“It’s your story, Audrey—or I should say Eve? It’s not mine to tell.” He stood and offered Eve a hand to help her up. “Let’s get both of you home,” he said. He lifted the lamb and put it over his shoulders, the way the Good Shepherd in Granny Maud’s picture did. The message was as vivid to Eve as if God had spoken it aloud. He had forgiven her. And now she needed to ask Audrey for forgiveness.
“How did you get here?” Tom asked. “Where’s your car? And your shoes?”
“I parked on the road, back through the woods . . . somewhere . . .” She glanced around, not sure which direction she had come. She hadn’t followed a path.
“It might be easier to walk back the way I came, and I’ll drive you to your car. Can you manage in bare feet? Or should I carry you instead of Cloudy?”
Eve laughed. “I can manage.”
They took their time, with Eve watching where she put her feet. She was limping, her feet scratched and sore, by the time they reached the farmyard.
“Give me a minute to lock Cloudy in the barn,” Tom said. “She’ll think I’m punishing her but it’s for her own good, to keep her safe.”
The lamb protested, bleating loudly. Might the Good Shepherd also be acting for Eve’s own good?
“Climb into my truck,” Tom said when he returned. “I’ll duck in the house and get the keys.” He was carrying a small basket of strawberries when he came out. “My mother picked these this morning. She wants you and Robbie to have them.” Eve gripped the basket in both hands, tears blurring the road as they drove. They found her car a short distance away.
“I know you have a lot to think about,” Tom said before she got out. “But I just want to say . . . I’m glad you’re not Audrey Barrett, lady aristocrat and the Barretts’ daughter-in-law. It means I might stand a chance with you.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek. Tom’s words rested gently on Eve’s bruised heart as she drove home.
She arrived to find Audrey chasing their sons around the front yard, her hands and the front of her dress black with filth. “Audrey? What’s going on?”
“Mummy changed the flat tire on a great big car!” Bobby announced.
“Mrs. West’s car,” Robbie added.
“She did what?”
Audrey laughed, panting to catch her breath. “You should see your face! You look so shocked.”
“I am shocked.”
Tears filled Audrey’s eyes. “We need to talk, Eve.”
“Yes, Audrey. We do.”
30
“Have you been changing tires, too?” Audrey asked. “You looked beautifully groomed when you left here this morning, and now . . .” Eve was disheveled, barefoot. She carried her nylons, red shoes, and crinoline in one hand, the string of pearls and a basket of strawberries in the other. Her pretty red-and-white polka-dot dress was rumpled and stained, her eyes red as if she’d been weeping.
“I guess I chose the wrong clothes for a walk in the woods,” she said with a half smile.
“So I see. Good thing your friends Phyllis and Doris didn’t see you this way. They paid a visit to talk you into joining their tennis league.”
“Oh no,” Eve groaned.
“When they were ready to leave, their front tire was flat—so I changed it. They were appalled. From the looks on their faces, I might have stripped naked and danced in the street.”
“You really changed a flat tire for them?”
“I did. And I’m quite proud of myself, too.”
Eve released a long sigh. “Listen, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Audrey—”
“So have I,” she interrupted. “And before you say anything else, you need to know that I want you to keep my name.”
“What?”
“No one ever needs to know the truth. You can be Audrey Barrett and live in this house and keep your country-club membership and all the rest. I don’t want any of it.” Saying the words out loud brought Audrey enormous relief. And enormous fear. The summer sun felt hot in the shadeless yard.
“Are you serious?”
“Very serious.”
“Why would you do that?”
“For selfish reasons, really. Robert didn’t want this life and neither do I. The weight of people’s expectations is too heavy here. The war freed me from that burden and I don’t ever want to carry it again.”
“That’s very generous of you, Audrey, but as it happens, I don’t want to be you anymore. I’m going to tell everyone the truth.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong to keep living a lie. I want to be myself and make my own decisions and run barefoot through the woods whenever I feel like it, and maybe . . . just maybe, fall in love again.”
“Then let’s both be ourselves,” Audrey said. “The women we became during the war. We were brave and unselfish and determined—and we were best friends. I don’t know what happened to those women, but we need to find them again.”
“You’re right. Listen, this is too big to talk about out here,” Eve said, linking arms with Audrey. “Let’s change our clothes and wash up. There’s someplace I need to take you before you make any more decisions.”
Audrey’s heart plummeted when Eve drove the car through the gates of a cemetery a short time later. Insects buzzed and droned in the summer heat. Sweat pasted Audrey’s skin to the car’s upholstery. She didn’t want to move.
“Mommy, can I go see the angel statues?” Robbie asked.
“Yes, you may,” Eve replied. She got out of the car and opened the rear door for the boys.
Robbie started across the grass, then turned to Bobby. “Wanna see them, too? Come on.” Audrey was surprised when Bobby followed him. She pried herself from the car.
“I’ve noticed your son has an American accent,” she told Eve.
“It’s dreadful, isn’t it?” Eve linked arms with her again. “Are you ready for this?” Audrey could only nod, her tears already starting. Eve halted beside a dark granite marker with Robert’s name engraved on it. Audrey fell to her knees. Her tears flowed the moment her forehead touched the gravestone. The words of Robert’s favorite poem echoed through her heart:
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Eve sat on the grass beside her, rubbing her back as Audrey wept. When she finally lifted her head and wiped her eyes, she saw that Eve was crying, too. She handed a basket of strawberries to Audrey. “Here. I think we need these.”
Audrey managed a smile as she ate one. “Robert and I had so many plans for our life together.”
“And I’m guessing it wasn’t the life I’ve been living in your place.”
“No. He didn’t want our son to grow up the way he did, pressured into joining the country club and the family’s law firm.”
“What did Robert hope for you, Audrey?” she asked softly.
She exhaled. “That I would learn to be myself, not bowing to anyone’s pressure. . . . I wanted to become a nurse after the war. Robert said we could find a nursing school here where I could study. He encouraged me to . . .” She couldn’t finish.