“Am I?” She looks up. “Or am I a widow? Or, worse, abandoned? Who is he with? You must have had that thought yourself.” Her dark eyes shimmer. “And now you don’t want me.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you.” He studies the pattern of the yellow wallpaper as she steps back into the nightdress. “I can’t do this because you’ll regret it. I know that. If you did this you wouldn’t forgive yourself, and I like you enough that I wouldn’t want you to feel that way.”

“But you think he’s dead, don’t you?”

“Do you want me to say it?”

She looks down. “I just want to know.”

“You could find him tomorrow, and then how would you feel about this?” He nods at her white dress. He finds it hard to look at her. “Your telephone might ring next week. There might be a knock at your door. He might be there on your doorstep when you get home.”

“I could also find him dead tomorrow.”

He supposes that she may be right. “I can’t do this to you. I can’t do this to your husband. I can’t take that chance.”

“Even though you think he’s dead?”

He shakes his head.

“You told me to get on with my life.”

“I didn’t mean this.”

“It’s all right.” She turns to go, her shoulders hunched now. “I’m sorry, Harry. That maybe wasn’t fair of me. It’s all just such a dreadful mess.”

It’s the second time today that he has heard the phrase. She stares at him in the doorway. Her dark eyes are solemn. Her hands close around the Forget Me Not locket.

“I know,” he says.

He thinks of the last time he saw Francis’s face. He thinks of his mother framing photographs of her dead sons, draping them in black crepe to confirm that they weren’t coming back. He thinks of Edie watching a section of the station, waiting for him to step into that space. Has he walked away again and left another absence? He doesn’t know whether he should be here. He doesn’t know where he should be. But he knows that he couldn’t assume the space that David West has left.

“Don’t not tell her,” says Rachel. “Don’t leave it too late.”

Chapter Nine: Edie

Chapter Nine

Edie

Lancashire, March 1920