Into the Darkest Day

Abby cocked her head as she gave him a smile. It felt the tiniest bit like flirting. “Are you sure that’s just not wishful thinking on your part? Making more of a mystery than there was? More of a drama, so you can write a book about it?”

“Perhaps,” Simon acknowledged with a laugh. “I’m usually happy to have my imagination run away with me.”

“Well, it is interesting.”

“Your father hasn’t said anything more, I suppose?”

Abby raised her eyebrows. “What do you think?”

Simon laughed his acknowledgment. “Right. He does seem strangely reluctant.”

“He’s like that about everything. I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“You seem… used to dealing with him.”

Abby tensed at that, but then made herself relax as she shrugged and went to take the lasagne out of the oven. “We get along.”

They both fell silent as they heard David’s familiar, heavy tread on the stair.

“I think everything’s just about ready,” Abby murmured.

David came into the kitchen, giving Simon a nod before he sat down at the head of the table. Abby placed the lasagne in the middle, and gestured for Simon to take the opposite end.

“So how long have you had this place?” he asked as he put his napkin on his lap, and David gave him the briefest of rundowns on the orchard’s history—how Tom moved from Minnesota after the war and bought it in the fifties, starting from scratch as a going concern, changing it from dairy to apples.

“He didn’t want to stay in Minnesota? With his family?”

“Seems not.” David’s voice was flat.

Abby felt a slight tension tauten the air and decided a subject change was a good idea. “What about your grandmother?” she asked as she started serving the lasagne. “Did she live in London her whole life?”

“She lived there during the war, and then married my grandfather, William Elliot, in 1948. He was a pilot during the war, and a solicitor after. They moved to Surrey, just south of London, in the fifties, and then, after he died, she retired to Devon, on the coast.”

“And the first you ever heard of us was when your grandmother mentioned the medal a few months ago?”

“Yes. And my parents hadn’t heard of it either—as I said before, my mother died a few years ago, so I was never able to ask her, but my dad hadn’t the foggiest. Strange, isn’t it?” He gave David an easy smile that the older man grudgingly returned.

“Not so strange,” he said after a moment, his voice gruff. “Like you said, most people didn’t want to talk about the war. It was a hard time, best forgotten. People wanted to move on, look to the future.”

“That’s true.” Simon nodded his agreement. “My grandmother didn’t say much about the war at all, at least as far as I can remember. I know she worked in the War Office as a secretary, but she didn’t seem to rate it very highly. She always said she didn’t do much for the war other than type letters for fusty old men.”

A silence fell over the table as they started to eat. Abby wished she could think of something interesting or witty to say, but her mind felt as if it had been wiped clean, and her father seemed only interested in eating. Simon seemed game enough, his expression as alert as ever, but Abby suspected he would tire of them both soon. They had to seem like the most boring people on the planet.

Sure enough, her father excused himself before dessert, saying he had work to do, which was both a relief and a disappointment. Abby wished he’d try, just a little, even as she was glad he was gone. Maybe now she could talk to Simon properly.

SIMON

As soon as David Reese left the room, Simon felt as if he could breathe easier. The man was like a dark cloud hovering over everything. He wondered how Abby stood it. She seemed to relax as well, he noticed, as he rose to help her clear the table.

“So you’ve never left the orchard,” he said musingly as she rinsed plates and handed them to him to stack in the dishwasher. It felt companionable to work together, finding their rhythm. Rinse, pass over, stack. “But have you ever wanted to?”

A plate nearly slipped from Abby’s hands and Simon deftly caught it, giving her a quick smile. So that had touched a nerve. He’d thought it might.

“Not really,” she said as she turned back to the sink. “Otherwise I would have.”

“There are loads of reasons for staying in the same place.”

“Did you?”