1956 - San Francisco, California

"So you're mind's still set. You're not going back?"
"I'm still not going back Jean." Millie Harcourt's voice bounces off the walls in the dark of the room they share in their rented flat in San Francisco. "I can feel your brow raise from here."
"Can you now?" Jean asks, her accent betraying her attempt at being stern.

From across the room, Millie can hear the rustle of sheets, the movement of shadows cast by streetlights. A car drives by the too-thin window panes. After a moment, she feels the weight of Jean settle on the edge of the bed. "Move over then." Millie follows Jean's instructions, a habit she can't shake. The older woman lays in beside her and wordlessly, Millie rolls over and rests her head on the other woman's shoulder. She wonders when the last time anyone has comforted Jean the way she's comforting Millie now.

"I can't go back, not when - I know that there's a different way of life here."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Not in the least."
"That's my Millie, foolhardy and brave."
"And I can't wait anymore. I can't stay in London, waiting."
"I know dear. I know."

They never mention who Millie is waiting for. Jean is nothing if not exceptional at keeping secrets. She's so good at it, others don't even realise the weight she silently helps them carry.

"Don't worry Jean, I won't be alone. I've got Iris and Hailey and Edward. Archie… Even Olivia, if the stars are aligned just so." She smirks at the thought of the understandably standoffish woman.
"Oh, I'm not worried." Jean pauses, "Well, I am worried, but mostly because I'll miss you."
"You're always welcome to stay."
"You know I can't. But I'll visit." She brushes Millie's hair with her fingers, "You just be sure to get a good stiff bed for your guest room. These soft ones are murder on my back."
"I promise."

1957 - Bombay, India

Susan Gray sits on the veranda of her home in Bombay and lets the breeze wash over her. It had been a hot day, hotter than expected for February. She used to hate the noise, always noise, that surrounded her everywhere she went in Bombay, but she had come to find it soothing. A wave of white noise washing over her and then receding, helping her find her footing, no different than the waves at the beach which made her nervous as a child, always afraid she'd get swept away.

Even in with the street noise, she can hear Timothy's newspaper rustle as he turns the page.

She smiles.

There are some routines that they cannot seem to shake. She has come to enjoy nights here - so different from…home. The weather could be so draining that everyone welcomed the nights, if only for a break from the sun. Some nights she and Timothy would go out, not dancing, but out where others danced. Where she was put on display. It was a necessary part of Timothy's job, and while she'd gotten more adept at smiling when appropriate, laughing when required, and of asking questions she already knew the answers to, he had seen the toll on her and they had begun to stay home more.

"Tea, Mem Sahib?"
"Thank you Ayah."

She is thankful for the interruption, the distraction while she pours tea for herself. There's a pile of correspondence beside her from home, the top of which was one with Jean's crisp hand. She sips her tea and stares at the envelope with as much concentration as she had once given other letters, other characters. It's a battle of wills between herself and the envelope, one she -

"Mum?"
"Hello darling." She greets her young daughter is on the veranda in her robe, book in hand.
"Sam is being too noisy upstairs. May I read here with you?"
"What about reading with father?"
"Can't I read here with you?"
"Come here then you." Susan sighs and shifts the letters to her lap. Claire curls up against her side and places her book on her lap, but doesn't begin reading. Instead she looks at her mother's tea cup. "Mum, can I have a sip?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're here to read, not drink mum's tea."
"Mum, is that a letter from Auntie Jean?"
"Yes dear."
"Can I read it?"
"Why don't we read it together?"
"Alright."

Claire takes the letter and opens it, as if it were nothing, as if Susan hadn't been trying to gather the courage for the last 40 minutes or so. Her mind floats as Claire reads the letter out loud. She can all but hear the forced frivolity of her last letter to Jean. The false cheer as she asks about the returned Christmas card that had been addressed to Millie. Her ears perk up as news of Lucy shifts to a trip abroad she had taken with Millie and how Millie had decided to stay in San Francisco.

"Where's San Francisco mum?"
"It's very far away from here, in California."
"California?" Tim's voice joins them as takes a seat beside her. "What's in California?"
"Auntie Jean and Aunt Millie went on a trip there."
"Really?" He asks, eyeing his wife as he leans over and takes a sip of tea from her cup. "Do you remember your Aunt Millie, Claire?" He asks, wrapping an arm around his wife.
"She was very pretty, wasn't she?"
"She was." Susan confirms, her eyes scanning the letter for any other news of the other woman, but finding none. "And so very clever. She speaks 7 languages."
"Seven?! Which seven?"
"What a good question, and maybe I'll answer it tomorrow, but right now, I think I see Ayah here, ready to take you to bed."
"Can't I stay up? Even a little bit?"
"No button, you cannot. But you can have a sip of tea." Tim offers his daughter the cup and grins at his wife.
"Am I never to have a cup to myself?" Susan laughs, thankful for her husband, for his understanding of her moods.
"Sorry darling, what's yours is mine and all that." They say good night to their daughter and stay like that on the veranda, his arm around Susan, sharing tea from one cup, talking about…everything. Anything.

