Into the Darkest Day

Abby was well-used to his ways, had learned a tried-and-tested method of handling him that her best friend Shannon said was dysfunctional but Abby preferred to think of as expedient. Besides, Shannon didn’t know everything, even though she thought she did. Only Abby and her father did, though they never talked about it. Only she and her father knew how to move carefully around the ghosts that drifted through every room of the house. Only she and her father knew why they were there—what had really happened the day her mother and brother had died.

“I hope he does come,” Simon said with another one of his engaging smiles, the kind that crinkled eyes and wrinkled a nose and made Abby feel like smiling back. “It was his father after all, isn’t that right?”

“Tom Reese? Yes, he is—was—my father’s father.” Abby shook her head slowly. “Although neither of us know how your grandmother could have ended up with his war medal. My father didn’t even know he had been given one in the first place.”

“I’m afraid I don’t really know why she had it, either. My grandmother didn’t tell me that part, at least not exactly, although she gave a few hints.”

“It’s very strange…”

“But intriguing, don’t you think?” Simon leaned forward, his face alight with interest, his brown eyes sparkling behind his glasses.

Abby rolled her glass, damp with condensation, between her palms.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” She knew she sounded wary, by the way Simon’s smile faltered as his curious gaze scanned her face.

When she’d read Simon’s first email, she hadn’t known what to think.

Hello, you don’t know me, but I know of you—at least a bit! My grandmother Sophie Mather died a few months ago, and she was in possession of your grandfather Tom Reese’s Purple Heart medal, awarded during his active service in the second world war. She told me she wanted it returned to “its proper owner”.

I’ve read on your website that your grandfather passed away some time ago, and I’m very sorry for your loss. I presume the proper owner would now be you or your father. I’m coming to the United States this summer for an extended visit, and would love the opportunity to return the medal to your family.

Abby had read it all, her mind both blank and spinning. Sophie Mather? What medal? And a visit?

“Do you know anything about your grandfather’s war service?” Simon asked and she looked up, shaking her head.

“No, not really.” Not at all, actually. All Abby knew wa

s that Tom Reese had fought in Europe in the Second World War, come home to Minnesota, and then moved with his young bride Susan to Wisconsin. He’d bought Willow Tree Orchards in 1951, and died when Abby was a toddler, forty years later, a heart attack when he was seventy-one. Her grandmother had died three years after that.

Abby didn’t remember either of them really at all, save for a few vague recollections of her granny—a powdered, wrinkled cheek pressed to hers, and a tin of boiled sweets kept high on a shelf in the pantry, doled out at special moments. There was only one portrait of them to go by, hung in the hall, of Tom and Susan’s wedding day, black and white, both of them looking serious and old-fashioned, even a little bit grim.

And yet, somehow, Simon Elliot’s grandmother back in Britain had been in possession of Tom Reese’s war medal. There had to be a reason.

“It was clearly very important to her,” Simon said after a moment. “He was. The tone in her voice, the way she talked about him—they clearly had a friendship of some sort.”

Abby shifted in her seat, the rocking chair giving a protesting creak. “I really don’t know anything about it. I’m sorry…”

“He never mentioned my grandmother?” Simon asked, sounding both earnest and disappointed. “Sophie Mather? Not even in passing?”

“Not that I know of. But, as I said in the email, he died when I was a very young child. I don’t remember him at all. Maybe my father…” She stopped, not wanting to give him more hope than was warranted. She doubted very much that her father wanted to stroll down memory lane with Simon Elliot.

“Don’t be sorry.” Simon glanced out at the rolling lawns that led to the main road, everything lush and green this time of year, before the heat of the summer dried the grass out and turned it brown. “It’s so beautiful here, and I’ve always loved the States. I spent a year here after university, in Pennsylvania. I absolutely loved it.”

“What were you doing?”

“It was a teaching program for new graduates. I taught history to a bunch of students in inner-city Philadelphia.”

“Goodness. That sounds challenging.”

“Yes, but wonderful too.” He cocked his head. “What about you? Have you traveled?”

“Not at all.” She tried to lighten her response with a smile. “I’ve been to a few places in America, but basically I’ve stayed here my whole life, helping on the farm.”

“You must like it, then.”

“Yes, I do.” She spoke firmly—maybe too firmly. Abby turned her head to gaze out towards the barns, their red-painted sides weathered and peeling under the bright summer sun. She squinted, trying to make out the familiar, slightly stooped figure of her father coming across the yard, but she didn’t see him. “Should I get my dad?” she asked. “You’ll want to meet him, and I suppose the medal belongs to him, really. He was my grandfather’s only child.”

“Yes, I suppose it does. But I don’t want to trouble him—”