Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
- When We Meet Again
- A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
- Discussion Guide
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
A silence stretched out between them, and Alice let it settle, giving Elizabeth time to think. Then Alice reached over to squeeze her hand briefly. “I only need his name. And I’ll be discreet, no one ever needs to know—not even Olive, if you don’t want her to.”
“Of course she’ll know! Don’t be silly, Alice. Do you think her informer is ever going to trust her again after you turn up? There’ll be no more stories, no more information she can publish to keep the baby farmers in people’s minds. We could be sacrificing thousands of other kids for your cousin’s if I do what you’re asking me to.”
“But the law is coming in anyway. There’s only a month to go. Yes, Olive’s reports are important, but she’s achieved what she set out to do—mothers and babies will be more protected. Her reports aren’t going to make as much difference as they have in the past . . . not as much difference as they could to my cousin’s baby and possibly others imprisoned by the same people.”
Alice’s intuition that there was someone else who had been helping Olive—a contact on the inside—had been right, but Elizabeth was resolute in her loyalty.
“Please. I wouldn’t ask if there was any other way.”
“You could wait until Thursday and ask Olive yourself.”
“But I thought she wasn’t back until the weekend.”
Elizabeth grew silent again, her fingers playing across the edge of the desk, eyes trained down as if searching for the answer.
Their acquaintance had grown into a friendship over the weeks of visits, and Alice sensed that the librarian felt the same. Alice hesitated briefly and then followed her instinct and reached out her hand, placing it over Elizabeth’s. “She’s mine, Elizabeth,” she whispered. “The baby that I’m looking for. She’s mine.”
The librarian looked up and her eyes filled as she bit her bottom lip, and Alice tried not to cry too.
“I don’t know if it’s even his real name,” Elizabeth replied as she blinked away tears, “but I know where you can find him.”
Alice squeezed her hand. “I don’t know how to—”
Elizabeth gently withdrew her hand and picked up a pencil, scribbling on a scrap of paper, then pushed it across the counter. “It’s best if we still keep it between the two of us, though. For the time being.”
“All right,” Alice replied, reading the hastily written name and address.
“And, Alice?”
“Yes?”
“Olive has good reason to want justice, and she trusts him . . . but be careful.”
Thirty-two
London, May 3, 1943