hux ever wanted me to be was me. He made it okay to want what I want.” She paused to look at the photo when Soline handed it back, pressing her fingertips to the glass. “Now that he’s gone, I’m afraid . . .”