“Oh, my God,” Zach murmured. He brushed his thumb reverently over her name. Delphine. Abruptly, Hannah stood up.
“I’m going for a swim. I need to… clear my head. Come and find me, once you’ve read it.” Zach nodded his head distractedly, already opening the letter and starting to read.
Delphine, chérie, my daughter. I miss you so much. I hope you do not miss me as much, but this is a pointless thing to hope. You were always loving, and loyal. You were always a good child, and a good sister to Élodie. Help me-writing her name is like cutting myself. My poor Delphine, how can you know? How can you know the pain I feel? It hurts you to lose her, to lose your sister, but to lose a child is more than a person can stand. It is more than I can stand. Your father will look after you, I know it. His heart is like a cloud in the summer sky. It drifts and is blown about, it chases the wind, and the sun. It is inconstant, in some ways. But love for a child does not lie in the heart-it is in the soul, it is in every bone of your body. He cannot be inconstant to you. You are part of him, as you are part of me. And Élodie was a part of us, too, and since she died I am no longer whole. I will never be whole. I am like a child again myself, no longer a mother. I don’t know how to live anymore. I am with my mother, and she cares for me.
When I started to write this letter, it was to tell you to come to me, here, when the war is over. If you wanted to. But the thought of seeing you fills me with fear. A terrible, terrible fear. When I think of seeing you, I think only of not seeing Élodie. Of that gap by your side, of that gap in all our lives. And it is not fair and it is cruel and unjust, and it was not meant to be so. But still, I fear it, and I cannot bear it. So instead I say: do not come. Please do not. And do not tell your father where I am. Though I will always love him, I am trying every day to cut that love from my heart. It does no good, to love a man like Charles. And I see Élodie in him, of course. I see her there, too. I see her everywhere, even in my father’s eyes, which were passed on to her. How can it be that she is dead? Nothing makes sense to me now.
You more than anybody did not deserve this fate, Delphine. Try to be happy. Try to start a new life. Try to forget about me. Try to forget what you did. My life is over, I am nothing but shadows. But there is time for you, perhaps. You are young enough to start again, and to forget. Try to forget, my Delphine. Tell yourself that your mother is dead, for the best of me surely is. Your heart is good. Your heart was always good, ma chérie. Be happy if you can. I will not write again. C.
Zach read the letter three times, and tried to imagine how much it must have hurt Delphine. For a second he caught a glimpse, and sadness came like dark clouds. His throat was painfully dry, and he swallowed as he folded the paper and slid it back into its envelope. He sat for fifteen minutes or more with his head in his hands and his heart breaking for a girl he had never met. Try to forget what you did. The line repeated itself in his head, and he thought about what Wilf Coulson had told him earlier that day. Suddenly, he was flooded with dread, as though the truth would spill out, unbidden. He thought of Dimity, of her face full of fear and tears in her eyes. He thought of the way she’d looked at the ceiling when they’d heard sounds above. Full of desperate hope, he saw it now. He swallowed again, and vowed that he would never share his suspicions about Élodie’s death with anybody. Perhaps not even with Hannah, and certainly not in his book. The thought caught him off guard. Was there still a book? He could not publish it in Dimity’s lifetime, that much he knew. Zach stood up and ran his hands through his hair. He thought about what he would do next, about what mattered, and it was suddenly brilliantly simple, perfectly obvious. The future wasn’t a brick wall, it was a blank page.
Zach jogged down the track to the beach, and saw her straightaway. The pale glow of her skin against the dark blue water, her red bikini on, curly hair shifting in the wind. Standing at the end of the jetty with the waves coming up to her knees and her arms loose at her sides, as if the sea was the only thing keeping her there, the only thing to curb her. Zach kicked off his shoes, rolled his jeans above his knees, and set out towards her, splashing impatiently. She heard him coming; turned and folded her arms across her ribs. Still defensive, still unsure of him. In that instant, Zach knew that he loved her. It was as clear as the sky that day.
“Poor Delphine,” he said, after they’d exchanged a long look. Hannah nodded. “Of all the futures, of all the lives I imagined for her, standing in front of her portrait, I never imagined she’d had to deal with such pain.”
“Yes.”
“And you still think it was better that she never knew her father was alive?”
“I don’t know. Who can know? But perhaps it… did help her to forget. To move on in life. Perhaps a dead father, a memory to treasure, was better than a lifetime with a broken father.”
“But she didn’t forget. How could she have? And she kept that letter her whole life.”
“Yes. I saw her reading it, from time to time. When I was little, and we’d been out all day on the farm, and she’d been in the house by herself. I would come in and find her reading it, all alone. She would try not to let me see that she’d been crying.” Hannah wiped at her eyes again, and shook her head. “Do you see, now? Do you see that it’s not just about pictures by a famous artist? These are people’s lives. These are the things they have lived through.”
“Yes, I do see. But I want to say… if, some time in the future, perhaps when Dimity’s… gone. If you ever do decide to exhibit the pictures, I want to be the one to help you. We could even exhibit them here-turn one of the barns into a gallery. And I do want to write this story. I think I will write it, now, because it feels too big to keep in. But I won’t do anything with it until I have your permission. I promise.”
“Won’t revealing all those new works devalue them, anyway? I thought scarcity was part of what put an artist’s prices up?”
“Theoretically, yes. But in a case like this? No way.” Zach shook his head. “The provenance, the story… it’s like nothing people have seen or heard before. If you wanted to, you could make a lot of money. If you wanted to.”
“I want to make money as a sheep farmer, not by selling my inheritance.”
“I thought you might say that,” said Zach with a smile.
“What will you do now?” Hannah asked.
“Close the gallery. Formally close it, I mean. It’s been closed all these weeks; I just… didn’t want to admit it. I’ll sell all the stock, and my pictures of Celeste and Dimity. That should pay back the book advance and give me something to live on for a while. But I won’t sell Delphine. I’ll always keep my drawing of your grandmother.”
“I’d like to see it,” said Hannah.
“Of course you’ll see it. I’ll bring it here.”
“Here?” She frowned.
“Closing the gallery rather makes me homeless, you see. The lease is for the whole building, and if I’m not open for business, then I can’t afford to keep it. I was thinking I might… stay in Blacknowle. For a while.”
“Zach…” Hannah shook her head, and looked troubled.
“Don’t panic. I’m not suggesting I move in with you. But… I want to keep seeing you. I want to help you, if I can. Maybe you could give me a job on the farm.” He grinned.
“And spoil those lovely soft hands of yours? Never.”
“Hannah. When I came here I thought I was looking for Charles Aubrey. I thought I was looking for… for the reason my life had gone the way it had. The reason my marriage had ended, and my business was failing. I thought I was looking for a paycheck, and for answers. But now I know I was wrong about all of that. I think that when I came here, I was looking for you.”