Margaret’s parents had fallen in love with the area when they came to visit and wanted nothing more than to be with their daughter and her family. They’d opened a shoe shop in the fashionable part of Broad Street, and the ladies of Richmond went crazy for them. They gave Margaret a third ownership, and she and her mother embroidered shoes during porch swing visits.

The store was called Beck & Daughter.

When they were old enough, Margaret’s twins, Dorothy and Willa, would help out. Just as John and Margaret had.

“Balloons!” Willa shouted when the festivities on the mall began. Tom bought four of them. Two for his daughters and two for Joanna and little Georgie.

“Say thank you to Uncle Tom,” Dottie instructed her children.

“Thank you, Uncle Tom,” they said in unison.

William’s mother smiled. “I can’t believe how much they’re all growing. It seems like every time I see them, they’re each six inches taller.” She fidgeted with the little glass pendant on her necklace, filled with the other half of the dirt that Tom had brought back from Normandy.

Margaret patted her girls’ heads. “Willa eats peaches as if we’ll run out. Just like her father. And Dorothy could win a milk-drinking contest if there was one.”

“Guess who!” Margaret felt hands cover her eyes.

She turned around. “Gladys! What are you doing here? And, Oliver! I thought you were heading to Zurich soon.”

Gladys shrugged. “Oliver prefers political reporting to banking stories. He’s accepted an assignment here in DC. And I’m going to march into the office of the editor at the Washington Post and demand that he hire me too.”

Nothing had changed.

“I can’t believe it. How did you know where to find us?”

Gladys and Tom exchanged a look. “Oh, I know someone who knows how to keep a secret.”

Dottie and Margaret hugged her, squeezing her neck tight. “I’m so happy to see you,” Margaret said. “Gosh, I can’t believe we’ll get to do this more often.”

Gladys’s articles about the plights of women around the world had been a mere ripple in the London Times, but she’d always said that a ripple preceded a wave and the right kind of wave was a tsunami.

The parade began and the children were hoisted up on the adults’ shoulders. Mr. Beck took Willa, and Oliver scooped Dorothy up.

Tom put his arm around Margaret and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Mmmm,” he said. “You smell good.”

“I used the last few drops of the Fragonard perfume. Even though I’ve only used it on special occasions.”

“You know what that means, of course.”

She turned to him, struck as she always was, by how much she loved her husband.

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to need to take you to Paris.”

Discover More

Discover Your Next Great Read