‘No time for messing around, Marjie. I’ve more important things to do.’ With this, Sibbie jumped off the bed and waved goodbye, before slowly opening the bedroom door and looking each way along the landing.

In no time Wills had slipped into her room and Marjie felt all her dreams come true, as he came to her and held her. ‘Marjie, my Marjie.’

In his arms making silent love, she found her heaven. Her peace. Nothing intruded on the feelings Wills gave her when finally, after four weeks of wanting him so badly that she’d ached for him, he entered her. Marjie’s world exploded, and her love for him overwhelmed her. She whispered, ‘Wills. Oh, Wills, I love you.’ It was for his ears only, just as his words of love were for hers.

By the time Easter came, Marjie knew that everything in her world was going to be all right. That the memories would stop haunting her and would be replaced with logic and understanding.

She’d visited her brother’s memorial and, despite the ice clinging to the grass, had sat down and talked to him. ‘I’m sorry, Monty. I so wished everything had been different. I miss you more than I can say.’ The schism in her heart, which she’d not been able to heal, had opened up again.

Looking at Alice’s inscription – ‘A child loved dearly, now with Jesus and safe from pain’ – she’d wished with all she had that she’d been able to know Alice. And thought how wonderful it would have been to have an older sister to talk to and turn to. But then she’d read the inscription on Monty’s vase, and her heart and conscience slowly began to heal. Yes, Monty had lived by his own decisions, and it was those that had led to his death – not her. As Arnie had said, she had only saved lives with her decisions.

With this new way of looking at everything, Marjie turned away with a lighter heart. And now she knew that she could truly look to the future. A future not haunted by the things in her past that she couldn’t change.

EPILOGUE

Britain,
1945

Flowers to the Sea

CHAPTER THIRTY

London and Portpatrick

Ella and Flors

‘Freddy’s coming home. At last, my darling, our boy is coming home.’

Cyrus’s joyful cry filled the apartment. Flors caught her breath in her lungs in a feeling of mixed emotions. At last. To have two of my sons together again, thank God. If only . . . Pulling herself up, she decided not to think like that. Monty was gone – well, from this earth, but never from her heart. She looked around at all the crates, packed ready to take back home. Soon a very changed group would be travelling back to their beloved France.