Beth smiled. So Flohadbelieved in an afterlife.
Her letter went on to explain why she’d never mentioned her diagnosis, which she’d received soon after Beth had arrived in town. Knowing that Pru had wished for Beth to build a life in Karlup, Flo hadn’t wanted to be a distraction. She’d rightly assumed that if Beth had known Flo was dying, then she would’ve dedicated more and more time to caring for her the closer they’d grown, instead of developing connections with the people who, according to Flo, truly mattered.
It made me so happy to see you build friendships with Ellie and Noah, because I’m certain that if things had been different, if you’d grown up in Karlup, they would’ve been a big part of your life right from the beginning, just as Pru had always been a big part of mine—which brings me to another lie I told you.
Beth gripped the edges of the letter, terrified that the peace she’d so recently found was about to shatter beyond repair.
Everything I told you about the early part of my relationship with Pru was true. We grew up as schoolmates and were inseparable, but when we were twenty-two years old, we became lovers.
‘Oh my god,’ Beth breathed. Suddenly, she couldn’t read fast enough!
Nobody ever knew the true nature of our relationship. Everyone believed we were simply best friends, but, of course, that’s what we wanted them to believe. We were raised in a time when society didn’t accept people like us, and I was afraid of what might happen if we were discovered. We’d be ostracised, maybe even run out of town, but Pru had loved this place fiercely. She never would’ve left, no matter how bad it got. So, for a long time, I denied my true feelings. Eventually, though, they became impossible to ignore. Pru was patient with me. She understood.
Unwilling to risk being rejected by their family and friends, Flo and Pru had become neighbours, giving the illusion that they lived separately, though they’d always been together. According to Flo, nobody had ever questioned it, or if they had, they hadn’t said anything.
In some ways, I regret never admitting the truth to anyone. Pru had wanted the world to know—she wasn’t afraid of anything, you see—so I regret denying her the chance to live freely, but I don’t regret the life we lived together. Our love was ours and ours alone. No one knew of it, so no one could taint it. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.
Tears tracked down Beth’s cheeks. How difficult it must have been for them, never sharing their love with anyone. She understood, now more than ever, that it was a privilege to love freely and to not be afraid to share that love with the world.
So why am I telling you now? Partly because you deserve to know all of Pru and how she’d lived her life. But also because a big part of me, the selfish part of me, wants our love to live on in you. It means the world to me to know that once I’m gone, once I’m with my darling Pru again, you’ll still be here to remember us and how much we loved each other.
Clutching the letter to her chest, Beth cried for all the pain and difficulty, the trials and tribulations, that Flo and Pru had faced in their relationship. It couldn’t have been easy, but they’d decided that love was worth it.
But was it? Was love worth the risk of losing it and feeling the pain of that loss?
It hit her, then, a memory of something Flo had said the day they’d met, about having lost her best friend.I’d suffer that grief a thousand times over for all the happy times we shared.
At the time, Beth hadn’t known she’d been talking about Pru nor that Pru wasn’t just her best friend but also her lover, but now she knew the truth. The two of them had loved each other fiercely enough to risk being discovered. And despite Flo’s grief, the pain that came with losing Pru, she believed, had been worth it.
Could Beth be brave like Flo? Could she accept love into her life and risk more loss, more pain?
Sighing, she put Flo’s letter aside. She just didn’t know if she could do it.
Needing a distraction, she began sifting through the photos Pru had given to Noah.
There were old sepia-coloured photographs, capturing a bygone era, as well as more recent, coloured photographs. She found an old wedding portrait and flipped it over, hoping for an inscription.
In luck, she read the handwritten words:Frank Campbell’s wedding to Lucy Anderson, 1929.
Lucy Anderson? L.A.! The original owner of the jewellery box!
Beth put the photo of her great-grandparents aside. She’d frame it and display it somewhere. Perhaps put the jewellery box beside it.
She continued sorting and found a black-and-white picture of her grandparents, Ian and Elizabeth, and added it to Frank and Lucy’s picture. Every photo she found of her father went into the pile, too—she’d display her favourites and put the rest in an album.
A more recent picture, perhaps taken in the early 2000s, gave her pause. It was an image of three children—a boy and two girls, so young that their faces still held that cherubic quality. In the background … hold on, was that herdadtalking to hergrandfather? And if it was, then who were the three—?
Before she’d even finished the thought, she flicked the photograph over, somehow knowing she’d find the familiar cursive handwriting.
Beth, 3, with Ellie and Noah Brennan at Elizabeth’s wake.
‘Oh my god.’
When Celia had mentioned that her father had brought her to Karlup for her grandmother’s funeral, Beth had wondered whether she’d met Pru or her grandfather, but it had never crossed her mind that she might’ve met Noah or Ellie.
Staring at the photo, she soaked in every detail. Her three-year-old self stood shyly on Noah’s left, a finger hooked in her mouth and her other hand bunched in her skirt. Cute little Ellie, with her blonde hair in pigtails, leaned around Noah to peer inquisitively at Beth, her face alight with excitement, like she was happy to have a new friend to play with. And Noah stood between them, his arms spread wide so he could rest a hand on each of their shoulders, his chest puffed out proudly and a cheeky grin on his face.
Pressing the photo to her chest, right over her heart, she laughed and shed happy tears. Because seeing the three of them together like that, with their little personalities shining through and evidence of a budding friendship, even then, she wondered, like Flo had, whether they would’ve been a big part of each other’s lives if she’d grown up in Karlup.
