The Memory Keeper: A Heartwarming, Feel-Good Romance(45)

With even more questions as to how her dainty, artistic, wild soul of a grandmother got out of working in a factory, Hannah read on.

May 12, 1943



Mama let me use some of the money we’d saved from working to visit my beautician, and I feel like a princess with my hair styled. The back is down and rolled beautifully and the sides are pinned up. Every strand is perfectly placed. I know I only have the one day off and I’ll have to tie it back tomorrow at work, but today I put on a dress and took a walk through Louisville. I probably shouldn’t have, but I went to Beaty’s Drugstore and bought that Green River drink at the soda fountain. It was so fizzy that I got the hiccups. I met a very nice man there, too. He was reading a book on history when he caught me trying to see the cover. He introduced himself as Warren Townshend…





Hannah perked up. There he was—Pop-pop. Her heart filled with joy at the opportunity to read this moment as it had happened. She remembered her mother’s photos of boxing what seemed like hundreds of history books when Pop-pop had passed. He’d loved to read Hannah bedtime stories about George Washington and Davy Crockett when she was young. Hannah ran her hand over Gran’s words and kept reading, now dying to hear the whole story of how Gran and Pop-pop met.

He said he’s twenty-one. He attends the University of Louisville. I told him about Charles and asked Warren why he wasn’t in the war right now. He explained that he’d registered on his birthday, but he hadn’t gotten drafted so far. Despite the possibility of getting called to fight in the war, he attended the university to study business. He asked if I’d be coming to the soda fountain again, and I told him I might.





Hannah placed the journal on her chest and closed her eyes, conjuring up a memory of her grandfather. When she was about six, Pop-pop had twirled her around and said, “You are an angel!” He took her hands, his giant fingers swallowing hers. “You know, I’ve only seen one other angel before you.”

She’d been astounded that he’d actually seen a real angel. “You’ve seen one?” she asked innocently.

“Yes.” Pop-pop gave her another spin. “I found her at a soda fountain.”

“There are fountains made of soda?” Hannah had asked, making him laugh. “Did you ever see the angel after that?”

Pop-pop sent a fond glance over to Gran. “I see her every day.”

He and Gran had found something amazing together, and Hannah could only wish she’d be that lucky one day.



Hannah was mindlessly clicking through TV channels in the living room when she got an alert that she had a video call from Liam. A video call? That was odd. She opened it and Liam’s face slid onto her screen.

“Hi,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but it’s just us boys here this afternoon and Noah asked if he could call.”

“Noah wants to talk to me?” she asked.

Noah’s face appeared on the screen, pushing Liam out of view. “Yeah,” he said. “Can you tell me about the tire swing?”

“Oh, sure,” she said, turning off the TV and folding her legs underneath her, getting comfortable. “It’s on Mr. Abernathy’s farm,” she said. “Your daddy knows him—Emmitt Abernathy.”

“Daddy?” Noah said. “Hannah wants to know if you know Nathy.”

The picture wriggled and suddenly Liam’s face was on the screen.

“Hi,” he said with a grin.

“Hey,” she returned. “How about instead of telling Noah about the swing, we show him? I’ll call Emmitt and if he says it’s okay, we could visit him tomorrow.”

“That would be fun,” Liam said. “We could go around ten o’clock.”

“That works,” she replied.

Noah cheered happily in the background.

“Excellent. Well, Noah, we should let this lady get on with her day.”

“Okay. Bye, Noah!” she called.

A tiny voice from beside Liam filtered in. “Bye, Hannah.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she said.

“Okay!” Noah replied with a giggle.

Hannah ended the call and considered how lucky Liam was to have little Noah. He was such a light. Perhaps a day out with the two of them would lift her spirits.





Sixteen





After she’d gotten off the call with Liam and Noah, Hannah emailed Amanda to tell her not to worry about the missing photos for the rest of the day, that she’d see if she could find a backup file somewhere. It was more a way to give Amanda and the team a reprieve, and to save them from alerting the executives that Hannah wasn’t there at the most crucial time in production. But Hannah knew she didn’t have the files, and trying to convey the mood, message, and concept of the feature into imagery using old, unused stock photography would be nearly impossible.

She’d been so strung out over everything that she’d fallen asleep. When she awoke, her mother was in the kitchen, having an evening nibble of one of her chocolate chip cookies. Hannah came in and snagged one.

“You doing okay?” her mother asked, as she arranged a few of the cookies on a platter and set it in the center of the island.