The Last Embrace (35 page)

“Liam,” Mr. Connally tries to sound stern as pulls the car from the curb. “Don't make me turn this car around.” We erupt into laughter.

We fall into heavy silence as we drive away from town, following the coast south. It is a sunny morning with the feel of early fall and we might be going hiking or for a picnic. There had been very little discussion about it. “I want to go tomorrow,” Mrs. Connally had stated abruptly the night before after I had brought up Robbie. It went without saying that we would all go together. Only Grace had remained at the house, grateful, I surmised, that there was not room in the car.

Mr. Connally slows and pulls to the side of the road. As I climb from the car, I stumble and Charlie instinctively puts his hand on my arm. “Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling back, a faint redness coming to his cheeks. Though certain things can no longer be between us, he will always try to protect me.

The cemetery sits on a gentle slope, just off the main road. I'd imagined it any number of times, but I had not been here when he was buried, or after. We climb over a low fence and trudge upward amidst the tombstones until we reach the spot on the hill overlooking the bay. Robert Joseph Connally. Beloved son and brother. The date of his birth and death follow.

Mrs. Connally drops to her knees and begins to sob as freshly as the day they had buried him. Mr. Connally kneels beside her. We stand in silence, allowing them the moment that they need to have. My eyes are dry, no tears left to shed. From above, the seagulls call out mournfully.

I look toward the ocean. The coastline carries on for miles in either direction, unbroken. The waves are tamer now, unobtrusive and undeserving of the hate they engender in me.

A cool breeze blows through, signaling a shift. Charlie helps his mother to her feet and she buries her head in his chest. Liam stands apart. I walk to him. It is the oddest of feelings—a relationship so new with someone I have known for so long. The regrets loom once more: if I had seen him standing before me years ago, maybe he would not have spiraled out of control. Robbie might be alive today. But no, I had to go through it all and have my heart broken by Charlie to be ready for this place. It simply could not have been otherwise. I move closer to Liam and as my fingers interlace with his, I know the choice I made was the right one.

“You did a good job,” I offer to Charlie, knowing he would have picked the location when his parents were not able. “This is a nice spot.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Robbie would have hated it, though.”

“The location?” I ask, surprised.

“Nah, the cemetery. He would have thought it was a waste of a perfectly good football field.” We share a smile.

But Liam remains solemn. “It's not the same without you, buddy,” I hear him mumble. And then it is time to go home.

“Quiet again,” Liam observes. He and I sit alone on the beach, listening to the sounds of the gulls and crashing surf that are inescapably a part of our lives. The Connallys had flown back to Florida two days earlier to gather their belongings and move back up here.

Charlie and Grace have left, too. Yesterday Charlie had stood by the packed car. “Grace wants to get to Washington and find a place to live.” And perhaps just a little bit to escape Charlie's family and the weight of memories she does not own.

Charlie and Liam had hugged, patting each other hard on the back. “Come back soon, brother.”

“I will.”

“Be well.” I kissed Grace's cheek and it was almost, though not quite, as if we were friends.

Charlie had stood before me uncertainly. “See you again, Ad.”

I threw my arms around him, not caring that Grace and Liam were watching and might mind. We would have a real goodbye, like the one we had denied ourselves so many times before.

“I don't know which I prefer, the quiet or the craziness,” Liam remarks now. With the others gone, our lives have returned to the simple routine we had known before, working on the house in the mornings, strolling to the beach in the afternoon. But the nights have changed: long and languid in his bed, exploring one another until we collapse, exhausted.

Earlier we had finished a meal of steamed crab legs, which Aunt Bess had never let me eat as a child. After Liam had surprised me with a small chocolate cake. “For your birthday,” he said. “Even though it isn't until tomorrow.” I was touched, and while I could not help but think of that birthday three years earlier when the Connallys has made me feel one of them, some part of me was glad that this time it was just the two of us.

