Lost Among the Living(103)

His jaw hardened, and the bitter exhaustion I’d seen in him came back into his eyes. No, I thought, feeling a beat of panic. Whatever it is, no, no, no.

“There is another offer,” Alex said.

“Don’t say it,” I said. “Don’t.”

But he picked up the letter, a single sheet of unfolded paper. “Colonel Mabry has written me.”

“And what does he want?”

“Moscow,” Alex said, looking at the black ink of the letter, his gaze going cold and far away. “The terms are very generous.”

“You’ve already explained to him that you can’t speak Russian,” I said.

“Hans Faber, the German businessman, doesn’t need to speak fluent Russian,” Alex replied. “He only needs enough to get by on his business travels, which Mabry says I can easily learn.”

“No,” I said.

“Six weeks only, though of course there will be training beforehand and debriefing afterward.”

“No.”

“It’s been difficult to get true information about Lenin’s government. And there are rumors he has health problems. It’s important that we know the truth.”

“No,” I said again.

“I could do a great deal of good, Mabry says.”

“You’ve already done a great deal of good. And you can do more of it in London.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he put the letter down on the small table next to him, placing his untouched cup of coffee over it so it would not blow away. “You’re right,” he said. “Whatever I do, it won’t be for Mabry, and it won’t be in the field.” He stood and held out his hand. I took it, and when I stood, he dropped my hand and stood back. “Let’s get dressed and go for a walk.”

I followed him inside. When we emerged again a few minutes later, we crossed the terrace without looking at the letter on the table. We descended the steps and started over the rocky beach toward the water.

When I stumbled, he took my hand again, and he did not let me go this time. Behind us, the wind tugged at the letter on the table. And I didn’t think of it again, as we rounded the curve of the shore, with the wind above us, the beach beneath our feet, and nothing else to do but to see where the world might take us.





QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION




1. What do you think draws Frances’s ghost to Jo? In what ways do you feel that Jo and Frances are similar characters? How do you think they are different?

2. Do you believe in ghosts (or do you just enjoy reading about them)? Have you ever felt the presence of a ghost? How did it make you feel?

3. Jo’s feelings for her mother are a mix of love and resentment. Do you think she treated her mother properly, or was there more she could have done?

4. Jo had limited choices in her life when she met Alex. Do you think those limits were true to the time period? How are women’s choices different today?

5. How did you feel about the scenes in which Jo and Alex met and married? Did you find them romantic, or did you think they were making a hasty mistake?

6. Why do you think Alex made the choices he did? Do you think they were right or wrong? If wrong, what do you think he should have done? Are people’s priorities different in a time of war?

7. Did you think Alex acted suspiciously when he came home? Was Jo right to be wary of him? What would you have done in Jo’s place in that situation?

8. Did you have sympathy for the Forsyth family? Why or why not? Did your sympathies change over the course of the novel?

9. Martin Forsyth marries because it is his duty to his family. Was this believable for the times? Would this happen now?

10. Were Jo’s visions of the mist and the leaves real, or did she imagine them?

11. What do you see happening to Jo and Alex after the end of the book? Do you think they will be happy together? Did you find the ending satisfying?





Don’t miss Simone St. James’s new novel of suspense. . . .

Four lonely teenage girls become friends at a boarding school in Vermont in the 1950s. . . . In the present day, a journalist covering the restoration of the school uncovers a crime—and a haunting—that has long been buried and has disturbing echoes of the tragedy in her own life.

THE BROKEN GIRLS

Available in April 2017 from Berkley in trade paperback and as an e-book.





PROLOGUE


BARRONS, VERMONT — NOVEMBER 1950


The sun vanished below the horizon as the girl crested the rise of Old Barrons Road. Night, and she still had three miles to go.

The air here went blue at dusk, purplish and cold, a light that blurred details as if looking through smoke. The girl cast a glance back at the road where it climbed the rise behind her. She squinted, with the breeze tousling her hair and creeping through the thin fabric of her collar, but no one that she could see was following.

Still: Faster, she thought.

She hurried down the slope, her thick schoolgirl’s shoes pelting stones onto the broken road, her long legs moving like a foal’s as she kept her balance. She’d outgrown the gray wool skirt she wore—it hung above her knees now—but there was nothing to be done about it. She carried her uniform skirt in the suitcase that banged against her legs, and she’d be putting it back on soon enough.