The Keeper of Happy Endings(74)

THIRTY


RORY

July 12, 1985—Boston

Soline sat with downcast eyes, clearly shaken by the story she’d spent an hour pouring out. Rory studied her, trying to imagine what it must have been like. A terrifying escape. A heartbreaking telegram. A baby she hadn’t planned on. And a monster who had turned her out to fend for herself. How on earth had she survived it all?

How might she have fared in similar circumstances?

The question made her feel vaguely ashamed. She forgot sometimes just how comfortable her life had been. She’d been born with a trust fund and a name guaranteed to open doors and had never known anything close to hardship. In fact, before Hux’s disappearance, her biggest challenge had been navigating her thorny relationship with her mother.

“You make me ashamed,” she said quietly. “Most people would have given up after the things you went through, but you just kept fighting. And then there’s me, showing up at your door with my bag of takeout, whining about how tough I have it. Why can’t I be strong like you?”

Soline closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “Being strong for too long makes one brittle, chérie. And brittle things break easily.” She looked away, dabbing at her eyes, then forced a smile. “There, you see? Not so very strong. Perhaps there’s hope for me yet.”

“I’m sorry to make you remember all that. Are you okay?”

Soline nodded, but her smile slipped as she pushed to her feet. “I’m fine. Just a little warm. Why don’t we go in? I’ll wash up the dishes, and then we’ll have some dessert. I’ll show you how to make real coffee, with a press. I promise you’ll never go back to your drippy machine.”

Rory did the dishes while Soline gave a tutorial on the virtues of a french press, declaring it the only civilized way to make coffee. She filled two cups and arranged madeleines on a plate, then carried the tray to the living room.

They settled on opposite ends of the sofa with their cups. It was a large room but comfortable, furnished with items chosen to please rather than impress. It was Soline to a T. Tasteful but without all the fuss of Camilla’s perfectly styled home. She’d been right about the coffee too. In fact, everything here felt right.

She reached for a madeleine, nibbling thoughtfully as she watched Soline sip her coffee. She couldn’t explain the connection between them. She only knew that it was real, that fate had somehow seen fit to weave their stories together. But why?

“Do you ever think about why we became friends?” Rory asked quietly. “The way I found the row house and then the box. It felt sort of . . .” She paused, searching for the right word. “Inevitable, maybe. Do you believe in that kind of thing? That certain things are supposed to happen?”

Soline was silent a moment, as if weighing the question carefully. “Once, perhaps,” she said at last. “I believed Anson and I were supposed to get married, that he’d come home with my mother’s rosary and I would give him back his shaving kit, and we’d live happily ever after.”

Rory nodded gloomily, then frowned as she recalled something Soline had said earlier. “Wait. You said Anson’s father took the shaving kit, but I remember seeing it in the box.”

Soline shrugged. “He gave it back. I don’t know what made him do it or even when he did it. I was gone within the week. The chauffeur drove me to the train station, and a woman named Dorothy Sheridan met me in Providence.”

“Who was Dorothy Sheridan?”

“She ran the Family Aid Society, which is a pretty way of saying a home for unwed mothers. There were eight more like me there. Some were little more than girls, others claimed to be war widows, but we all had one thing in common—we’d gotten caught without a husband and had nowhere to go. I cried the whole first day. I couldn’t believe Owen could hate me that much. But when I opened my box, there was Anson’s shaving kit at the bottom. It’s hard to imagine him feeling remorse, but perhaps he did it for Anson’s sake. It certainly wasn’t for mine.”

“Did you at least get to say goodbye to Thia?”

Soline shook her head. “He sent her away the next day.”

Rory was quiet for a time, trying to imagine the horror of it. Pregnant and grieving alone. “You have to be the bravest woman I know. To live through all of that and keep on going.”

Soline looked at her hands, alternately clenching and flexing them, something she often did when she appeared lost in thought. “I kept going because there was no alternative.”

“I know, but giving up a baby . . .”

“I didn’t give her up,” Soline said, looking away. “She died.”

Rory went still, absorbing the words like a blow to the solar plexus. “I’m so sorry. I just assumed . . . What happened?”

“One morning I got out of bed, and there was a rush of water. I knew that happened, but it was too soon. I told them they had to stop it, that she wasn’t supposed to come for another month, but they said she was coming anyway and I needed to pray. They brought me to a small room with no windows and a narrow bed with leather straps. There was a tiny crib, too, a hospital bed for babies. Then they gave me something—a needle in my arm and a mask over my face. I don’t remember much after that.”

Rory’s eyes widened. “They put you under to have the baby?”