“A letter came for you,” Liam said. I took the envelope, which had been forwarded by Aunt Bess. My heart lifted as I recognized Claire's bright scrawl. She must have written just after I'd left. “Addie, I hope you are well.” Her voice crackled through the writing, as though we were in her flat, playing cards. It seemed a million years ago. So much had happened since then. “I checked in on Leo for you.” I smiled, picturing her among the midst of sticky-fingered children she had once professed not to like. “Teddy and I are going to the theater on Friday.” I'd been avoiding the letter I needed to write to Teddy, telling him I would not be returning to London. Perhaps he already knew. Claire's letter continued, “I guess those correspondents are not so bad after all.” Would Claire and Teddy at last find each other? There was a tinge of jealousy as I imagined two of the people I love most loving each other. But I wanted—really wanted—them to be happy.

I look out at the ocean. The tide is coming in, bringing the water closer with each wave. “Everyone will be back soon,” I remark. “This time for good.”

“Just Mom and Dad. I'm happy about that,” he adds. “But Charlie's got to get back to work. I should be heading out, too.”

I turn to him, surprised. “I thought you were planning to stay.”

“I was, but, well, with Mom and Dad coming back, my work is done here. I came back to bring the family home and put a period at the end of it all. This is my parents' house. I'm glad I could give it back to them. But it's time to move on.”

A scream builds within me. I've only just found all of this—and him. And now he is going, too. My stomach twists. Without realizing it, I had come to count on him being here.

The sense of abandonment, that I've kept buried since my mother put me on the boat, bubbles to the surface. “Where?”

“I don't know. Take the boat and head south. Why?” His question hangs like a challenge between us.

I speak slowly. “I guess I've just gotten used to our being together.” In that moment, all the loose pieces of the weeks we have spent together come together and I see clearly for the first time all of the feelings that have been developing between us.

He meets my eyes squarely. “Me, too. I was thinking we could visit the Outer Banks.” So his plans include me—he means for us to go together. As my shoulders slump with relief, I realize how very vested in him—and us—I've become. “It might be nice to take a trip somewhere, see a bit of this country.” I nod. I have been all over Europe but never west of here. Perhaps with someone else, it would not feel like running. “I'm not sure it matters so much, where we go. Let's hit the water and stop when we find someplace we like.”

“We've got to tell your parents. They'll think we're crazy.”

“We are crazy. We'll never make it.”

“We're probably going to kill each other within a month.”

“Probably. I'll let you win but I'll still be right.”

“That's exactly what I'm talking about!” I explode with exasperation. Then I look over and see that he is joking and we both begin to laugh.

“I have to take the boxes back to Aunt Bess and help her move first,” I say a moment later. She will be disappointed that I'm going, though I don't think she ever really expected me to stay.

“Do you want me to help you?”

I shake my head. The tiny house with its sparse belongings would not take long, though I suspect hidden in the drawers and closets I will find the story of a woman I never really knew. And there are some things that I still need to do for myself.

“But you'll come back,” he says and there is a note of pleading to his voice. His face holds a hidden disbelief that for everything he has done, he still might be given a chance at happiness. “Come back,” he repeats plaintively, his voice cracking a bit at the end.

“Of course. I promise.” I am done with running. “Another thing—I think I want to go,” I say and his face crumbles. “To college, I mean.” I wait for his reaction. “Not just now, but soon.” I need to have that for myself.

I wait for Liam to laugh or tell me it is a silly idea. Even out of high school it had never been a serious possibility. “I think,” he begins, in his slow thoughtful way, “that it's a fine idea.”

“Really?” My heart lifts.

“Really.”

“You could come with me. Get your degree.”

“Me?” He shakes his head. “Nah. I've never been much for classroom learning.” He tapped his notebook. “I have what I need. I could come with you though. Get a place close by and just be, well, close.” He does not use the word
married
and for that I am grateful—it had been bandied about too readily with Charlie and I am not ready to think about it again. Now it is his turn to look hopeful. “What do you think?”

“Sounds good. Something tells me when it's all over, though, we'll come back here.”

“Might be a good place to have a family someday.”

“You want kids?” I ask.

“Yeah.” I am surprised. It had not seemed like Liam. But watching him now, it makes perfect sense. “You?”

