But that didn’t mean she wanted to go home.
“So this is where you’ve been staying.” Her mother looked around the tiny room, her nose wrinkling involuntarily with distaste. “If I help you pack, we can be gone in an hour. If you don’t want to stay with your father and me, your sister Bernadette offered her spare room.” Staying with her older sister and her three pugnacious children, Grace reflected, might be the only thing worse than going home.
“Mother, I can’t just leave. I have a job.”
Her mother waved her hand as though Grace’s work was irrelevant. “You can send a note.”
“It’s not a cocktail party, it’s a job. And also there’s this.” She reached past her mother and picked up the newspaper she’d left on the nightstand before her trip to Washington. “I saw this happen.” She pointed at the story about Eleanor.
“That woman was killed by a car. How awful. The city is so dangerous. I don’t know why on earth you would ever want to stay here.”
“The woman who was killed left behind photographs of some girls who went missing during the war and I’ve been trying to find out what happened to them.” She left out the part about going to Washington with Mark.
“And is this part of your job?”
Grace faltered. “Not exactly.” She had shared the story hoping it would help to make sense of her staying in New York. But it just seemed to confuse things.
“If these girls have nothing to do with your job, then what are they to you?”
Her mother’s question, a refrain of Frankie’s on the phone a day earlier, nagged at Grace. She had no connection to the girls. They were strangers, really. Only she had been following this so intently, she had gotten wrapped up in their world and struggles and, for a little bit, had nearly forgotten about her own. Perhaps that was the attraction of it. “It’s hard to explain. Anyway, it’s over now.”
“So you’ll be coming with me then?”
“I didn’t say that.” Her words came out more snappishly than Grace intended.
“You belong with your family,” her mother pressed. “It’s time to come home.”
“Mother, I don’t want to.” It was the first time she had said those words aloud to anyone but Mark. She watched the inevitable hurt that crossed her mother’s face and waited for her to regroup for another argument. “I love it here. I have a job. And my own place.” The flat wasn’t much, but it was hers.
Her mother’s face softened. “You know, part of me is jealous,” her mother confessed. “I always wanted a life like this.” Grace was surprised. She couldn’t imagine her mother anywhere but the life she was in.
“I auditioned for a Broadway show once,” she added. Grace tried to picture her reserved mother, who mouthed the words to “Happy Birthday” at parties instead of singing them, getting on stage. Suddenly she seemed like a whole other woman with a life and dreams of her own, someone Grace didn’t know.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds. “You don’t have to make the same choices as Bernadette or Helen,” her mother said finally. “I just want you to be happy.” It had always felt to Grace like her mother was disappointed that she hadn’t been more like her sisters, hadn’t fit into the life she expected for her. But maybe the expectation had been in her own mind.
“You know, when you were little and you got hurt or scared, I could make it all better with a hug or treat. But when your children get older, it becomes less and less easy to heal their wounds. And then when Tom...” Her mother paused, as if unable to say it. “I just felt so helpless, like I couldn’t reach you at all.”
Grace put her hand atop her mother’s. “It wasn’t your fault, Mom. No one could. It was just something I had to go through alone.”
“I brought you these.” Her mother picked up an arrangement of orange wax flowers from the table. It was everything Grace hated about home.
But it was also a gesture—and an acknowledgment that Grace might want to stay. “Thank you,” she said, taking them.
“You’ll come home to see us at the holidays,” her mother said.
Grace nodded. “I will,” she replied, trying to sound certain. Christmas was such a long time away. Who could say what would happen by then?
Her mother was really trying, though. “Maybe you could come back in a few weeks and we could go shopping,” Grace suggested, wanting to make the effort, too. “Or we could visit the botanical gardens when it gets warmer.”
Her mother smiled. “I would love that.” She stood, buttoned her coat and adjusted her hat. She smoothed Grace’s hair like she did when Grace was a child, and she kissed her daughter on the top of the head. “We’ll be there when you’re ready,” she said. Then she walked from the apartment.
Watching her mother go, Grace was filled with gratitude and relief. She had permission to be who she wanted, to live life on her own terms. She felt a bit of sadness, too, that living the life she wanted might mean she and her mother would always be at a distance.
Grace sat alone in the silence of the apartment, which seemed larger somehow. She noticed then a white envelope lying on her bed. “Mom, wait...” She started after her mother to tell her she had forgotten something. But the envelope was addressed to Grace at her parents’ house, from an unfamiliar office address in Washington, DC.
Inside there was a letter from a law firm regarding the estate of Thomas Healey, along with a check from his lawyer made out to her in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Tears formed in her eyes, causing the words to blur. She had not known that Tom had taken care of his affairs or provided for her. Where had this money even come from? She held the check, overwhelmed with sadness. Tom was looking out for her still, even after he was gone.
It seemed like somehow a sign: time to move on. She needed to put the matter of the girls behind her and focus on her job and her life here. Nothing to do but move forward.
She would return the photos to the consulate, Grace decided. She pulled them out to look at them a final time. She knew that the girls had been killed and that Eleanor had betrayed them. She would never know why, and she had taken the matter as far as she could. Her part in it was over. It would have to be enough.
* * *
On Monday morning at nine, Grace stood in front of the British consulate once more. Time to return the photos and get to work. Inside, the same receptionist sat at the desk. “Ah, Ms....”
“Healey,” Grace finished for her, not at all surprised that the woman did not remember her name.
“You’re back,” the receptionist noted, sounding none too pleased.