Read Online Only a Mother Knows by Annie Groves - Free Book Online Page B

Tilly laughed but her amusement was short-lived when she saw Drew standing behind her mother.
    ‘You’d better go into the corridor,’ Olive told Tilly, her eyes troubled. ‘Drew has something he wants to say to you.’ Tilly felt her heart slump in her chest; this didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.
    ‘Drew?’ was all she could manage before she noticed his suitcase. No! Her mind refused to believe what she could see with her own eyes.
    She didn’t like this. Not one bit. Drew hadn’t dressed in his best suit to go fire-watching. Her instincts were bristling now, telling her that no matter what he was about to say, there was nothing she could do about it.
    ‘I have to go. Forthwith.’ Drew made an attempt at humour but it didn’t work.
    ‘Forthwith?’ Tilly asked, bemused, but his answer came all too swiftly, and a chill sliced right through her.
    ‘It means I have to go away tonight.’ Drew’s voice dropped to a whisper as he gazed into her tearful blue eyes. ‘Now. Immediately. I have to catch the flight my father has arranged tonight …’ His smile slipped a little and she could see tears brimming in his eyes.
    ‘You mean you can get a flight to the States at such short notice, even though you’re not in the Forces?’
    ‘If there are seats available you can be sure my father will wangle one,’ Drew said.
    ‘Why do you have to go, Drew?’ Tilly’s voice was barely a whisper as she asked the question. His mother was ill, he was telling her. He would be back some time soon. Some time, soon? She couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing him every day.
    ‘I knew I would have to go back someday, you knew that, tell me you did, Tilly.’ Drew searched her face as if imprinting her beauty on his memory forever. ‘I tried to leave you with the letter but I couldn’t. I had to see you one more time …’ He tried to keep the obvious misery from his voice but eventually he accepted defeat as his shoulders slumped and all his jovial bravado disappeared. ‘Tilly, I gotta say …’ There was a strange look in his eyes, like he was trying to read her, ‘today was swell, I never wanted it to end …’
    ‘I’ll never see you again!’ Tilly gasped the words that suddenly struck her, forcing them from her lips. She wanted to get away from this, be anywhere except listening to her one true love tell her he was going tonight. This isn’t right, she thought frantically, first she lost her father then her grandparents – now Drew was leaving her, too. She’d never get over it, she wouldn’t! Tilly could see his beautiful lips moving and forced herself to concentrate.
    ‘I won’t be gone forever, Tilly, you know that, don’t you?’ Drew gently took her in his strong arms. But Tilly didn’t know any such thing. His plane could be shot down in the middle of the Atlantic. His father might not allow him to come back. Anything could happen.
    ‘You’re too beautiful to stay away from, my darling, you make my every day complete …’
    ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you.’ Tilly blinked her tears away but more came.
    ‘My mother is very ill.’ He looked down at her for a long time as if trying to choose the right words. But there were none. Drew took a long, deep breath, whilst Tilly tried to swallow the restriction in her throat that had suddenly threatened to choke her.
    ‘Do you remember when I told you that I may have to go back to the States someday?’ Tilly nodded like a child who needed to be reassured and he continued, ‘I prayed every night that they could find a cure for Mom, and for a while that seemed to be the case.’ Tears were running freely down his handsome face now. ‘I longed to stay with you in this wonderful, devastated place where there is so much love, and a kind of freedom I never had before …’
    ‘Oh, Drew,’ Tilly whispered, unable to say any more when he gently placed the tip of his finger on her lips.
    ‘I dreamed we would set up home