Tim wishes he could wish these women out of his wife's life. The odd letter or card from Lucy was fine, but Jean's letters could trigger days of introspection in his wife. The absence of cards and letters from Millie seemed to be worse than if she had actually written. He doesn't understand them. He doesn't understand his wife, but he loves her, wholeheartedly. Some nights he wakes up and watches her as if she were a stranger. There are whole other dimensions to her that are hidden, that lay undisturbed beneath her calm exterior. When he is in a particularly unkind mood, he wonders if they're hidden to her as well. If she ever wakes up and wonders who she is? He would ask Millie, apparently they roomed together all those years ago, but there's something about the other woman that leaves him uneasy. He resents it, but he suspects she would be the only one to have the answers to all the questions he has about his wife.

So he remains vigilant for these letters, these cards, he arms himself with endearing tactics, with methods of distraction, anything within his means to leave her a trail she can use to find her way back to him.

1966 - Berkeley, California

Dear Aunt Millie -

I hope you forgive the intrusion - Auntie Jean suggested I reach out. To be honest, I don't even know if I should call you Aunt Millie, but that's what mum and father refer to you as. I remember meeting you once in England, you had the loveliest hair and unlike most adults, didn't speak down to me.

Millie Harcourt puts down the letter rises, looking for her cigarettes. She had been trying to cut down, but if there was ever a reason… She lights up and stares at the letter on the kitchen table. Why hadn't Jean warned her? Of what, she doesn't know, but still Jean should've told her something she sulks to herself, knowing it's childish. She takes one more drag before squaring her shoulder and returning to the kitchen table where she sits down, and continues reading Claire's letter.

I've been accepted into UC Berkeley's Engineering program (amongst others) (Father said that's boastful, mum says it's the truth).

Millie smiles, and can't help but feel proud of Susan's daughter.

Before I confirm my registration, mum and father are anxious about the distance. Auntie Jean has mentioned you live in the area and that you may be able to help me find something suitable to appease my parents?

Millie finishes the letter and puts it down. Now she could well and truly be cross with Jean. Jean knew what she was doing - that sly Scot had waited all this time for her revenge for making her make the trip back to London on her own (She's aware she sounds crazed, but she has no other recourse right now).

Since Jean had left, Millie had worked hard and had become a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley. She had bought a house in some pitiful semblance of setting down roots. She had planted a garden. She had many, many hats to keep her fair English skin just so. She had friends and suitors. She had a life.

She takes another puff of her cigarette.

She even had a so-called mother-in-law unit she rented out to certain students to help her from being too alone, to help watch the house while she traveled on school breaks and holidays. The question now was, would one of those students now be Susan's daughter?

She ponders that all night, and even most of the next day, when a brief letter from Jean arrives, mentioning that young Claire had asked for her address for unknown ends. Allowing Claire into her life, would mean allowing Susan, in some way back in, and she had spent entirely too much of her life dedicated to the ghost of the other woman. The students who roomed with her understood (and occasionally shared) her proclivities and she allowed them theirs. She wouldn't risk her or their safety or education, even for Susan's daughter. But by denying Claire this, she would be putting up another artificial (and frankly bullshit) barrier in front of what was likely a brilliant woman. She would be doing to her what so many others had done to Susan. Millie wanted to help, but she could not spend the rest of her life in service to the Gray women.

She jots down a short letter to Jean rife with choice words (as well as her love) and then begins her letter to Claire.

Dearest Claire -

Congratulations my darling, clever girl on such a wonderful opportunity. Your Aunt Jean and I are as proud of you as I hope your parents are!

As it so happens, I may be able to help you assure your parents as well as help secure residences here in Berkeley. There's a number of them in the town. I also have two students stay with me, and Mariam has just graduated and left us for Los Angeles, which means I have a room as well. I do warn you however, my students are … untraditional, but delightful. If you can arrange to visit a few days earlier, you can see for yourself if you think it would suit you?

Both letters go into the mail the following morning. There is now nothing else Millie can do, but wait for Claire's decision.

