insist. I can sleep anywhere.” She sat on the edge of the bed, overwhelmed by the impropriety of the situation and yet not caring at all. Part of her wished he would join her.
She leaned back against the headboard. “What I said earlier about my life before the war... I loved Tom.” It felt odd to be talking about her husband here, in his best friend’s bedroom, but she felt as though she had to explain. “I still do. It was just the life, you know, married, in the suburbs. I never quite fit in.”
“I understand,” Mark replied. “It was like me, at Yale.” Grace was surprised; she had always thought of Mark as one of the guys. “I was there on scholarship. I don’t suppose Tom ever mentioned it.” Grace shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t have, of course. I was always working, waiting tables in the dining hall, doing whatever I needed to earn extra money and make ends meet. Tom never minded, but some of the fellas made sure I knew I would never be one of them. It doesn’t matter in the end. I’ve done fine for myself,” he added, gesturing around the room. “The ink on my diploma is the same as theirs. But I’ll never forget that feeling.”
Grace shook her head. “It was more than just the not fitting in. When Tom was finishing officers’ school, he wanted me to come down to Georgia for the graduation and have a few days together before he shipped out. But I didn’t. I made some excuses about needing to be in Westport for work. But really it just seemed too much, the trip down there. And being among all of those officers and their wives, it was everything I hated about married life, only more so. When I said I couldn’t go, Tom arranged to come to New York and see me before he left. That’s why he was in the jeep. That’s why he was killed.” Not going to Georgia had been the worst mistake of her life.
Mark sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. “You didn’t know, Gracie. We just never know.” They sat together without speaking for several minutes. Finally, he stretched out beside her on the bed. They didn’t touch but he held her hand firmly in his.
Neither of them spoke further. Several minutes passed, broken by the quiet ticking of a clock on his nightstand. She turned to look at him. He lay just inches from her, legs flung over the edge. His eyes were closed and his breathing had grown long and even, signaling sleep. Longing rose up in her. She reached out her hand, wanting to wake him.
Then she stopped herself. What had happened in New York had been bad enough, but this...this longing, was a whole other thing entirely. It had to stop.
She was suddenly racked with guilt and doubt. What was she doing here? She had come to find out what she could about Eleanor and the girls, and now she knew. There was nothing more to be learned here. There was no reason to stay. It was time to get back to New York and her work with Frankie and figuring out the life that awaited her.
Grace quietly sat up and stepped out of the bed. She moved closer to Mark in spite of herself. Her hand lingered close to his neck. Sensing her there, he shifted in his sleep. She was seized once more with the urge to wake him for all the wrong reasons. No, she had to leave now.
Still wearing his flannel shirt, Grace picked up her clothes and tiptoed from the room. She changed in the bathroom, then went to the office to phone a cab. Her purse was there, the papers she had taken from the Pentagon just beneath them. She should leave those here, for Mark to return to the archive. But she picked up the file and opened it.
The documents, wireless transmissions and interoffice memos were the same ones she and Mark had looked at earlier in the taxi back from the Pentagon. But now she viewed them with a fresh eye. Could there be evidence among them that Eleanor had betrayed her girls?
There was an incoming telegram. “Thank you for your collaboration and for the weapons you sent us. SD.” Grace felt a tightening in her chest. SD stood for Sicherheitsdienst, the German intelligence service. The message was clear confirmation that the Germans had been