“I thought Tom was the one supposed to be having a shower,” she said, looking at Elizabeth’s clothes. Elizabeth felt her face flush as Panny moved toward them. “Let’s get back to the room and I’ll get you a spare towel.”
Tom eased into his freshly made bed, and Elizabeth looked down at her clothes. A towel would be no use.
“Would you like me to bring you something?” Panny asked, pointing to Elizabeth’s clothes. “I could find some pajamas for you while they dry.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ve got something else.” She picked up the bag and disappeared into the bathroom.
Panny set a little bottle of tablets on the table and Tom snatched it up. He gave it a good inspection, shaking it to get a look at each different drug.
“I don’t know why I have to take these,” Tom said. “Not doing me any good, are they? Make me feel sick every time.”
“We can give you something to counteract that if you want,” Panny said. Tom rolled his eyes at the thought of yet another tablet. As if one more made a difference. “Because they’re doing you a lot of good.”
“Not going to cure me, though, are they,” he said to himself, before tipping the tablets into his mouth and washing them down with a sip of water. And just like that, the moment in the shower when Elizabeth had made him feel like the teenage boy he was when they first met was gone. But just a couple of moments after Panny left the room, Elizabeth arrived before him, wearing the pink robe he had given her as part of one of the wishes.
“You still have it?” he said, his eyes wide and mouth soft.
The silk brushed her bare skin as she stood self-aware in the doorway to the bathroom. Francine had sent it to her, along with the bottle of champagne last week. It was obvious from the easy expression on his face that he liked what he saw, and it gave her a sense that she was exactly where she was supposed to be, doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. “Of course I still have it. I kept everything you ever brought for me.”
“When was that one? I can’t remember.”
Warm air billowed out as she lifted the sheets and slipped into the bed alongside his shrinking frame. From the robe’s pocket she handed him two slips of blue paper. Holding the first at some distance in the absence of his glasses, he read.
“1985. ‘I wish I could see you in this beautiful pink robe.’ And 2010. ‘I wish we could take a long shower together.’”
“I think it just about counts. Don’t you?”
He rested his head on her shoulder. Another two of his wishes coming true. He had to hand it to her; even in this place filled with disease and death, she had found a way to help him experience what it meant to live. “I daresay it does, Elizabeth. If only we could make them all come true, eh?”
“If only,” she said. But there was a part of her that dared to hope that they might still find a way.
Then
On the day of Catherine Davenport’s funeral, the sky was clear, the soft gray of cashmere rising from the ocean. Standing in the churchyard at Saint Sennen’s, one hand in the loose grip of her father’s, the other in the tight hold of James’s, Elizabeth listened to the committal. Numb feet shuffled as they lowered the coffin, and then, when it was all over, she watched as her father retreated to the vestibule of the church to where she saw Tom’s mother dressed in a simple black dress, waiting almost out of view. Her hair was neat, a small hat perched on the top. Elizabeth’s father held her in a brief embrace.
“Why don’t we get out of here?” James said, almost as if he was trying to hurry her away.
But keen to see what was exchanged, she waited, watching as they spoke. From behind her, she heard one of the village women in attendance mutter, “Some things never die,” and Elizabeth knew there and then that Tom had been telling her the truth about their parents’ past.
Porthsennen had quieted like a hibernating bear, adjusting to life in the new season. Fishing had all but finished, even the most experienced keeping well away from the rougher seas of fall, and most of the tourists had gone home. The village was quiet,