Jess heaved a deep sigh as she read the last paragraph and squeezed her strained eyes shut for a moment. It was half past two in the night, and she was dog tired, but she had not been able to put the book down before she was finished.
Evelyn Spence's personal tale, told in a witty, compelling style, had swept her along on a wave of impressions, facts and events, and she had found herself turning the pages faster and faster, all the while not wanting it to end.
Mick Carpenter, the quiet pearl trader, did not appear too much in the first half of the book except to take Evelyn along for a pearl-diving trip, but he got lots of little mentions later on, as he apparently became a more and more important figure in the young researcher's life.
Spellbound, Jess had read Evelyn's account of of her husband's death and the traditional mourning ritual that had helped her cope, of the first shadows of the war cast over the island and of her and Mick hiding away in a cave until she finally left after all when things became too dangerous to stay.
Mick had stayed on for a while, though, before he somehow ended up in the army and later, via the hospital in Brisbane and Mrs. Cunningham's spare room, in Sydney with Evelyn.
Jess wondered why he had not seized the chance to flee the embattled island with his lover. Or had they not yet been lovers at the time?
She flipped back to the photo section and gently drew a fingertip along the contour of his cheek in the pearl-shell photo.
More than ever, she longed to see him, to make sure he was alright, to ask him all those questions she had, to tell him just how much she loved him.
Linda, ever helpful, had suggested that she try to contact Evelyn Spence through her publisher and had even come up with a name and address at their US branch.
Jess had written to this Miss Ava Hillock a few days ago but not yet heard back from her.
For some reason, she doubted she ever would. Miss Hillock had probably taken her for an impostor and tossed her letter in the wastebasket without batting an eyelash.
Suddenly, she felt she could not wait much longer, and another idea took shape in her mind, dispelling her fatigue.
She got up and squatted in front of her bookcase, pulled out a tall volume, bound in a grey protective cover of tattered paper, from the bottom shelf and proceeded to open it in the dim light of her bedside lamp. She quickly found the page she was looking for, a colourful map of the world's time zones, glanced at her alarm clock and smiled as she donned a pair of stockings, threw on her coat and grabbed the little jar of loose change from her desk.
Before she left the room, she affectionately ran her hand over the stack of sheet music in the bookshelf, another souvenir of her brother. He had not taken it with him when he left because their grandparents didn't own a piano, and although her own lessons had not been very fruitful and she hadn't played since her early teens, she had kept the books and loose sheets because they had once been his.
Shoes in hand, she tiptoed down the stairs, noiselessly opened the front door and sneaked outside, slipping on her penny loafers on the doorstep.
It was pitch dark except for the cold light of the moon and a flickering street lamp down by the intersection. This was where she headed, or rather, the phone booth around the corner.
She dropped some coins into the slot, spoke to the operator and felt her heartbeat accelerate as the dial tone adopted a different sound and a woman with an unfamiliar accent answered the phone in a professional tone of voice.
Jess had to clear her throat before she could speak and ask the question that sounded so trivial and meant so much.
"Have you got an entry for Michael Carpenter in or around Sydney?"
"Several in fact, ma'am. One's in Blakehurst, one's in Hunter's Hill, and there are another two downtown. Which one would you like the number for?"
"Uh … I'm not quite sure." Jess's mind went completely blank for a moment. "Can you give me all the numbers, please, and put me through to the first one?"
She tried to copy down the numbers in the half-darkness, using a pencil stub and a used cinema ticket from her coat pocket, and found herself actually holding her breath when the foreign dial tone was in her ear once more.
She dug her fingers firmly into the thick fabric of her coat lapel, expecting to collapse any moment while it was ringing.
"Hello?"
A female voice, fresh and clear through the static crackle on the line. Was that her?
"Hello … um ... my name is Jessica Cleaver, and I'm looking for M-Mick Carpenter."
For a second, none of them spoke.
"I'm … I'm his sister. Jessica. Jess. Can I ... can I speak to him?"
There was a little gasp at the other end of the line, and the pleasant voice said with an incredulous laugh, "But of course you can. Hold on for a minute."
Jess heard the receiver being laid aside with a little clatter and footsteps retreating.
The faint, rapid murmur of voices at a distance.
Footsteps, heavier than the first and a little slower, approaching. She tried to picture him coming to the phone and failed.
"Hello?"
His voice, with a much darker timbre than she had known it, but his voice nevertheless.
The ground under Jess's feet seemed to sway.
"Mick?" It was almost a squeal, and she swallowed and blinked and finally pulled herself together and went on in a calmer tone, "Hello, Mick. It's me … it's Jess."
He remained silent, apparently dumbstruck by his little sister reappearing in his life out of nothing.
Or did he resent her calling, was he searching for some polite words to tell her to leave him alone?
"Your sister, Jess. You … you remember me, don't you?" Her voice quivered miserably.
"Of course I remember you, Jessie. How could I not remember you?" His voice also faltered, and he laughed his funny little laugh which turned into a snuffling sob.
Jess could not remember ever hearing him cry, and she, too, broke into tears, holding on to the greasy receiver in the musty telephone booth as if her life depended on it, and if she was shivering in her nightshirt and wool coat, it was not because of the cold.
She had found him.
Half a lifetime, or more, of separation had come to an end on what was a lovely early-summer evening in Sydney and a dank and chilly night with more than a hint of winter in Chicago.
There was an ocean and eight time zones and half a huge continent between them, but that didn't matter.
All she had to do was book a ticket to Australia, and hell, yes, she would, no matter the cost.