I had not thought about it until just then. “I think,” I begin, forming the idea as I speak, “that I would like to adopt.” Leo appears in my mind.

I scan the coast. “I'm not sure I'm ready to leave again.”

“Maybe that's the best time to go. I never liked staying at a party or anywhere else until it stopped being fun.” Panic flashes through me as though it were years ago, Liam only living for fun. It's not all going to be a party, though. How will we last?

By not making each other any promises other than this day, comes the answer from somewhere deep inside me. With Charlie, there was too much talk of tomorrows. But Liam and I are here today because we want to be. Something tells me, though, that we will make this promise over and over again each night.

I take off my shoes and walk to the water's edge. It is after season and we are alone except for an old man, searching for coins and other bits of metal some twenty meters down the beach. The dampness seeps between my toes and the sand feels more solid than it ever has.

“Are you okay?” He comes up behind me. “I know this isn't your favorite place.”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Name it.” I take his hand and lead him into the shallow water. He stops, surprised. “Are you sure?”

Not at all. But I nod, taking a step deeper until the water, colder now that summer is over, is nearly up to my waist. A wave rises behind us and he bends to lift me. “No, let me do it myself.” As the wave crests high above, I dive beneath it, as I have seen him do so many times. Icy darkness surrounds me, as terrible as anything I'd ever dreamed and at the same time not bad at all. I find the bottom under my feet, then push for the surface, break through.

“I'm proud of you,” he whispers in my ear. I do not answer, but concentrate on staying afloat, swimming with the current I had fought all of these years. In the distance I can almost see a young boy, dancing atop the waves. But Liam stands next to me now, supporting me but letting me do it on my own, and I feel strong in a way I never quite have before.

Only then do I allow myself to be lifted into his arms.

* * * * *

More than twenty years ago, when I first began writing in earnest, I conceived of a story in which a lonely young girl became close to the family of four boys next door. Perhaps influenced by Louisa May Alcott's
Little Women
, I was fascinated in my own work by the young girl who would become Adelia, her relationships with each of the Connally boys and the dynamic between the brothers themselves.

In developing
The Last Embrace
, I was thrilled to be able to return after so many years to the ideas and pages I'd begun years earlier. It enabled me to explore many of my favorite themes: first crushes, unrequited love, missed connections, fateful meetings, redemption and second chances.

I quickly realized that the story belonged in America during the Second World War. This period and setting provided such a rich canvas to explore life and hardship on the home front. I was curious, too, to explore the interplay between different ethnic, religious and social groups during a time when we were supposed to be united in war, but in reality were quite stratified. Although I've written a number of books set during World War II, this was my first novel set predominantly in the United States. I enjoyed the challenge of imagining places so geographically close to my childhood a generation ago. The book also allowed me to return to one of my most beloved places on earth, England. I've endeavored to be as accurate to the time and place as possible, but the mistakes are all mine. All of the characters are fictitious (I have fictionalized Churchill's niece in her entirety), and resemblances to real-life people are purely coincidental.

There are so many people to whom I am indebted in my writing career. Over the past few years, I have come to appreciate more than ever the community of writers, bloggers and readers that all join together for the love of the book. There are too many to name individually, but I'm so grateful to my fellow authors at MIRA Books, to my sisters from the anthology
Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion
, to my fellow authors in the Tall Poppy Writers, and to myriad bestselling authors, who are so generous with their mentoring and support.

Then there are the pros, and I am so fortunate for them and the ways they make my work exponentially better. Gratitude to the brilliant Susan Swinwood and our partnership, which keeps getting better with age; to Erika Imranyi and our partnership, which is just beginning, Emer Flounders and the entire team at MIRA Books, as well as Sammia Hamer, Sally Williamson and the entire team at MIRA UK. Deepest appreciation to Scott Hoffman and Susan Ginsburg, as well.

Finally, there is the village: my husband, Phillip, and the three muses; my mom and my brother; my colleagues at Rutgers Law; and countless other friends and family members. Without you, none of this would be possible—or worthwhile.