Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia Macneal

Author:Susan Elia Macneal [MacNeal, Susan Elia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-90756-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

“SHE WAS DRIVING back to the base when the car must have overturned in the raid,” Chuck said.

They sat together on the steps, numbly watching the sky turn a milky gray at the horizon, John sitting on a stair below. “The gas tank must have ignited—” Sarah’s eyes overflowed again. “Oh, hell.”

With shaking fingers, Chuck rummaged through her handbag and pulled out her battered cigarette case. She pulled one out and tried to light it, but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t. John took the lighter and cigarette gently from her hands. He rolled the wheel slowly down on the flint. A blue-and-orange flame erupted, and he held the cigarette tip in it and inhaled. When it was lit, he returned it, and the lighter, to Chuck.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a deep drag.

“When?” Maggie asked.

“Early tonight,” Annabelle said. “Police came by around midnight.”

“It was an accident?” John asked.

“An accident,” Clarabelle said.

Sarah blew her nose. “The cop said that it looked like she must have hit a fallen tree. Must have hit it and flipped.” She drew in a ragged breath. “The car flipped.” She couldn’t speak for a moment. “Then it caught on fire.”

Maggie tried not to picture a car engulfed in flames, Paige inside, trying to get out.

“I know,” Chuck said, as if reading her thoughts. Her usually booming voice was uncharacteristically small and tight.

They all sat on the steps in silence for a long time. The morning faded in and out as time stopped and started in bursts.

Paige is dead, Maggie thought over and over again. It just wasn’t sinking in.

Paige would come walking up the street or waltz through the door at any minute, scolding them for being late, asking about their day, showing off her newly made-over dress. Paige giggling over tea in the kitchen, Paige dancing, Paige in Latin class, at the dining hall at Claflin.

It was impossible that she was dead.

“Her mother—”

“Said we’d call her. We just couldn’t, though,” Annabelle said, looking over at Chuck, who shook her head.

“Besides, it’s only, what, one in the morning in Virginia?” Clarabelle added.

“We can call her in a few hours,” Maggie said. “Let her sleep. It’s going to be the last night of rest she’ll have for a while.”

“Yeah.” Chuck took a long drag on her cigarette. Maggie struggled to piece together practical details.

“What about her body?” John asked.

Sarah blinked. Hard. “No body. Nothing recovered.”

“Oh my God,” Maggie said. “Oh, please, no.”

“Maggie …” John said, sitting down on the step beside her.

But it was true: Paige was gone. And there was nothing left of her. And nothing for the three of them to do except wait for dawn in Virginia to make the phone call.

Just before they left for the service, Maggie stood at the doorway of Paige’s room. They’d packed all of her belongings in a domed wooden steamer trunk to send back to her mother in Virginia. She told the girls they could keep what they wanted. Maggie had decided to keep Paige’s heavy, square glass bottle of Joy with the golden cap, nearly empty.

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