Page 92 of Memories of the Lost

“You knew my mother?”

“She was not your mother!” Clare cried with agony. “Shestoleyou from me. She was my friend, and she moved after you were lost, but I never put the two things together.”

A hollow ache filled Tillie’s chest. Her throat was tight with all the words she didn’t know how to say.

“Arlette was looking, too,” Clare said. “And then she had a big family emergency and had to go back to America. We never saw her again.” She deflated, her shoulders rounding forward. “I can’t believe she justtookyou.”

Tillie bowed her head, as if she’d had something to do with it.

“One of the things that started this quest was that I found a death certificate in my name that was for a little girl who died in the Valencia firestorm.”

“The little girl. Tillie. Yes.” Clare seemed winded, and her husband took over the task of making tea.

He poured strong dark brown tea into her cup, and then pushed the sugar toward her. “Drink, love.”

She obeyed, stirring sugar into the tea. Sipped. Steadied herself.

It was something Tillie had done every day of her life, squaring herself with reality. Something about that stung, that she’d never seen it.

And all of it rushed in—that she’d had a big family and a sister, a twin, and could have grown up here, instead of alone with her mother out in the middle of nowhere. She could have had this family. Siblings and a father and—

Her breath caught at the intensity of longing.

“She was a mess,” Clare said. “Just—” She shook her head, looking over to the middle of the table for the rest of the story. “Not okay. Not all there. I don’t think her baby had been gone very long, maybe a year or two, and I felt pity for her, as any mother would have. She loved to spend time with you, both of you, and I let her babysit many times.”

“I remember Arlette!” Sage cried. “She had the most wonderful songs!”

Tillie said, “That’s her. She loved to sing.”

Another long silence fell. Liam said, “Maybe let’s take a little time, absorb all this, and come back together tonight or something, huh? What do you think?”

Tillie looked at him gratefully. Pressed a hand over her diaphragm. Nodded.

Sage reached for Tillie’s hand. “Don’t disappear, okay?”

And for some reason, it was easier to look at her than Clare. “I promise.”

“Clare?” Levi said in his kind voice. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, looking at him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to ... process all of this.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

They’d met at the Laundromat, of all places. Clare had to drag bedding over from the small house she rented. The girls had been infected with a stomach bug, and she wanted the big machines to sterilize their sheets and pillowcases. They busied themselves with a pair of rag dolls they loved, a gift from someone Clare couldn’t remember when they were first born, moving back and forth between their own language and English. The language had begun to fade the past six months or so—they were leaving it behind with sucking thumbs and the blankets each had dragged around since toddlerhood. It was time, she supposed. They’d turned four in March and would start school in September.

She was struggling to fold a quilt when a woman came over and said in an American accent, “Let me help you with that.”

Clare was grateful, and the two began chatting. They were close in age, and judging by Arlette’s free-flowing blouse and the amulet she wore around her neck, of like mind. They got along immediately, laughing at the same things, sharing a love of the same music and a pleasure in the joys of gardening. Clare had been quite lonely since leaving her mean-hearted husband behind in Barnstaple, a move her mother had disapproved. She’d left behind her friends, too.

Arlette was traveling after a terrible tragedy, trying to find some way to live her life. For quite a while, she didn’t discuss what that was,but one night after some spaghetti and cheap wine at Clare’s house, she spilled the story. Clare clutched her daughters tight to her that night, happy for once that they only had the one bed to share.

In her warm kitchen so many years later, sitting in silence with Levi at the table after everyone left, Clare bent her head into her arms. How could she have missed the fact that Rosemary—not Tillie, never Tillie, how could she ever call her that name?—had beenstolen, not washed away by the fast-running waters of the creek that fall?

They’d had rain for days on end, and the girls had gone out to play during a rare break. Only Sage had come back, hysterical, her sister lost. When she led Clare back out into the forest, the ground had given way on the bank, and one of Rosemary’s socks had been found nearby.

Lost to the water.

They’d combed the woods, and called for her, and teams had gone out to sea to look for her body, but she’d never been found. Rosemary was gone.