23. Twenty-Three

23

PRESENT

O kay, it’s not quite a million pieces. It’s more like three, really. But in the long moments that pass after the wooden snow globe box hits the floor, it seems to me that this is the kind of tragedy that can only be adequately summed up with the generous use of hyperbole; and, luckily, that’s one of the things I’m good at.

“Oh my God, Elliot, I’m so sorry,” I gasp, tears pricking dangerously at the back of my eyes as I kneel down to inspect the damage. “Seriously, I can’t believe how clumsy I am. I’ll … I’ll pay you for it, though, I promise. I know that’s not going to make it any better, because it’s basically irreplaceable, but … Oh God, this is awful.”

I sit back on my heels, looking at the broken pieces of Evie’s work box. As luck would have it, the glass globe somehow landed on the sofa, so it miraculously survived the fall. And the little people, and other small pieces, are obviously okay too. But the lid of the box has come off, as has the base, and I reach for it now, wondering if there’s some way it can be fixed.

“I really am sorry,” I say again, glancing up at Elliot, who’s suspiciously quiet for a man who’s just watched the one thing he came all this way for, fall apart right before his eyes. “I’ll take it to … someone … as soon as I get home, and see if it can be fixed. A carpenter, maybe. Or … an antiques dealer, maybe?”

Elliot, however, doesn’t answer. I’m not sure he’s even listening , actually.

Maybe it’s the shock? Maybe I should get him a glass of water? Or brandy, if he has it? Isn’t that what people on TV always use for shock?

“What’s that?” he says suddenly, breaking the silence.

“What’s what?” I look around in confusion as he drops to the floor beside me, looking much more excited than I’d really have expected him to be about buying something only for his ex to instantly break it.

“Look, Holly. Look at this!”

Elliot reaches out and picks up the wooden base of the box, which I haven’t dared touch yet, because I’ve been so busy trying to figure out how to reunite the lid with the sides. But now that I look at it properly, I see what’s got his attention.

“Is that …?”

I shuffle closer as Elliot turns the wooden base over in his hands, revealing a large gap at the bottom, through which something thin and papery can just be seen.

“There’s a compartment in the bottom of this,” he says, examining it. “Look.”

I look. And he’s right. What appeared to be the bottom of the box, is actually a kind of lid; one which Elliot carefully pries open with his fingertips.

“A secret compartment,” I breathe, feeling like a little kid again, hiding in a corner of the bookstore with one of her favorite mystery stories. “I can’t believe there’s a secret compartment.”

There is, though. And, all of a sudden, it springs open, spilling a bunch of folded paper onto the floor, all of it a distinctive pale blue color.

Letters.

The bottom of the box was stuffed with letters.

“Okay,” I say, the smile on my face mirroring the one currently on Elliot’s. “ Now we’re in a movie.”

Outside the giant living room window, the sun is starting to make its way towards the horizon, turning the sky a soft pink which is reflected on the snow beneath it.

Elliot and I aren’t looking at the view, though.

No, Elliot and I are sitting side by side on the sofa — in the middle this time, rather than at opposite ends — poring over the letters we found in the box, which are all dated from just after the war, and all written to Evie from Luke: Elliot’s great-grandfather.

“He wasn’t exactly a man of many words, was he?” says Elliot, once the initial excitement of finding the letters in the first place has worn off, and we’ve finally stopped repeating variations of the words, “I can’t believe this! Can you believe this? Because I can’t believe this!” over and over again.

“Well, these might not be all the letters he sent her,” I reply. “There wasn’t a huge amount of space in that box. These are probably just the only ones she kept.”

“No, I just meant … they’re not exactly romantic, are they?”

I look down at the letter in my hand, in which Luke describes in detail a fishing trip he went on with his kid brother. It’s one of only four letters Evie deemed worthy of The Secret Compartment, as we’re calling it, and let’s just say it’s a good job it was Elliot who decided to write the greatest love story ever told (According to Levi, anyway…), because I’m not sure ol’ Luke would’ve had it in him.

“Well, no,” I admit, my eyes landing on a paragraph in which a tarpon puts up a particularly spirited fight. “But at least you know what happened to them now. You know there’s no big mystery about why they didn’t end up together. They just agreed not to. That’s all there was to it.”

And that is, it would seem, all there was to it . As far as we can tell from Luke’s faded — and honestly kind of illegible — handwriting, Evie and Luke had themselves a bit of a fling while he was stationed in England, but they knew it was only temporary; that there really wasn’t much prospect of them staying together after the war. And so they decided, by mutual agreement, to call it quits; although it looks like they did stick it out as pen-pals of sorts, for a few years at least.

They did what Elliot and I should have done when we met, in other words; they enjoyed each other’s company, and then, when it was time, they went their separate ways.

YOLO, as Levi would say.

“I guess long-distant relationships weren’t very common in those days,” Elliot says thoughtfully.

“It would’ve been pretty difficult without email, at least,” I agree, picking up one of the blue airmail envelopes. “Imagine how long it would’ve taken for this to make it across the Atlantic.”

