The Trouble with Angels (Angels Everywhere #2)(77)

She was going to be alone on Christmas Eve.

Catherine checked her compact living room a second time to be sure everything was in its proper place. She hadn’t done much decorating for Christmas. A tiny artificial tree with shiny red bulbs served as a centerpiece on her small table. The Christmas cards she’d received, she’d hung on the wall in a festive display. She tried to look at the apartment through Blythe’s young eyes and hoped it passed muster.

Catherine had phoned Ted’s fiancée that morning to ask her to tea. Blythe had seemed surprised, first to hear from Catherine and then by the invitation. She’d been a tad hesitant but eventually had agreed to come.

Catherine was grateful. Since this was to be her grandson’s wife, it was important that the two of them understand and appreciate each other.

They’d started off on the wrong foot. Catherine blamed herself for that. She’d been extra critical. The woman who’d sat next to Ted when he’d announced their engagement was even more subdued from the one she’d first met. Catherine imagined the pregnancy had something to do with that.

A baby.

So she was to be a great-grandmother. The thought excited her, although she already was a grandmother and great-grandmother many times over. But this unborn child shared part of her love for Earl.

Blythe arrived right on time.

"Welcome,” Catherine greeted the young woman with a wide grin. "Please come in. I’ve already got the tea brewing.”

Blythe stepped into the small apartment and looked around as if she expected someone else would be there as well. It seemed to Catherine that she looked mildly relieved to find it was just the two of them.

They sat next to each other, and Catherine poured the tea and handed Blythe the delicate china cup, her finest. "I imagine you’re curious why I asked you here on such short notice.”

"Frankly, I am,” Blythe admitted.

Catherine noted that the other woman seemed a bit peaked. Apparently Blythe wasn’t having an easy time with the pregnancy. First ones were often difficult. Her own, so many years in the past, certainly had been.

"I have a gift for you.” Catherine reached for the small wrapped package on the corner of the end table. "I’ve cherished this for over fifty years. To be honest, I never intended to part with it, but after giving the matter some thought, I’ve decided I want you to have it.”

Blythe frowned as she tore away the bow and the ribbon. She lifted the lid and stared into the bed of black velvet. "This is the cameo you wore the day we first met.”

"Yes.” Catherine was pleased she remembered it.

"It’s lovely,” Blythe whispered, and raised wide questioning eyes to Catherine.

"It was a gift from my first husband, Earl Standish.” She settled back on the sofa and relaxed, holding the teacup and saucer in her hands. "We met shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and were married several months later. That was many years ago now.”

"You said Earl Standish was your first husband? I didn’t realize…Ted told me you were married for forty years to Frank Goodwin.”

"Forty-three very good years,” she elaborated. "Frank was a dear, sweet man and he loved me, and I loved him. I bore Frank two sons, and we had a wonderful life together, but all those years, Frank knew that I never stopped loving Earl. I couldn’t stop loving him.”

"But why were you married to Frank…” Blythe hesitated, clearly confused.

"Earl died in the war.” Even now, fifty years after having received that horrible telegram from the War Department, Catherine could barely speak the words without her heart twisting with pain.

"I’m sorry.”

Catherine nodded instead of speaking. She needed a few moments to compose herself before explaining. "He was an Airborne Ranger. He parachuted into France on June 6, 1944. You probably don’t know the significance of that day, do you?”

Blythe shook her head.

"It was D-Day, the day the Allied troops invaded France—the turning point of the Second World War. A little less than a year later, and the Axis powers surrendered. The war was over.” Except for Catherine. A war waged within her for years following the news of Earl’s death. It was as if her very heart had been ripped from her that fateful morning in June. As if her own life were over as a single bullet stole her beloved husband from her.

"I thought Ted was related to you through his mother.”

"Emma was Earl’s and my daughter,” Catherine explained. Emma was the reason Catherine had gone on living. The reason she’d gotten out of bed in the morning and struggled through each new day. In the beginning she’d dragged the pain of the last one with her until the load became so heavy, the grief so burdensome, she couldn’t continue. That was when she’d made her peace, such as it was.

"I don’t know to this day if I ever recovered emotionally from losing Earl. I think sometimes we love so deeply, so profoundly, that anything else pales by comparison. It was that way with Earl and me.”

"Do you still think about him, after all this time?” Blythe asked with surprise.

"Fifty years later and not a day passes that some memory of Earl doesn’t come to mind. We were together so short a time. Too short.”

"It must have been so difficult for you alone with Emma.”