Hello Friends

I am delighted to have another chapter for you, given that (for me!) it is in such a relatively short time. Thank you to all who persisted in trying to read the last update through error messages and the (thankfully fixed) recent merriment that was the Great Email Non-Alert Saga. Thank you also, truly, to all my recent fantastic, generous and supportive reviewers, particularly Alinya Alethia, Parnokianlipstic and yunarthur whose lovely words and insightful observations never fail to bolster my mood and elevate this story.

This week I was so sad to learn of the passing of an English literary luminary, A.S. Byatt; lecturer, scholar, linguist, critic, self-described intellectual and author of many wonderful works including one of my personal favourites oft-mentioned here (as well as its film incarnation) – the Booker Prize-winning Possession. I have not only referenced that seminal novel several times but its influence on this story is immeasurable. As mentioned in my chapter notes way back in Chapter Nine, the book has been a key inspiration for this fanfic foray into memory, history, family, poetry, letters, diaries, talismans and love across time. Both the novel and its lovely adaptation in 2002 can't come more highly recommended. Then, as now, I thank you, A.S. Byatt x

Further thanks to yunarthur, so supportive and enthusiastic about this story, who I found out gave me a lovely shout out recently on X… and as I am not on that platform thanks to my other longstanding friend on this site for sharing it with me x

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!

Love

MrsVonTrapp x

Chapter Twenty One

'Through all hopes that keep us brave'

October 27th 2017

It took two days to air out Ingleside after his party, and David perhaps felt he was also airing out his life; throwing open the windows on the dark imaginings and painful memories that had crowded in the corners for years, waiting like wild animals to pounce.

He was sad to again see off Anne and Tessa, but hugely fortified by the thought of another reunion at Christmas, and the delightful memory of Gillian's scowl during the final hours of his party would stay with him for quite some time.

He was busier than ever, what with the bakery and the pizza deliveries, as the cooler weather and shorter days settled around them, but he was chasing his tail with regards to finances. His medical school applications had all been completed by the beginning of the month, and he had noted each school's eye-watering fees with a heavy heart. He was already two months down, with not enough to show for it, even with the Lowbridge rent from the busy young family he had met once out of politeness now propping up his bank account.

"Dad…" he groaned as he fell through the door of Ingleside and crashed onto the sofa a little after midnight. "This just isn't working…"

"You might need to be more specific, son," Rob replied mildly from the kitchen table, surrounded by papers, his late night snack anchoring a stack of testimonials.

"Pizzas…" David's voice was muffled by the cushion he had face-planted upon.

"Yes, I have to agree those new experimental toppings have been rather underwhelming."

"Yes… but no. I mean no to pizzas generally. And the bakery. And all of it…" David groaned as he shuffled around to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling forlornly.

"No to… all of it?" Rob asked, a little more carefully.

"I'm just not earning enough, Dad, let alone saving enough. I'm applying as an out-of-province candidate for almost all the med schools. You know how much that hikes up tuition fees. I'm behind before I even start…" David's sigh was from his very depths. "Or, I could just wait till 2025 when the med faculty at the Uni of good 'ol PEI gets going." *

Rob turned around in his chair, as serious now as his son.

"David, we talked about this. I can extend the loan against the house and –"

"Dad, thank you, but no. You and Ma already did that in the first place so I wouldn't have to take out a student loan for Redmond. If I do this I have to do it on my own."

"David, you're not on your own…" Rob offered quietly.

"What do you mean?" David sat up, looking at his father across the room.

"There's… the Lowbridge house."

"I'm pretty sure, Dad, that Ma didn't leave me the house so that I could damn well sell it at the first opportunity."

"Maybe not," Rob's expression was tight, "but she also wouldn't want you to be locked out of your career."

There was a long silence. David did not want to acknowledge the part his mother had already played in his career aspirations. Of having the need to site her gruelling, heartbreaking circumstances in the first place, to help explain and strengthen his answers to the neverending application questions and personal statements the medical schools demanded. Of flagging a future specialization in oncology so he looked determined and driven when he personally didn't even know if he could bear to be around cancer patients every day of his working life.

"The guys in the Lambs who came across for the party weren't all just about beer pong you know…" David now offered thoughtfully. "Some of them were staying on in Kingsport or Nova Scotia generally and going up to the other ports… to see about getting work on the fishing trawlers, or loading stuff off the boats, or checking out work in the processing factories… I was thinking I could go across, crash with Megan and her boyfriend – sorry, fiancé now – and go check it out. The money's pretty damn decent and – "

"The money's decent because it's hard, backbreaking work, Dave," Rob cautioned.

