Chapter XLV

19th May 1945

Dearest Phillip,

Thank you for your wishes. I still can't quite believe that I am already twenty-one-years-old! I can easily recall when I was only eight-years-old and I was thinking to myself: "In ten years time, I will be an adult! But that's so far away from now…" and now I am three years older than that!

I will, of course, tell you all about my birthday and how the whole day went but let me first tell you how incredibly happy your telegram has made me! You are coming back to your own home in New York in July, that's only two months away! And you'll come and visit our Island soon after as well… Phillip, I cannot tell you how much it will mean to me to see you again, to speak to you again, to see that you are well (in some ways anyway)… I am so relieved that the war is over. I am extremely happy that it's all over and that you boys can come back home finally. However, I still feel as if the war is still on and what makes me even more anxious is that I don't know if I will ever feel any different than this.

You have asked me in your last letter how was my birthday. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we spent it on the beach with a picnic and my radio on one side, playing some wonderful Bach. My girls were there with me, all glowing, with their rosy cheeks and smiles on their faces directed at me. I smiled too, I even laughed but Phillip I couldn't… I simply couldn't be there with my whole being. How could I be when in my head I was reliving the day of my twentieth birthday exactly a year earlier when I was secretly sharing last farewell kisses with my beloved Marshall in the garden of the House of Dreams.

I know what you'll say. 'Hester, be happy! Live and don't think about Marshall's disappearance because it won't do any good.' You're right, it won't and it doesn't but this horrendous feeling is quite frankly inevitable for me to experience. Even though it has been three months since that dreadful telegram burning in my hands like fire, I can still feel it leaving a permanent scar on my palms.

I was hopeful at the beginning, thinking that he is still alive and will surely come back sooner or later, I am not thinking in this way anymore. Now, I am in the time of mourning and after heavily crying for so many countless hours I am now trying to regain my breath and vision and create my new life. For it can't be called anything else, can it? It can't be my old life before the war, neither can it be the life from three months back, it has to be new, I need to start afresh.

I am thinking of going to university. It was never quite my desire or a dream for I am content with teaching music and trying my hand at composing for theatre one day when I'll be more confident. However, I thought to myself that if I want to start my life afresh, this is a good way to do so. So I will be applying in September and see what this plan will bring me.

I have been thinking about it ever since we got a letter from Uncle Carl and Auntie Persis stating that their daughter and my cousin Dawn got a place at King's College in London, the very same one where John Keats went to if you can imagine that. To walk down those hallways, the same ones he walked through… See, this new and fresh idea is already making me think straight again.

I know it will take time for me to adjust to life again but I am better than I was. I enjoy laughing and playing my cello again (which I couldn't play for the first month as you know yourself) and composing, I love doing this and everything else again. It's just the thoughts that are in my head that disturb it all and make my heart to bleed a little and tremble with both grief yet still a hint of hope as well. It's hard to get a head around, you have to agree with me on that.

Will declared that he'll stay in the army, located in England. Can you believe it? We couldn't until we've heard the reason behind this news: he fell in love. A talented British mathematician of a name Agatha has captured my cousin's heart and I couldn't be happier for the two of them. Will in love… I can hardly believe it myself!

You'll be also pleased to know that once you come and visit our Canada in the summer, you'll see Selwyn and Walt again for they are coming down from Kingsport to spend the summer with us all, however Walt especially with his wife and Selwyn especially with his fiancee. But there is, of course, another reason for them jumping away from their hard studies and coming all the way back home, they are anxious to see all our boys coming back home, including you, dear Phillip.

I think it's time for me to go to finish preparing for the three lessons I have tomorrow! Hopefully, this won't take me too long although whenever I say this, I spend the entire afternoon preparing for the next day…

I cannot articulate how much I'm excited and happy to see you again soon, my dear friend. You are just the right person I want to see this summer.

Sending you my love, as always,

Hester

Just a day after General Douglas MacArthur announced that the Philippines have been liberated at last, the month of coming back has started.

July announced itself like a ballerina in a white dress, twirling around gracefully and without a mistake across the stage, where everyone's attention was on her, awaiting her each move, smile and a gentle wave of her hand. The weather was as if it was ordered specially by Hester and her family. The sun was shining down on the Earth, the sky was almost entirely cloudless and the summer breeze allowed everyone not feel the hotness of the beginning of the warmest season of them all.

It was Bruce who came back first. Louisa lost her mind as she saw him, her husband completely unchanged with the same hopeful smile he always had, and she jumped straight onto him, kissing every inch of his face. His girls, whom he remembered being small two-year-old babies as he left, were now real tiny ladies of the age six. But their eyes could remember their father's and both Rose and Violet threw their arms around him, shouting what it felt like the first time for them: "Daddy! Daddy!" while their parents cried with joy.

Ada and Ben came for the summer too, with Di and Jack on their sides and they too brought news with them. Ada's wedding had been decided for September, so swiftly after all the boys would come back to Canada. This immediately set a faster speed to the excitement and happiness of July 1945 in Hester's family.

It was purely coincidental that Marion's husband, Harry, as well as Ada's brother David, came back to Canada on the same ship as Carl, Persis and their two children, Tom and Dawn came for a month's stay at the old P.E.I. The day of their arrival was a day of complete celebration of the end of the war. Marion couldn't help but kiss Harry without a stop and he couldn't help but reciprocate the gesture. Selwyn fell into happy tears at the sight of his friend David and the two quiet and creative souls embraced each other once more.

Lily and Hester sat together on the ancient chair in the old Ingleside one afternoon, with Hester sitting on its shoulder, above Lily. The two of them were smiling at the scenes happening before them but both were silent, holding each other's hands in reconciliation almost. Lily looked at the tall Tom who looked incredibly similar to John all of a sudden and her eyes couldn't quite hide the pain that on that day was most peculiarly hard to bear. However, Hester couldn't quite take her eyes off the happily reunited couples of Marion and Harry as well as Selwyn and Vance. She was bursting with joy over their happiness but at the same time her heart was bleeding, but even more so for Lily.

