Excerpt: STAY WITH ME NOW

Two families, two worlds. In Stay With Me Now, the decision to send a girl to live with an American family during the Blitz causes both families to be changed forever as old ties rupture and new bonds form.

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Beatrix

On the dock in Boston, Beatrix is alone. Everyone else has been picked up. It is already hot, even though it’s early in the day, the moon etched in chalk on the pale blue sky. Beatrix is wearing her favorite dress, red wool with a white collar and piping at the cuffs. She picked it out carefully, remembering that her mother told her to look her best but it is too warm, and sweat drips down her neck and back.

The woman who paired up the other children with their host families keeps checking her watch and looking at her clipboard. The Gregorys, she says again and again, her voice getting sharper each time. That’s the family name, is that right? Beatrix nods. The sun moves higher, tucks behind a cloud, and Beatrix shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She touches the label that she has repinned every morning since she left London. The edges are beginning to fray.

Beatrix feels as though she left home years ago, as though the girl she was there is separate from the girl standing here. So much has transpired. The darkened train filled with children. The escort singing “There’ll Always Be An England” as she waved a small British flag. The rows of cots in the fish warehouse in Liverpool. The enormous ship covered by a black tarp. The gangway swaying with every step. The heavy cork life preservers. Chocolate ice cream for breakfast, sugar cookies for tea. Glittering icebergs. Stars and stars and stars. Docking in Canada and saying goodbye to most of her new friends. Another train and then a small ferry, rolling through the rough waves. Finally, calm water as they entered Boston harbor. On a small island, three barefooted children on a dock, holding fishing rods, waving as the ferry passed. Welcome to America, Beatrix thought.

She looks down, making sure that her suitcase and gas mask are still at her side, and when she looks up, a boy is standing in front of her. It is almost as though she willed him to exist. He’s taller than she is, with curly blond hair so long it’s practically at his collar. He raises his arm to block the sun out of his eyes with his hand. This is William, she thinks, she knows. They’d had a letter, describing the house and the family, and Beatrix had read it every night on the boat. She’d memorized sections. Gerald is the younger boy, just turned nine, and William is thirteen. She’s right in the middle between the two. William’s too smart for his own good, Mrs. Gregory wrote. Beatrix thought he’d have brown hair. She didn’t think he’d be so tall or that his eyes would be green. But, still, this must be him.

Beatrix, he says, and his voice is lower than she anticipated. She nods and then another boy runs up, his face flushed, his crooked smile wide, his red-gold hair shining in the sun. This is most certainly Gerald. You’re Beatrix, aren’t you, he says. You must be, I just know it. Yes, she says, smiling, at last, because his accent is funny and his freckles are everywhere and he’s a wide open American boy.

Nancy

After the dishes are done, Nancy Gregory prepares the batter for the morning muffins, combining the sugar and butter until they are one. The house is slowly quieting down. Peter has retired to his study. William is in his room reading. Even Gerald, who’s already had his bath and been put to bed but has run downstairs three times since then, seems to have settled. This is usually her favorite time of the day, when everything is peaceful, when she can be by herself, to bake, to read, to have a cup of tea. To breathe.

It’s the girl’s turn for a bath, though. At the dock, Nancy had been shocked by the look of her, with her skin so pale, dirty white socks disappearing into heavy boots, eyes black and watchful. A worn wool dress in the middle of summer! What on earth had they signed on for? And what must this be like for her? To be sent away from home, by yourself? Nancy wonders what kind of a parent could make this choice, although she knows she has no idea what it’s like to live through a war. She doesn’t think she could do it, though, she can’t imagine putting her boys on a boat by themselves. And, Lord, what will happen if the United States enters this war. She prays each night that it won’t happen.

The batter ready for the morning, Nancy pulls out the box she’d stored in the back hall closet. She’d brought it over from her sister’s house last week when they’d returned from Maine, and it’s full of girl things: dolls, books, tea sets. Some of the items had belonged to Nancy as a child; others, like these fancy china dolls, had been her nieces. Beatrix doesn’t seem like a doll girl; Nancy hadn’t been one, either. Nancy pulls each item out and sets it on the kitchen table. Her mother’s miniature dolls, with their Victorian dresses. A cracked tea cup, that Nancy remembers as once being part of a set. Old books with their pages pulling away from the binding. Nancy isn’t sure any of this will appeal to Beatrix. She has no idea what would. She packs up the box again and pushes it back into the closet. It all seems so childish for a person who has lived in war. Nancy has been haunted by the first letter from the parents. We found a stash of newspaper articles about nerve gas in her room, with the following line circled: Victims will die within two minutes of exposure.

Nancy walks noiselessly down the upstairs hall. The door to the spare room is opened a crack. The girl sits in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, talking to a framed photograph. Dad, she says, I made it. I’m here. Nancy backs against the wall, wiping her face with her apron.

Beatrix

The claw-footed bathtub is set into an alcove, with three windows above, all of them facing the garden. It’s night now, though, so it’s dark and there’s nothing to see, and Mrs. Gregory pulls the white shades down one at a time. Roll, snap. Roll, snap. Roll, snap. The water pours into the tub, and Mrs. Gregory keeps putting her hand in the stream and adjusting the knobs. She picks up a towel and undoes it, shaking it out, then folds it in half, running her hand along the softness. Her large sapphire ring catches the light. Her lipstick is bright red and her teeth white as she bites down on her lower lip.

She is nothing like Beatrix’s mother who is tall and dark and slender. This woman is wide and smells of lemon. At the dock, she had run up after the boys and wrapped her arms around Beatrix, kissing her on one cheek and then the other. Beatrix had stood still as the woman had hugged her. The woman unpinned the label and tucked it into her purse. You don’t need this anymore, dear, she said. You’re part of us now.

Beatrix, she says, her hand in the warm water, I don’t know what to do here. She looks at Beatrix, her eyes drawn together, and Beatrix can see Gerald’s smile and William’s frown. Do you want me to help you, or would you prefer to do this on your own? The lines on her face deepen, and then she tucks Beatrix’s hair back behind her ear, resting the weight of her thick hand on Beatrix’s shoulder. You’ll have to teach me how to be with a girl, she says with a laugh and a sigh. I’ve been surrounded by all these boys for so long. She pauses and waits.

Beatrix doesn’t respond. She doesn’t really understand what the woman is asking but all she knows is that she doesn’t want her to leave so she sheds her clothes until she is naked, standing in front of this strange woman, feeling the soft rug beneath her feet, a bit of a breeze coming in through the windows, the shades knocking against the frames. She climbs up on the footstool and steps into the hot water carefully, then, as she gets used to the temperature, she sits and lies down, everything but her head under water. It feels marvelous. Mrs. Gregory lathers up a washcloth and lifts Beatrix’s arm, gently scrubbing. Beatrix closes her eyes and almost falls asleep. She lifts her legs so they float.

Later, in the bed so high off the floor that she has to climb onto yet another footstool, Beatrix smells the lemon soap on each of her fingers.

*

Laura Spence-Ash’s work has appeared in One Story, New England Review, Literary Hub and elsewhere. Her book reviews and critical essays have been published in Ploughshares, The Masters Review, and the National Book Critics Circle blog. She is the Founding Editor of CRAFT. Currently working on a novel and a linked collection of short stories, Laura received her MFA in Fiction from Rutgers-Newark.

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