Page 28 of Nineteen Eighty

“Now,” Colleen said. “Follow me.”

Olivia skipped ahead, twirling in her yellow dress. Edouard lumbered at Colleen’s side, awkward in his silence. She sensed he wanted to say something, and she almost broke the quiet to reduce her own discomfort.

Pausing outside the door, he found his words. “Things will be different, from now on.”

“Sorry?”

“For your sister.”

Colleen nodded, slowly. Who else had said those words, just yesterday?

Things will be different, Colleen.

Cordelia, everyone’s emotions are a mess right now.

I don’t know for how long. All I know is, right now, I can do this, for Charles. I can raise his girls. One day I’ll resent them again, but we can all hope that day won’t come soon, can’t we?

I still think we should hire a nanny.

Loyalty is something Charles and I both know, Colleen. I know what you all think of me. You’re not wrong. But I have never, ever been disloyal to your brother. You might say my hysterectomy was an act of disloyalty, but I gave him what he needed. A son. An heir. I owed him nothing more than that. And yet, I’ve kept his secrets. You and I both know what he’s capable of. What he’s done.

I have no idea—

You do. We don’t need to discuss it here, or ever. I’ve kept his secrets. When the day comes, I’ll find you, and we can get your nanny, Colleen.

The day will come, though. Won’t it?

Cordelia hadn’t answered.

Evangeline and Joseph spoke to the chaplain in a fog. He was a nice man, with a calming presence, but Evangeline’s mind was elsewhere as she replayed every conversation she’d had with Cassie over the past year. Even with her consent, Evangeline knew Cassie had been beyond her help, but had she seen her a month ago? Two? Three? So much could’ve been different. Everything could’ve been different.

Joseph clutched tightly to the plastic bag that held Cassie’s final belongings. Her Timex watch, a couple of rings, and the sundress she’d been wearing when she was taken in. Her sandals had been lost somewhere, they said. His mind was bare to Evangeline, because he didn’t know any better, but she wanted to respect his privacy. Still, she picked up glimpses without trying.

How did the entire world change in forty-eight hours?

Evangeline slipped her hand through Joseph’s. She told herself it was to give him strength, but she needed some too, from the only other person in the world who understood who Cassie was. What she meant.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” the young chaplain began, and both followed suit, mumbling the words in dutiful repetition, minds equally numb and electric with questions. Hardly a day ago, Evangeline had been preparing for bed, calm and collected despite the chaos swirling around her family in New Orleans. Her life had been on a trajectory that scared and exhilarated her. The foundation growing beneath her feet no longer had sharp edges.

Everyone else Evangeline had loved and lost had died away from her. She hadn’t been allowed to be there when her father passed, and Maddy lost her life in a car leaving New Orleans. Aunt Ophelia, too, died before they could get there to be with her.

There was something otherworldly about watching life slip from a person, and it was even more true when that person was someone you loved as much as Evangeline loved Cassie. Even as her breaths slowed, there was still a color in her, a sense of life beyond the flesh. A presence of spirit. But when Cassie’s mouth froze forever in time with her last half-breath, that presence disappeared. Evangeline didn’t know where souls went when they died, but she very much believed in the tangible nature of a soul. That it existed more soundly within a body, but existed nonetheless. She’d missed watching Cassie’s soul depart, but she’d seen the moment it was no longer there, inhabiting her beautiful, tired vessel.

Somehow, that was the worst. Seeing the body of the woman she’d told everything to, had spent hundreds of late nights talking with, rendered irrelevant.

A nurse knocked on the door. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, Chaplain. Mrs. Deschanel has a visitor.”

Evangeline exchanged a startled look with Joseph. She started to turn, to get up, but the mystery was quickly solved.

Johannes Gehring stood in the doorway. His pale, Nordic cheeks were flushed with the fresh exertion of travel. He held a bouquet of flowers, which the nurse took and settled somewhere in the back of the chapel.

Evangeline tried to say something, but her speech failed her.

Her love was here. His beautiful soul had seen her greatest need and rose to meet it.

It was something Cassie would have done.

Johannes turned to Joseph. He reached forward and took both the man’s hands in his. In his soft Swedish accent, he said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Collins. Evangeline has always told me the most wonderful things about Cassandra.”

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