prologue
How quickly Marie had become used to her new routine. Breakfast for two in the morning—porridge cooked on the hob with water since milk was already becoming scarce. On days when she wasn’t working, she would tidy up and do any necessary food shopping before a small lunch. And, without fail, just around two o’clock, she’d listen for the brass flap of the letter box to squeak open and the second post to drop with a satisfying thunk onto the polished entryway floor.
Now she sat wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the big rose-patterned sofa that faced the mews she’d come to think of as home. She’d somehow managed to forget everything—the war, her worries, her fears—and relax into the pages of her book, a Rosamond Lehmann novel she’d borrowed from the built-in shelf next to the fireplace. Forbidden at her aunt and uncle’s flat, it seemed less daring here, as though she were the sort of woman who read about divorce and affairs every day.
Marie was so caught up that it was only when the letter box flap rattled back into place that she realized the post had arrived. Setting her book and blanket aside, she slipped her stockinged feet into a well-loved pair of slippers and rose.
Shivering, she pulled her light blue cardigan tighter as she stepped into the corridor and crouched to scoop up the scattered letters. She began flipping through them, looking for her name. She may technically have been a guest in this house, but she still received a letter or two a day.
Marie set aside two brown envelopes on the little sideboard. Three large square envelopes followed those. Then she saw her neatly typed name on a slim white envelope. She ripped it open.
Her hand began to tremble even as she stared down at the cheap paper, willing the sentences to rearrange themselves. Desperate for them to say something else. But there was no denying the typed words.
Her legs buckled under her, and she crumpled to the floor.
SAMANTHA Now
one
Samantha clutched her passport, shifting from foot to foot as the line inched forward. All around her, her fellow passengers from the red-eye to London yawned, stretched, and blinked against the fluorescent light of the immigration hall. She hardly noticed the jostle of bodies, her attention fully fixed on the weight of the package and the half-scribbled notes in her brown leather shoulder bag.
She should have made this trip earlier. “Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today,” one of the posters in her third-grade classroom read. It was stuck above the dry-erase board so her students couldn’t miss the warning against procrastination. But teaching that lesson and actually living it were two very different things.
A series of dings sent her digging into her purse to retrieve her phone. She’d connected to Heathrow’s Wi-Fi as soon as she was off the plane, but her messages had only just come through. There were six: one from her best friend in Chicago, Marisol, and five from Dad.
She read Marisol’s first:
Saw U landed on flight tracker. U okay? How was the flight?
She fired back a quick message:
Long trip but I’m feeling okay. Just need to get my bag and figure out the Tube. I’ll let you know when I meet her.
Then she clicked over to Dad’s messages. Rather than send one long message, he always wrote a text a sentence, leaving a string of stream-of-consciousness messages in his wake:
Hope you aren’t too tired, sweet pea.
Your mother and I are waiting up to hear from you so let us know when you land.
Your mother says she’s proud of you for doing this for her mother.
I am, too.
Love you.
She smiled and shook her head, sending him a quick message:
Just landed. The flight wasn’t too bad. Will you and Mom go to bed? I don’t want to throw off your doubles game for your tennis tournament tomorrow. Love you both.
She slipped her phone back into her purse and pulled out her passport as she approached the front of the line. A guard behind a high desk checked it without comment, and she couldn’t help but be grateful she didn’t have to explain why she was in the country. If she had, what would she say? This trip wasn’t business, but it certainly wasn’t bringing her any pleasure either.
After collecting her small suitcase, she navigated through the customs gate past immigration and out into the bustle of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Even after the crowded passport line, the shock of all of those people almost knocked her back. Loved ones hung over the sturdy silver barrier separating the arrivals space from the restricted area. Clusters of drivers in crumpled white shirts and slim black ties looked bored as they held up names on iPads or hastily scribbled on pieces of paper. Everyone here seemed to know who they were waiting for. They had a reason to be there.
You have a reason to be here, too, and there’s no more ignoring it.
She shook her head to throw off the thought and focused on her first challenge: getting to West London. It shouldn’t be too difficult. She took the El from her Lincoln Square apartment to school every weekday. She could navigate the Tube. And then it was just a matter of finding the right combination of streets that would lead her to the house.
Maybe it had been a mistake to accept Nora’s invitation to stay with her. The woman was 103 years old—it was incredible she was still living at home—but Nora had been insistent from the moment Samantha called the number her grandmother’s lawyer had provided. Every email exchange between Samantha and Nora contained some variation of the phrase I won’t hear of my dearest friend’s granddaughter coming all the way from America and staying at a hotel. You’ll stay with me. And you must meet David, too.
Samantha tilted her head back to read the signs overhead. Trains to her right. She settled her carry-on higher on her shoulder and adjusted her grip on her suitcase handle, but then she spotted a tall, dark-haired man holding a sign that read Samantha Morris, Chicago. Her name. Her city. But she didn’t have anyone here to pick her up from the airport.
Unless…
“Excuse me, are you David?” she asked, stopping in front of the man.
“Samantha?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
David will meet you at Heathrow, one of Nora’s emails had read. But she’d batted away the offer. Being collected by her grandmother’s best friend’s grandson was a step too far. She wasn’t helpless. Except now that he was here, she couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of relief.
“I thought that might be you. You look like your photograph.” His hand dove into the pocket of his jacket and out came a photograph, a little bent at one corner. He handed it to her. “My grandmother gave me this to make sure I’d be able to spot you.”
She stared at the photo. “This was taken when I was eighteen, just before I left for college.”
“I did point out that it might be a little out of date, but she insisted. She said that your grandmother hardly aged from eighteen to forty, and you wouldn’t either.”
“I had no idea Grandma had sent this to her,” she said, toying with a crease at the corner.
The left side of his mouth tipped up, showing the hint of a dimple in his cheek. “You should prepare yourself for Gran to know quite a bit about you.”
She pressed a hand to the center of her chest and the guilt that had lodged itself there. She should know more about this woman who had clearly been dear to her mother’s mother, but Samantha had learned of Nora less than a year ago. There was so much of her grandmother’s life that remained a mystery, and it was her own fault.