Nan had escaped to her room. She had planned to go and hide in her bed and cry. But the tears would not come. She wished they would because the ache in her chest was just unbearable. It was as if someone had thrust a knife into her heart, she thought thinking of the only other time she had felt this pain. That was the day Jerry had enlisted. The day when she realised that maybe she would not live the happy ever after life with Jerry at her side. The life she had been secretlyplanning since the tender age of sixteen.
She lay in bed until it was dark. Both Di and Faith had tried to come and speak to her but she had sent them away. She did not want them to think her inhuman by her inability to cry. But as the darkness closed in around her, Nan found that she could not bear being alone for any longer. Her imagination was focusing on Jerry, in pain and agony, slowly dying in a foreign land. Shivering despite the fact that it was not cold she quietly made her way to her sisters room.
"Can I sleep with you tonight Di?" She asked as she shut the door behind her.
Di, who had been expecting her sister to make this request, said, "Of course."
"I just don't want to be alone."
Di took hold of her twin's hands, which were as cold as ice and told her, "Well you are not going to be alone. You have me."
"I know. I would be lost without you now."
"Have you cried Nan?" Di asked after a pause, though she could sense what her twins answer would be.
"No." Nan said quietly in discomfort. "It hurts to much to cry, and then I think that if I did cry then I would never stop."
"That's what I felt when Walter died." Di acknowledged. "I only cried when I allowed myself to remember him."
Nan did not reply. She merely snuggled up to her sister and lost herself in her own thoughts.
Di, however, felt that she must make her twin cry. The unnatural controlled anxiety of Nan was scaring her, and she felt that unless Nan recognised her pain then worse hurt could come.
"Do you remember that evening when you came back from Rainbow Valley?"
"Which evening was that?" Nan asked though she knew perfectly well what Di was talking about.
"The evening when you woke me up, despite me being in bed with a cold."
"Of course I remember that evening." Nan sighed after a considerable silence. "I'll remember it all of my life."
"I didn't appreciate being woken." Di told her honestly. "But when I saw your shining eyes, my anger vanished, I knew something wonderful had happened."
"We'd been arguing," Nan said referring to Jerry and herself. Di had succeeded in making her relive the past. "It was so stupid, I wanted him to dance with me at the Harbour Light, even though I knew he wouldn't. I didn't see why he couldn't dance just because his Father was the minister, and I told him so. He did actually agree about that and promised to dance with me as much as I wanted to at Redmond. But he said that if he danced at the Harbour Light then it would look as if he was insulting his Father, and he did not want the Glen gossips to think that. He was right of course but I was being selfish and could not see his point of view." It took a lot for Nan to admit she was in the wrong, as well as being selfish. "I told him that he was just using his Father as an excuse for not wantingto dance with me, and that if he did really like me as much as he said he did then he would dance me. I regretted what I said as soon as the words left my mouth.His eyes were a mixture of sorrow and anger Di, I can't describe it, I thought he was going to tell me to go away and that he never wanted to hear my selfish tones again. But he told me that if I was foolish enough to think that then I clearly had failed to realise that he was in love with me, and that he would do anything for me if I pestered him enough. It was the first time he had told me that he loved me, and allour anger simply vanished away as if by magic."
"What happened next?" Di asked, although she had heard the story many times before.
"He kissed me. He'd kissed me before but never like that, it sounds strange I know. Maybe it was special because we realised just exactly what we meant to the other. I began to cry I knew I'd been in the wrong and that I'd been behaving like a spoilt child. I told him that I loved him to and that I hoped he would forget the horrible things I said. I hope he has. I don't want him to be thinking of those words of anger now." Nan's voice died away, tears were filling her eyes as she thought of that evening in Rainbow Valley. Of how time had not mattered, of the words and kisses which had been exchanged that night, of how happy she had felt when telling Di about it at the time.
"Jerry won't be thinking of it." Di told her firmly. "He'll be thinking of how much you love him and how much he loves you. He'll be fighting for his life because he knows that he must stay alive for you Nan."
"Oh Di," Nan sniffed, the first few tears beginning to trickle down her nose. "You are a better sister than I deserve I feel."
"That's nonsense. You were here for me when Walter died, if it hadn't been for you then I don't know what I would have done. I'm merely returning the favour."