They have. They truly have, in my brief experience. But I always had someone watching out for me. Now…I have no one. Save a husband who is poorer, as it turns out, than I am. He’s given up the tiny room he’s been letting outside Cheltenham, assuming we’d remain for a time at Lady St. Laurent’s home, which I now have no claim on whatsoever. The sum total of what I own is in the worn bag at my feet, and we have no home. Nomoney and no prospects, and no Cecil. Nowhere tokeephim, even, unless I can claim my inheritance. “She’ll come looking for me. I’m sure of it.”
“So we evade them until we figure something out. Duck and run.” He points at the train huffing into the station. “Let Gould work his magic in the hearings.”
Evade Sabine St. Laurent. Like outrunning a plague. No, a poison. The snake has already bitten, and it is only a matter of time, so I must find the antidote. If one exists.
Another train chugs into the station and there’s a flurry of activity.
“Your family. Let’s call uponyourfamily.” I’d heard only a single word on his parents—deceased.Nothing on the others.
“Whyever would we do that?”
“Sabine won’t know where to look for us. Have you any cousins? A widowed aunt who might enjoy the company?”
“I’ve heard the South of France is quite lovely. Rather secluded.”
“AJ, your family. Where are they? Surely there’s one—”
“That’ll do, now. Pick a place, my lady,” he says with a wide wave of his arms. “Any place in the world and we shall make it our home until we tire of it.”
I close my eyes, mind buzzing with a niggling discomfort and that disquieting word:home.
But I do have one somewhere. When my mind floats, it always goes to one place. “AJ, what about the seashore?”
He cocks an eyebrow.
“We don’t have to put down roots this moment, do we? Most people have a wedding trip.”
His mouth is a straight line. “So they do. But that isn’t what you have in mind, is it? Why the seashore, exactly?”
I sit straighter, meeting his gaze. “There’s only one way to avoid the asylum, AJ. One sure way.”
“What? What is it?”
For so long they’ve poked at the surface, these hazy memories, and I’ve shoved them down. Mostly with a small flick, but now they’re coming on stronger, more insistent. Those orange blossoms swept me back to the seashore, and it has been nearly tangible since then.
So are the memories of a cozy home. Which is where? With whom?
I’ll have to let the memories tell me. To sweep over the cracked surface of my life and flood them with who I was before, the beautiful and the ugly. It’s the only way.It is possible for a person to access dormant memories,Dr. Bartlett said.Provide the right context, and there’s every chance the memories associated with it will come flooding back.
I have the key to freedom. I merely have to turn it. “AJ…I have to go back.”
Those images and sensations always swept up on me like a wave. Now, instead of running for dry land the moment they wet my feet, I have to wade in. No,dive.Swim deep and float in them, joining the past self with this new one to somehow form a whole person. Only whole people are free.I’m coming for you, Cecil. I won’t let them keep me from you.
A whistle sounds, and people flurry across the platform, standing back from the edge. AJ crosses his arms and considers me. “Back.”
“It’s probably a terrible idea,” I yell over the roar, “and it may not even work and I know we haven’t any money, but—”
“That’s not entirely true.” He lifts a leather pouch and a smile spreads over his face. “I’ve set some aside for just such an occasion.”
“Like eating?”
“We’ll do plenty of that once the inheritance comes in. Now, the special occasion is convincing my wife I’m a decent bloke who’s worth her time.”
I laugh, a pressure valve releasing.
“Any particular seashore, luv?”
I wilt back. “That’s the thing. I don’t remember. Maybe we can…look for it?”