"You don't think I'm up for some hard work?" David raised a slightly derisive dark eyebrow.

"Son, no one least of all me is questioning your capacity for hard work. I just don't want you to be exhausted before you even start your medical degree."

"Dad, there won't even be a medical degree if I've got no money to pay for it!"

Now Rob was the one to sigh, standing tiredly and coming round to lean against the sofa, signet ring twisted mercilessly.

"Have you even asked your cousin if you can stay with her? She's engaged, now. Megan and her fellow might have enough going on at the moment."

"Meg actually invited me over any time, Dad, when she sent me a text for my birthday. They have a spare room and everything. And I'd hardly be there, anyway."

"Seems like you have this all figured out," Rob smiled sadly.

"Well, the planning side of things I obviously get from you," David smiled in return.

"And what about the pizza place? You'd have to let Marco know that – "

"I gave him two weeks' notice earlier tonight, and tomorrow morning I'll do the same at the bakery."

Rob nodded. "Well, then."

He watched his father walk over to the kitchen, open the fridge and extract two beers. Offering one to David he sat alongside his son, clinking bottles and sitting companionably.

David couldn't help but remember doing this at the start of the summer, sitting with his father, contemplating life and love. Back then, the coming months had stretched out before them as a slowly dawning promise, a healing respite from the world, both teasing and tantalizing. Neither of them could have known how very differently things would develop, altering their understandings about the future completely.

"I've gotten too used to having you back…" Rob finally admitted.

"I've gotten too used to being back…" David agreed ruefully.

"I guess it's time to let you spread your wings… or gain your sea legs."

David looked around the quiet surrounds, enveloped in an early-morning hush, and nudged his father with his shoulder.

"Maybe, Dad, it's time for you to do the same."

November 4th 2017

Dear Journal

Ever get the feeling you are having one of those weeks?

Having finished my Twelve Hours in Purgatory, otherwise known as my sessions with Dr Ryan, it was with both relief and trepidation that I found myself back in his office with Mom a few days later, in order to receive his Report and List of Commandments. Sorry, Recommendations.

Honestly, I had conducted Oscar-worthy performances in that office these last few months. Unpacking my relationship with David; unpacking my residual grief for my father; circling through my fixation with family history, in particular ancestral namesakes and their former abodes; over-compensatory attempts to cope with my lonely present by immersing myself in the past; imagining I had a psychosomatic link with my long-deceased ancestors; and skirting around the clear (and, for him, deeply troubling) absence of Any Real Friends except for David (already problematic) and Maddie (related to David and therefore unfortunately problematic by association).

No wonder I felt exhausted. The research alone for all that had taken hours.

It was everything I had wanted Dr Ryan to hear, and he was certainly listening, ready and all-too-willing to regurgitate everything back in his report and his chat about the Report. I listened to his pronouncements with a sad satisfaction, wishing it had all been even slightly more challenging, and wishing more than anything I had been able to share something remotely real with him. He was young and kind and even seemed to care, and he could have been such a help to me.

But I had known within our first half an hour together that my real beliefs and understandings would have been met with medication and a possible psych ward stint.

Surprisingly, he also came up with an original finding of his own that made my eyes widen in shock and had my mother quietly sobbing into fistfuls of his tissues. Apparently it was his professional opinion that although Mom and I shared a loving and supportive bond, I had been acting on my latent feelings of inadequacy regarding her, particularly over her looks and even her former acting career, and that I was jealous of her new relationship with Rob. I had expressed this through certain 'attention-seeking behaviour' back at the House of Dreams and during that later early-morning flight from Ingleside to the cemetery (obviously reported on by Mom).

I had opened my mouth to immediately reject this absolute and insulting nonsense, when it occurred to me that I couldn't be upset over this one thing and let all the other things slide. And so I had to sit there, simmering silently, knowing I had taken part in my own character assassination. And, even more awfully… hers.

Fun times, dear journal… fun times.

"Mom, you know that all of his findings were… well, really harsh, and that none of that last stuff is true!" I tried to convince her later that afternoon, after an awful, silent trip home.

"Darling, I just don't know about anything anymore…" she was trying to hold back fresh sobs. "Here I was thinking we were OK, that we were making it through, and all this time I was the one making things worse!"

