The Keeper of Happy Endings(70)

“Nothing here is yours,” he hisses. “Nothing here will ever be yours. At least I can be sure of that now.”

A blade of cold slices down my spine. Something about the way he says the last words, with an icy sense of satisfaction, thickens my blood. I watch as he reaches into the pocket of his trousers and pulls out a folded scrap of paper. When he tries to hand it to me, I shake my head, refusing to take it. He shoves it at me again. This time I take it, but I squeeze my eyes shut, unwilling to read the words I already know are there, unwilling to make them real.

Every mother, sister, wife, and lover has imagined what this moment might be like, rehearsing it in her mind while trying to pray it far away. And now it has come to me. I force my eyes open and feel my throat constrict when I see the words at the top of the page: Western Union.





25 October 1943


Mr. O. Purcell:

It is with deepest regret that I must relay the news that your son, Anson William Purcell, has been reported missing dated 19 October after failing to return from a transport mission. If further details become available, you will be promptly notified.

Charles M. Petrie

C.O. American Field Services

My lungs suddenly stop working, as if I’ve received a punch I didn’t see coming. Not dead—missing. I stare at the word. It should bring me comfort, some frail thread of hope, but I’ve heard the stories. I know how rare it is for a missing man to turn up alive. Suddenly, something Anson said the night before he sent me away floats back . . . If you’re safe, it won’t matter what they do to me.

I tell myself I would know if he were dead, that I would have felt the loss instantly, like a part of myself being torn away. I haven’t. But as I recall the words Maman spoke the night she died, I realize this was what she was trying to prepare me for. This day. This moment.

As long as you keep his beautiful face in your heart, he will never truly be lost.

But he is lost. I’m holding a paper that tells me he is.

I force my eyes back to the telegram, as if the words might somehow have changed. They have not. The final line blurs on the page as I read it. If further details become available . . .

Details.

I try not to think of him, lying somewhere, broken, bleeding. Or worse. But it’s all I can think of. How many women have read those same words? And how many ever got their soldiers back—or even learned their actual fate? As a member of the AFS, Anson isn’t actually a soldier. His Resistance missions aren’t carried out in coordination with the military. They’re secret and often spur-of-the-moment, meaning only a handful of people would even know where to look for him. Revealing such information could expose the entire cell, and the first rule of the Resistance is that the safety of one person must never be allowed to jeopardize the cell.

No one would talk.

I let the telegram fall to the bed, then frown as I notice the date: 25 October. I pick it up again, to be sure, then look at Anson’s father through a scrim of tears. “This is four days old.”

He stares back, mute.

“You’ve known for days, and you said nothing?”

“It was sent to me.”

I’m stunned by his reply. “When were you going to show it to me?”

“I’m showing it to you now.”

Once again, there is no apology in his tone, nothing that speaks of regret or empathy. Only an icy flatness I cannot comprehend.

Thia.

My chest tightens as her name pops into my head. Anson is her hero, the lone bright spot in this cold and unfeeling house. She’ll need comforting, and I can’t imagine her getting it from her father. I need to go to her, to help her be strong.

“Does Cynthia know?”

His eyes harden on me, a warning. “No, she does not. And she won’t until I’m ready for her to know. Is that understood?”

I nod, because I haven’t any say in the matter, though I’m not convinced it’s right to keep the truth from her, or that she’ll thank her father for his silence when she does find out. But maybe she’ll never have to find out. There’s still a chance Anson will be found safe and well, and she’ll never have to know about the telegram. I grab hold of the thought like a lifeline.

“There must be someone we can call, someone at the Red Cross who might know something.”

Owen regards me without emotion, but every muscle in his body seems clenched, as if he’s willing himself to stay together. “I’m a well-connected man, Miss Roussel. I have an extensive network of well-placed contacts within the various branches of government, and I can assure you I have made every call there is to make.”

“Did you call the hospital in Paris and speak to Dr. Jack? He’s the chief surgeon.”

“A surgeon?” He seems astonished by the question. “Young lady, my connections go all the way to the White House. Not that they did me any good. No one could tell me anything, except to say that my son failed to report back to the hospital at the expected hour and that his ambulance was found abandoned on some road where it had no business being. No one knows why. He isn’t listed as captured or killed, which is something, I suppose, though I’ve been cautioned not to read too much into that. There was a substantial amount of blood in and around the vehicle, and two witnesses claim to have seen a pair of German soldiers leading a man fitting my son’s description into the woods. They reported hearing gunshots a few minutes later. There’s been no sign of him since.”