"Lily," Hester looked down at her friend's freckled face as she squeezed her hand "-I'm always here for you, remember?" she asked almost worriedly.

Lily looked up with soft tears in her eyes as she smiled surprisingly genuinely at Hester "I can't see our friendship in any other way." she said and the two girls laughed quietly together "We're soulmates. I've always known this, Hes." she said to her gently.

Hester kissed Lily's cheek with a tender smile of her own, even though a certain tear was still hanging in her eye "Yes, we are. We will always be just that, Lily." she whispered and she jumped on Lily's side, inside the armchair, as they both laughed, trying to get out of it whilst others laughed with them too.

It was a cloudy, warm day beginning the second week fo July. The sun was hidden yet it couldn't have any effect on either Hester or her family standing nervously, with trembling hands from joy, for the arrival of the oldest son of Rilla and Ken.

Gil stated it clearly in his letter to his family, he only wanted his parents, siblings and his wife to be at the station waiting for him and his wish was turned into a reality. Hester stood in between Selwyn and Daria, holding each of their hands tightly in her own, her mind not entirely prepared to see her oldest brother after the whole six years of not being able to see him, truly see, hear and touch him for such a tremendous and almost soul-ripping amount of time.

Daria and Hester spent the morning putting on their best dresses, a navy blue one belonging to Daria and a Hester wore the same dress she got from her father for her birthday a year earlier. They wore their summer straw hats, which were matching with their outfits in terms of the colour of the ribbon each of their hats had. It was a special request from Gilly, to have both his wife and his sister wear straw hats which "were always my way of a symbolism of our home". Even little Poppy wore a matching ribbon with a bow on her head to match her sisters.

Selwyn talked with Hester the whole evening the day before about Gil and his arrival because he knew how the uncertainty on the fate of Gilly's best friend and Hester's fiance could affect them both on the day of Gilbert's coming back home. Hester indeed felt very much breathless because of that fact and despite jumping from happiness about her brother's safe arrival home, she couldn't hide a pang in her heart from the realisation that the two always inseparable friends who went into the horrors of the war and were supposed to come back together, were now detached from one another without the certainty that they would ever reunite again.

Hester couldn't lose her hope in hearing from Marshall again but the day of arrival of Gilly's made her realise that the time was moving on and it couldn't be stopped to wait for any kind of response from her Marshall.

"I can't wait to see my Gilbert graduating as an architect in a year's time!" Daria said excitedly, her green eyes sparkling lovingly and her cheeks turning more than usually crimson.

Everyone immediately smiled at her "I'm glad that you've persuaded him to go to the university and get his degree, Daria." Ken winked at her gently and she smiled back at him.

"I knew that if he wouldn't do that and instead he'd start a family first he would regret it later." Daria said and then turned her head in the direction of the horizon with a wondering look on her face "But let's stop talking about his degree now that…" her eyes widened "-the train's here!" she clasped Hester's hands in her own swiftly with the merriest smile Hester had ever seen anyone ever possess in her life.

Hester's heart started to pound as if she was about to take a final exam at school and she squeezed back Daria's hands, looking up at Selwyn for a moment. He winked down at her, suddenly looking so much like Selwyn from the past, her heart couldn't help but jump with a sudden lump of hope banging on her heart's door.

Everyone held their breaths as the train arrived at the station and the fumes penetrated its surroundings when suddenly… "Hey, hey, hey; Fords!" and the figure of a man, not a boy anymore stood in front of them all. Gilbert Ford has truly turned from a teenager to a grown-up man and that was what struck everyone, apart from Daria, upon seeing him. His shoulders were broad, his arms and chest muscular, his face tanned, his brown hair even darker than six years before… Yet, the twinkle of adventure and passion was still in his eyes, something that Selwyn's eyes were still halfway there.

Daria was the first one to run up to him and let him catch her as he twirled her around in the air. Rilla and Ken already had tears in their eyes upon seeing their son well, healthy and ever so grown up kissing the woman of his dreams right on the lips without any shame or regret written over his face. Hester and Selwyn stood next to their parents and Poppy in Rilla's arms, their expressions clouded by tears of joy, shock and utter confusion as it seemed like a dream, not a reality at all.

When Gil and Daria finally came over to them, Rilla threw her one arm around her son, gasping with joy, with her other arm holding small Poppy as Ken kissed Gil's forehead tenderly. "My baby boy, my dearest…" Rilla was muttering while shaking as Gil was unable to speak, a phenomenon never known to himself or his family.

"Hello, Poppy…" he said in-between the tears falling from his eyes "It's an honour to meet you." and he laughed as Poppy gave him the widest smile she could have to a brother she never met before.

Finally, Gilly turned to Selwyn and Hester who stood motionless, as if awaiting this moment from the day they were born. The three Ford siblings who were always there for each other both in Toronto and Four Winds and overseas, were standing in front of each other now, feeling truly like the Three Musketeers that they were. Hester's lips finally broke into a smile, while she let tears roll endlessly down her cheeks with Selwyn mirroring her actions and Gil doing the same in front of them. "I can't believe it!" he breathed out eventually as he embraced both Selwyn and Hester at the same time.

"Gosh, Gil, you smell exactly the same!" Hester managed to say and everyone around her started to laugh cheerfully.

"I hope it's a compliment, Hes." Gil replied cheerfully, still shaking.

"When something comes out of Hester Ford's lips, it must be the truth or a compliment." Selwyn said and the three siblings looked at each other with smiles of pure joy and truly no need for any words at all, not this time at least.