"Mom, that is absolutely not true! Don't listen to him! What does he know about any of it anyway? He knows nothing about us!"

"But Anne, darling, he knows you! All the other things he said, all his other findings… are you saying we shouldn't listen to those either? We can't pick and choose what we accept and what we don't."

She collapsed on the sofa, as distraught as I had ever seen her, except… well, after Dad died. She had desperately tried to pull herself together for me, over those days and months, and had mostly succeeded… never knowing, late at night, I would track her to the walk-in wardrobe, or to the locked bathroom, following her secret sobs like a trail of breadcrumbs.

And now… another award-winning moment. And I'd only ever thought we'd had the one actress in the family.

"Mom…" I came to sit beside her, arm around her gently heaving shoulders. "I'm so sorry you are upset. Really, I am! But you don't need to take all this on yourself. That's not fair! Please don't feel bad! I don't! I feel… I feel… relieved. And… well, like a weight has been lifted…"

"You do?"

Even her tear-stained face held an inexpressible beauty. No wonder Dr Ryan had reached for that particular finding.

"Yes! Now, looking back on things, I can sort of see… what he was saying. Maybe I was a little obsessed with the family research. Maybe I did have sort of… well… a moment or two where I let that obsession rule things. Because… like he said… I'd had so much to process in the present these last few years…"

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

"And…" I fumbled, trying not to freefall, "I guess it was such an exciting summer but a little, well, intense as well. But that doesn't mean any of it was bad! You know what a great summer we had! But maybe, just at the very end… because we would be leaving and not seeing David and Rob again for a while… well, maybe I just… couldn't deal with that as well as I thought I could. Because it had never happened before… you know… the boyfriend stuff. And perhaps it did get all caught up in… the Dad stuff. But I can separate those feelings now! Dr Ryan's shown me… breathing exercises and how to manage anxiety and… and… visualizations... and everything. Recognizing when I might feel a little stressed. And talking over my feelings more. I know I need to do that, and not bottle things up… and look at us! We're talking now. So really, Mom, it's OK…"

Truly, I was getting so good at this even I was beginning to believe it.

"Oh, darling…" was all Mom managed, and then we were locked in a tight hug, and I didn't have to pretend how good that felt, and if I was crying too, just because it wasn't what she thought it was about didn't make the catharsis of it all any less valid.

"So…" Mom finally managed, after a time, patting down my hair. "What would you like to do now, darling? How can I help?"

"No more blaming yourself, for a start! I know I have a beautiful, talented mother. Doesn't mean I can't deal with it!"

She gave a chagrined smile at this.

"Anne… I wish you could see how beautiful you are… and how talented! You have so many gifts. I can't wait for the world to know about them!"

"Well, tell that to our director. My audition for our theatre class performance is tomorrow."

"Tomorrow – already?" she wiped hastily at her tears. "Will you be OK for it? You don't want to postpone anything after today? You don't want me to run some lines with you?"

The dubious look on my face obviously said more than any polite refusal.

"Sorry!" she laughed and rolled her brown eyes. "I forgot myself for a minute there. What else did Dr Ryan say? That thing about our slight co-dependency and my overprotectiveness?"

Dr Ryan had certainly been busy. And thorough. And I had been roped into still seeing him once a fortnight, because obviously for him there were more than a few issues still to work though. But I could handle him. He wasn't coming for me with a straightjacket, so I had achieved my aim. His recommendations had mostly centered on wellbeing and extending my network of friends and activities, though the break regarding research into family history was the one thing I would patently ignore. And there would be plenty of regular, garden variety teenage angst for him to deal with in future, I was pretty sure.

"There is something I'd like us to do… kind of calling in that promise from a while ago. I'd love to talk more about Dad when you're up to it. It doesn't need to be any of the hard things… but just starting with the nice things. The whole story of how you met – and not the edited version you've always given me! And what you thought of him. And how you got together. If that will be all right?"

Tessa gave her a tremulous smile. "That's the least I owe you. And that would be more than all right."

Finally – finally – I felt able to put my head on Mom's shoulder, allowing myself to seek the solace I'd been so desperate to give.

"And maybe later… you could just hear my audition song?"

November 5th 2017

Dear Journal

You know how I was talking about my really bad week?

