“You went to Swiss school?”
I watch his nape as he nods. His tricep flexes as he swings the hammer.
“Where was it located?”
“Near Geneva.”
“Do you speak French, then?”
“I do.”
“Parlez-vous aussi Italien et Allemand?”
He turns around to smirk at me. “Oui, oui. Et vous parlez Francais.”
“Yes, I had several years of French, and for a year we had a tutor. I do believe you paid for it.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even know we still brought stuff out to the island—” he falters, his gaze veering away from mine for just a moment— “until my cousin told me.”
“Why Tristan?” I know the answer, of course, but I’m testing him to see if he does.
My heart pounds as he says, “My father came here as a young guy. Says he never forgot it.”
The ache in my chest breaks like a wave, and pain drips through me. I remember Mummy as we walked to the post office. I remember how her face went dreamy when she thought no one was looking. I remember putting my hand to hers—to her hand that held the letter.
“What’s that word mean, Mummy?”
“Which one, darling?”
I frowned, trying to remember what it looked like on paper. “Yearning.”
She stopped and glanced around, and seeing no
one, leaned in closer, speaking softly. “Dearest, did you read my letter?”
“Just the one bit. What does it mean?”
Her face softens, and I can see her thinking—trying to decide whether to tell me. “Yearning is when you want something, my darling…especially something you can’t have.”
“So, when you want something forbidden?”
“Yes, my dearest. It’s a bit like forbidden.”
Thirteen
Finley
When I was fifteen, someone phoned Gammy. I suppose the call must have come when I was lingering about, so she waited and returned it when I was at the summer dance.
I couldn’t dance that afternoon, though—I remembered too well father twirling Mummy in our living room—the calm before the storm—so I picked up the end of my dress and walked slowly home—not to Gammy’s house, but to my other home. The one that still sits empty by the cliffs.
And there I wrote my name in dust, and there I found the letters.
Dearest Hudson…
To My Darling Isla…
If they had a girl child, they would name her Finley. He thought it whimsical; she would be a sort of lovely mermaid. If the firstborn were a boy, he would be Declan—a family name in the Carnegie line.