the door. “We’d best get ourselves off to bed. Thank you once again.” James followed Tom from the house, kissing Elizabeth on the cheek just before he left. It came as a relief when her father closed the door.
* * *
When the house was empty of visitors, Dr. Davenport directed Elizabeth back into the drawing room, guiding her to sit in one of the chairs. They remained in silence until her father spoke. “I think it’s very important we address what happened tonight, Elizabeth.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yes, unfortunately it is. But we don’t want to fuel the rumor mill, do we?” People were already starting to talk. Even in the shop last week she had felt the hush of a whispered conversation and knew somehow without hearing a word that it had been about her family. “Sleepwalking would be a much kinder story than the truth, for all involved.”
“Of course, Daddy. But . . .” she began, and then thought better of it.
“What is it, Elizabeth?”
“It’s just . . .” She hesitated, licking her salty lips. The ocean was still loud in the distance, sounding now to her like a threat. “This is as good as she is ever going to be from now on, isn’t it?”
He sighed heavily, all his breath leaving him, and for a moment Elizabeth wished she could take her question back. The burden of it weighed heavily on her, but she had to know what to expect.
“Alzheimer’s comes and goes in waves, Elizabeth. She will have good days, and there will be bad days. But when you are with the people you love there is nothing that one cannot find the strength for. One can always find the light through the dark when there is love, no matter what is expected of you.” His hand stroked heavily across her shoulders. “Now go on, Elizabeth. Get yourself off to bed. It’s been a long night.”
Moonlight illuminated the staircase as she climbed, her skin pale and cold in the gray light. She found herself not only feeling pleased about the absence of an engagement ring on her finger, but also thinking of Tom. Tonight, she realized that she had never been more grateful for anybody in the whole world. The image of him lingered in her mind, stumbling from the water with her mother under his arm, saving one of the people she loved most. She was still thinking about him when she slipped into her sheets, when she closed her eyes and eventually succumbed to sleep. That night she dreamed that she was the one who was struggling out at sea, fighting for breath, and that Tom was the one who came to rescue her.
Now
For a while Elizabeth sat at the table, staring at the basket of past wishes. For forty-nine years he had kept his promise, had always delivered. For the second time in as many minutes she got up to check that she hadn’t made a mistake, telling herself that perhaps it had been windy overnight and that the pot had blown away. It was impossible to ignore the fact that Tom had always known how to account for that in the past, tucking his gift alongside the front step, just behind the rose planters. Never once had his gifts gone missing. Never once had he forgotten.
Could she have it wrong? The calendar hung above her from a pin tacked into the old plaster wall, so she ran a gnarled fingertip along the row until she came across the right date. September 7. There it was, the little blue crocus she had painted in anticipation. Had she gotten the date itself wrong? Things like that happened lately, at her age more than she would have liked. Only last week she’d wandered down to the Roundhouse, the gallery in Porthsennen, to inquire whether any of her latest watercolors had sold. After she’d waited outside for the best part of an hour, watching as the surfers moved back and forth in the water, Old Man Cressa’s grandson had walked past.
“Out for the last of the weather?” he’d called as his little spaniel scurried along a trail of scent on the ground.
“Waiting for them to open,” she’d said, pointing to the gallery, then tapping her watch. “Am I running fast or are they running late? My watch says it’s almost ten.”
“I’d say you’re running about twenty-three hours too fast,” he’d said, laughing to himself. “It’s Sunday.”
Stupidity had swamped her at the realization, and even more