Well, today was Audition Day. For our Theatre class's performance of 'The Mad Ones'. * They could have decided on something traditional with a lot going on and roles enough for everyone but instead they have gone edgy and dramatic with a FOUR PERSON work and even then one of the characters is a guy. The boy's college will choose their own show that we will then audition for later in the year and they will probably go for something retaliatory like 'Twelve Angry Men' just to get back at our drama department. Oh, well. It was entertaining enough already to see all the senior girls who thought the class would be breezy and a laugh sharpening their claws and scratching one another's eyes out – and that was before they had even gotten through the audition slots.

I hate that no one has any idea about the musical and how meaningful it can be. A friend of Mom's, Amanda something, who is still involved in theater played the character of the mother, Beverly, a few years ago and although we weren't in any shape to see it, as it was still too soon after Dad, I have watched some snippets on YouTube and it looks really fantastic. It has some heavy themes and some big songs – my favourite of course that, miraculously, David knew, serenading each other in the car. Run Away With Me, he had sung, and the words pierced me then as they do now. And I know some cute guy from the boy's school (there were plenty of them waiting in line to audition today) will be singing it to some completely undeserving girl in our year who only got the main part of Samantha because she was pretty enough on stage and ruthless enough off it.

Instead of sticking myself with props or helping backstage I auditioned too. Maybe just to spite them all. Their mutterings of favoritism because Mom was an actress and Dad a playwright and director were expected but unfair considering Dad is dead and Mom basically hasn't acted since she had me. I only have my name, same as everyone else, and believe me even that has lost a lot of its lustre now. Would I accuse one of THEM that the whole thing was biased just because their dad the accountant helped them ace the Math exam?

Anyway, it was kind of fun and definitely satisfying to unleash my secret superpower. OK, I don't have the world's most brilliant singing voice, but I have been taking lessons for years now and I can say, hand on heart, I was definitely better than most of the girls I heard today through the not-so-soundproof doors of the music room.

Which was why, of course, they fought back.

"You seriously don't expect to get a role, Annie?" Bridget, AKA Mean Girl #1, smirked as I came out of my audition, flushed and evidently too pleased with myself.

"You don't have the looks for the Sam character and you are way too mousy for the Best Friend, so I don't know why you're bothering…" Mean Girl #2 Siena tittered.

"And I would have thought all this would be way too traumatic for you, with your Father and everything. We can't have anyone choke onstage." This from Mean Girl #3 Angela, who was usually the most bearable of the trio but had obviously upped her game today.

I ran through their mudslinging in my head. The muttering about nepotism, the dismissing of my chances, the dig about my looks, the slur against my personality (they considered the redhaired girl 'mousy?') and the completely unnecessary – and mean – allusion to my Dad, given that (spoiler!) in the musical the Best Friend Kelly dies.

I reached a finger through my uniform to where David's heart pendant lay, against my skin, safe from their prying eyes. Whether it was the heart itself and what it represented, or my heart-to-heart with Mom – or even some backbone borrowed from Other Anne – I decided, then and there, I wasn't going to put up with them anymore.

"Girls, thanks so much for your concern…" I made myself smile at them sweetly, "but I can't get into your sad, selfish crap right now…" I unfurled the precious pink slip from the audition panel I had shoved up my sleeve. "See, I just got a call back for all three roles and it's going to be so hard to choose between them."

Mic well and truly dropped, I was grinning as I stalked away.

November 7th 2017

In the early dawn David roused himself, knowing he was going to need to get used to such hours as never before. The soft light filtered through the November frost coating his window, and even from inside he could see his breath puff as a tiny cloud.

Outside, the frigid air sliced his face and he stomped his boots to warm up his circulation as he made his way to the garage. He'd travelled to Lowbridge yesterday whilst his father was at the office, passing by the faded yellow house, pausing to smile fleetingly at the resident children making hard work for their mother marshalling piles of autumn leaves out in the front yard. They were a nice family, grateful for a comparatively spacious, dog-welcoming house with such a competitive rent, happy to continue to look after the garden and the ancient pear trees in return.

He hoped Old Uncle Carl would approve.

In the garage there they all were, hidden behind the tarpaulin, surveying him in reproach. He had tried to remember similar hues and had attempted to gather the hardiest specimens he could; those requiring less pruning and only minimal, if any, winter protection. Carrying each prickly cargo out, he lined them up against the garden beds, empty along the far wall, not even a weed dare growing where his mother's beloved rose bushes once stood.

He didn't have time or inclination to dwell on that day, though he squeezed his left hand reflexively as he put on the gardening gloves, the fine scar almost pulsing as it had when Anne had traced it with her finger that long-ago evening, when he had felt for the first time that a girl had known and understood him – had truly seen him. It pained him to be away from her, but as he attacked the hard ground determinedly another ache assailed him, one which he had tried everything these two and a half years to clamp down, to bury far below as they'd buried her.

