“She died last October,” said Nora.
“I’m a teacher. I couldn’t—” She stopped herself. “I could have asked for a leave of absence from my school. I could’ve made arrangements to come sooner, but I didn’t.”
“Why did you wait? I’m one hundred and three years old. Time isn’t something I have a great deal of,” said Nora, managing to sound teasing rather than sharp.
“It hasn’t been easy losing her. We were very close when I was a girl, but then I went to college,” she said.
“And life got in the way?” Nora finished for her.
Samantha nodded, the shame coursing through her.
“What was the third request?” asked David.
She started, realizing she’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, I’m supposed to give her eulogy at the ceremony.”
“Not an easy thing,” said Nora.
“No. I have a whole notebook of ideas in my purse, but nothing sticks. How do you eulogize a woman when all you really know about her is that she was a sweet grandmother who drank coffee all day and hummed Nina Simone songs while she mopped the kitchen floors? Her life was more than that.”
Nora smiled. “Much more. Remember, I knew her before any of us knew who Nina Simone was.”
Tell me! It was on the tip of Samantha’s tongue. Most of her memories of her grandmother were from her childhood. She remembered snowy winter afternoons hunched over a puzzle together at the dining room table. She recalled how Grandma Marie would sneak more marshmallows into her hot chocolate than her parents would allow. She could almost feel the heavy clack of the old antique typewriter as she pretended to interview Grandma Marie and write up little stories to proudly hand out to her family members, her own little newsletter.
Then the memories became more vivid but somehow less personal. Samantha breezing by her grandmother in the living room on her way to go out with friends. Begging off the early start to cooking Christmas lunch because she was in college and she was going to use every extra moment to catch up on the sleep she hadn’t gotten during the semester. Samantha had started to grow up, and her relationship with her grandmother had slipped to the background of her life.
Now, sitting in a living room more than three thousand miles away from home, Samantha lifted up the package her grandmother had entrusted her with. “So here it is.”
“Bring it here,” said Nora.
Carefully, she placed it in the old woman’s lap and watched Nora’s fingers glide over the thick manila envelope. They lingered on the address written in faded ink. “David, be a darling and help me with this.”
He stood and leaned down to peel back the flap of the envelope. “Would you like me to take the things out of it?” he asked.
“I’m not helpless, David,” Nora chided him.
Samantha watched as Nora began to draw out bundles of paper tied with string—six in total—and a velvet bag.
“What are they?” asked David, peering over his grandmother’s shoulder.
Nora let out a long sigh. “My letters from the war. I sent them from all over, but you’ll be able to tell the ones I wrote when I was on leave because I always marked that I wrote them from Cranley Mews. I was so proud of that house. I bought it before the war when young women did not own their own homes. David’s uncle Colin lives there now with his partner, Greg. And I had a job, too—quite modern, really.”
Nora picked up the velvet bag, undid the drawstrings, and tipped it onto its side. Out into her wrinkled hand fell a thin gold chain and pendant set with a deep blue stone.
“That looks like yours,” said David.
“David, will you go fetch my jewelry box?” his grandmother asked, her eyes still fixed on the pendant.
“Are you okay?” Samantha asked Nora as David slipped out of the room.
The old woman looked up, as though just remembering that Samantha was there, too. “Yes. Nostalgia has a way of creeping up on me these days.”
Samantha watched as she set the necklace aside, undid the ribbon on one of the bundles, and pulled the top letter out of its envelope.
“ ‘The twenty-sixth of February, forty-four,’ ” Nora read. “ ‘Dear Marie, I know if I tell you where I am the censor will only black it out, so all I will say is that I’ve never experienced a February day like this one.’ ” Nora glanced at her. “I had been dispatched to Afghanistan. I don’t think I’ve ever been hotter in my life.”
David came back, a black leather box fashioned in the style of a small steamer trunk in his hands. He set it down next to his grandmother’s laptop and waited as she opened the box and pulled out the stacked trays. Rings studded with gems of all colors caught the light, and rows of earrings sat like bonbons in a chocolate box. Nora lifted the lid of a little built-in box and drew out a necklace on a gold chain from which hung the pendant’s twin.
“I gave this to your grandmother, Samantha,” she said, gesturing to the necklace from the velvet pouch. Then she ran her thumb over the necklace she’d just retrieved. “This one was our friend Hazel’s. And this”—she reached into the neckline of her sweater—“is mine. It’s lapis lazuli. I had them made for us out of a bracelet I used to wear. I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened during the war, we would always have a piece of each other with us.”
“Did you say Hazel?” asked Samantha.
“Yes. Why?” asked Nora.
Samantha rummaged around in her purse until she found her passport. She flipped to the identification page and then held it out for the older woman to see.
“My middle name is Hazel. Samantha Hazel Morris. But all I know about her is that she’s a family friend I’ve never met. Who is she?”
“Was. She died about twenty years ago. You probably were too young to remember your grandmother coming over to visit Hazel and me every five years or so,” said Nora. For a long moment, she sat silent, but then she nodded, as though making up her mind. “David, will you go put the kettle on? I think we’re going to need fortifications for this, and I’m sure Samantha is tired from her trip. A cup of tea will perk us all up.”
“Now.” Nora turned her attention back to Samantha. “I met your grandmother in 1928, when she and Hazel and I were all put in a dormitory together. The Ethelbrook Misfits, we called ourselves that first term, although the name never stuck.”
MARIE August 1939 to October 1939
two
AUGUST 25, 1939
The threat of war hung heavy in the air, refusing to dissipate with the fog each late summer morning. It was impossible to ignore as Marie shuffled around a newspaperman who stood outside the Hyde Park Corner tube station shouting, “Britain signs on to help Poland! Mutual assistance treaty!” as he hawked the evening edition.
Marie ducked her head and hurried on, knowing that buying an evening edition of the paper would only delay her more. She’d stopped at the shop around the corner from work to pick up two extra batteries after seeing the queue at lunch, and it had taken her twice as long as she’d thought it would to hand over her shillings. Still, her handbag was heavy with the batteries now, and she knew she’d made the right choice, because if war came there was sure to be a run on them.