“And phone calls would’ve been expensive, too,” adds Elliot. “I don’t think Luke was particularly well-off.”

“No. And it sounds like Evie had family here to think about, too. He mentions her baby sister a couple of times, and his little brother was only 10 when Luke enlisted. It would’ve been hard for either of them to leave their loved ones behind and just switch continents to be together.”

Elliot doesn’t comment on this, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am; which has nothing to do with Evie and Luke, and everything to do with me and him.

A love letter. He said his book was supposed to be a love letter. To me.

Now that I’ve had the chance to think about it, and take in what he said, I really want to ask him what he meant by that. It’s all I can think about. But I can’t seem to figure out a way to wrestle the conversation back to that moment before I tried to storm out of the room, and ended up changing everything.

I really wish I hadn’t done that now. Although, I suppose if I hadn’t, we’d never have found the letters; which are now all he can think about.

“Is it bad of me to admit I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic?” Elliot says, smiling ruefully. “Or at least some really solid reason why they couldn’t stay together?”

“I think these are really solid reasons,” I say firmly. “Family commitments, culture clashes, the difficulty of moving overseas … Those things aren’t nothing. I think it was very grown-up of them, actually; to realize it wasn’t going to work and save themselves the heartache of trying to force it. Very sensible. Especially considering how young they were.”

I’m still not sure I’m talking about Evie and Luke right now. And judging by the look on his face, Elliot isn’t convinced either.

“Sensible, huh?” he says softly. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Gotta keep yourself safe, don’t you? Even if it means giving something up that could’ve been amazing.”

He gets to his feet, running a hand through his dark hair in an agitated way that suggests I’ve hit a nerve.

“Not all stories have to have some kind of dramatic plot twist, Elliot,” I say defensively. “Some of them are just ordinary. It doesn’t make them any less magical, though. Ordinary things can still be beautiful.”

I think of the photos he once showed me; the sheer joy radiating out of the couple’s faces as they enjoyed their wartime fling. And I think of that first date, when we danced together in the town hall, and it felt like the start of something, even though it turned out to be just the beginning of the end. I think about a snowflake landing on the end of his nose. A glass globe containing two tiny people who looked just like us.

Ordinary things really can be beautiful.

Elliot looks at me for a long moment, his expression impossible to read.

“Do you want me to make us something to eat?” he says, abruptly changing the subject. “I don’t think there’s much chance of you getting home tonight; not in this.”

I look at the window beside me, at first only seeing my own ghostly reflection in the glass, the light having faded even more in the time we’ve been talking. Once my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, however, I see the snow piled high outside, large flakes still drifting lazily down, although the blizzard has thankfully abated by now.

“Shit,” I say, getting up and walking over to press my nose against the glass, as if moving closer will somehow change the view. “I haven’t seen snow like this in forever. I have to get home, though, Elliot.”

I turn to face him, suddenly panicky.

“Why?” he asks mildly. “Will Martin be wondering where you are? You could text him, if you want? I don’t think snow affects cellphones.”

“Martin?” I reply, gaping at him. “Why would I…? Oh. Right. You think me and Martin are still together? Well, we’re not. Definitely not.”

I attempt a lighthearted chuckle, just to underline how patently ridiculous this idea is, but I just end up sounding like Muttley, when Dastardly’s latest scheme hadn’t gone quite to plan.

“No? I must’ve got that wrong, then.”

Elliot shrugs, as if he doesn’t care either way. It makes me feel irrationally crushed.

“Yeah. You did,” I tell him. “We haven’t been together for a while now. But I still can’t stay here, Elliot. I have … I have …”

I pause, trying to think of even one good reason why it would be impossible for me not to return to my lonely little cottage tonight, but there isn’t one. Even Ed the Cat has chosen to stay with Paris in the flat, meaning there’s literally no one to go home to.

“I have the book festival tomorrow,” I say, trying not to dwell on the fact that I’m so lonely I can’t even call myself a crazy cat lady any more. “We’ve got a table at it for the store. And I need to work on my book. I have a deadline.”

“That’s fine,” says Elliot, turning and heading for the door that leads to the kitchen. “I’m going to the book festival too, so I can drive you. And you can borrow my laptop if you need to work.”

I open and close my mouth like a goldfish in peril.

“There’s a spare bedroom, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says over his shoulder. “And even if there wasn’t, you don’t have much of an option, I’m afraid. Look outside if you don’t believe me.”

He goes into the kitchen and I dash across the room to the front door, which I pull open, looking out at the other side of the house, just in case the snow isn’t as bad there.

Surprisingly enough, though, it’s exactly the same. On the driveway, Elliot’s hire car looks like an iced Christmas cake, under its blanket of white. The narrow road which serves as a driveway looks completely impassable.

Elliot wasn’t wrong. There’s absolutely no way either of us is going to be leaving this house tonight; or not safely, anyway. And given that I value my life too much to go venturing out in a blizzard in just a wool coat and a pair of high-heeled boots, that leaves me with only one option: I’m stranded in a house in the middle of nowhere with the ex-boyfriend who broke my heart, and then wrote a book about it.

And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.