And that's how Millie Harcourt finds herself in San Francisco International Airport waiting the flight from Bombay to land.

She paces.

She plays with the clasp on her purse.

She paces some more and regrets not bringing a book despite knowing full well that had she, she would've been too nervous to read it. As passengers begin to exit the customs hall, she asks herself why she's ever even agreed to it. Why she's picking at the scab that is Susan with the edge of her fingernail, checking to see if it's healed and knowing full well it hasn't. She's so engrossed by this introspection that she doesn't see the flight disembark, until Claire pulls up short in front of her smiling. "Aunt Millie?"

"Claire! My darling, look at you! You have grown since I've seen you last!"
"It's been a few years." Claire smiles sheepishly as Millie hugs her briefly, praising every deity she'd studied that the young woman favoured her father so strongly.
"Indeed! How time flies! How was your flight? Was it simply awful? Let's go get your bags and you can tell me all about it."

Soon, Claire Gray becomes a friend in her own right.

She's almost as bright as her mother, but with a confidence, a spark for life that seems separate from either of her parents. She's quiet, thoughtful, but charming and funny. Millie is thrilled to discover that she gets along rather well with Simon, the other student who boards with her. She is so enchanted by life in California, similar to Millie when she first arrives - so foreign to their previous homes. She's hardworking, industrious, and tenacious, curious almost to a fault. She is desperate to learn about her mother through Millie who knows her so differently, but she gets vague answers, changes of topics. She is fascinated by her Aunt who is so utterly different than her mother that she cannot fathom their friendship other than how could anyone not be drawn to the Millie, but inquiries to her mother and Auntie Jean are met with similar vague responses. Claire has concocted a romantic backstory - perhaps Millie was in love with her father, who instead chose Susan. Or perhaps it was another solider who broke her mother's heart for her Aunt and then died in battle. That would explain the distance, between the two women, wouldn't it? She tried to ask Auntie Jean:

Surely there was one person who was her favourite? Whose letters she'd read and re-read? Perhaps…

But Auntie Jean simply responded with:

I don't quite remember as it was all so long ago.

And her mother:

Oh darling, I don't quite know. I suspect Millie's too much of a free spirit to be tied to anyone or any place for too long. Now tell me, how are you doing? Your brother sends his love, as does your father and both have promised to write.

And Simon, the boy who shares the lower flat with her, who pointedly mentions that she never has men visit, but Claire is undeterred. She isn't a dumb woman, far from it. She's aware that the relationship between her mother and her aunt is complicated and strained, though each woman has nothing but admiration and deep rooted love for the other. She can infer that much from how they talk around the other, about the other, but never to each other. Each asks her to pass along their best wishes, their love, their thoughts to the other as if she was Western Union - but neither of them actually write or talk to the other. So she continues as she can, gathering snatches of information here and there, the mystery expanding from just her Aunt's supposedly tragic love affair to how this could possibly include her mother.

1967 - January - Bombay

"Letter from Claire arrived today." Timothy says, greeting his wife as she sheds her coat in the front hall.
"Really, share!"
"Not until I get a proper hello." He chides, smiling, as his wife bends to kiss him where he sits in his chair reading his paper.
"Hello you." She says, settling on the arm of his chair.
"Hello you."
"Letter now?" She grins, holding out her hand, excited for news from her daughter. Calls were so dreadfully expensive that they reserved them for holidays and emergencies, saving the day to day details of their lives for massive letters. From the thickness of the envelope, she can tell this one includes pictures and she begins by looking through them first. There's one of Claire in a paper crown by the Christmas tree - the look on her face making it clear someone is making her pose for a proper picture. The one after that is a nicer one, with Claire genuinely smiling. There's a third, of Claire at the table laden with a holiday meal, surrounded by people her age - Susan flips the picture over and looks at their names and then flips the picture right-side up and matches names to the faces she's only imagined from her daughter's letters: there's Simon, who shares the flat with her (much to her concern) and Gerald, Anna, Catherine, Laura & her brother Louis while the handful of older guests go unnamed. The last picture all but knocks the breath out of her - her daughter and Millie in matching crowns, pulling faces at each other. She runs her finger over Millie's image. She hadn't seen a picture in… had she even seen a picture of Millie since she'd left other than the slightly singed one from their Bletchley days? She had aged (they all had), but was still lovely. Her hair in disheveled curls. Her lips still coloured and dark. Still slim, still elegant. Still…utterly Millie. "I wonder if anyone told them their faces could get stuck like that?" Tim quips quietly, taking the pictures from her hand and placing them back into the envelope. "Now, tell me about your evening love."