His throat burned with the swirl of memories and his chest heaved, and he was on hands and knees as the tears came, clutching fistfuls of earth, sobbing her name, crying for his mother in every sense.

The phone in his pocket sang out and he nearly collapsed in shock and surprise. His – actually her – old ringtone… Nature Boy… her calling card even from the other side?

No, of course not. It was his dad, wondering where the hell he was at seven in the morning.

Rob found him, filthy and tear stained, amongst a row of half-planted new rose bushes.

"Son…" he gasped.

"Surprise…" David offered unsteadily.

Rob looked down at his strapping lad with a bittersweet fondness.

"Dave, the ground's half frozen solid."

"Online they said you could plant them spring or autumn, before the first frost."

"Next time, David, think spring."

David let out a shaky breath, and his father shook his head in exasperation.

"You are, most definitely, your mother's son."

"And yet you say that like it's a bad thing."

Rob flashed a smile, squeezing one broad Blythe shoulder.

"I thank God for it, every day."

David, already too emotional for further words, readily gave over the gloves to his father and the two of them worked the remainder of the row. It was still slow going, but the time passed in a companionable silence, neither wishing to impinge upon an event that felt suddenly special and sacred.

The new bushes were slightly smaller than their counterparts and depressingly bare. But he had been assured they would grow, and the pungent fertilizer his father added, hauled across from the garden shed, would at least give them a fighting chance. He and his father stood, silently observing their efforts.

"God I miss her, Dad," his voice was hoarse, his larynx feeling as if an invisible hand was twisting it from inside.

"I know, Dave…" Rob wiped his own eyes defeatedly, reaching his arm across his son's shoulders. "But that's a good thing. Don't try to smother the feeling anymore. Embrace it, when you need to. Just don't let it drown you."

David nodded silently, turning to hold his father tightly.

"You, either."

Rob sighed, looking over their dirt-encrusted forms.

"You've got a near four hour drive ahead of you. Better get cleaned up or you won't be fit to be seen. Even if it's only fish."

David rolled his eyes, grabbing at the discarded plastic planting pots, taking one last look around.

"Do you think she's forgiven me? Ma? For the roses?"

That Blythe chuckle of Rob's warmed the air, though the reply was wryly Meredith.

"I'd say you've still got another couple of years yet, son."

November 9th 2017

Mousy…

Of all the slings and arrows aimed at her, that perhaps had stung the most. As Anne looked over her callback material she couldn't get the poisonous little word out of her head. Was that really how everyone saw her? Inside herself she felt vibrant and rainbow-hued, despite the glamorous mother and the larger-than-life father, his maverick reputation only gaining more traction after he had died. She had been unable to compete with either of them and had never sought to, but neither had she stuck to the shadows. Or so she'd thought.

But maybe… she had also shrunk from the family's fame, which had turned to scandal and notoriety overnight, exactly at the time she had been starting at her new girls' school. Debating and the yearbook were one thing, but they were brief flashes in a period of time when she had otherwise gone about her business quietly, serious and academically-minded…

…mousy.

Her sigh of sudden understanding was deep and despairing. Her interior life was of memory and spirits, of curiosity and questions and creative spark. But only select people saw it, and she still kept much of it, out of necessity, hidden away. Buried. Was she, in turn, then only really burying herself?

The old uncles, Shirley and Carl, having to bury their true feelings and their relationship from the world, for decades and decades.

Her mother, holding things together, supposedly happy, burying her grief and regret, until Rob Blythe happened.

Her father, publicly famous and yet privately mysterious , still in so many senses an enigma to her. What had really been behind his struggles? What secrets had been buried with him?

And David, partying with frat boys and tearing up his mother's roses, not quite ready then to face his pain and certainly still not ready now to face their shared spiritual connection.

Anne suddenly felt the weight of all those collective secrets, and she had carried them around for too long already.

Mousy no more.

The main role of Samantha called to her so powerfully it might as well be written for her. The relationship with her mother, the issue of her boyfriend, the academic ambitions creating a well-worn path colliding with her growing desire to embrace her own autonomy… Anne already over-identified with it all. But, perhaps, it was time to change the script.

The opposite of mousy was the role of the Best Friend. Edgy, energetic, spontaneous, vibrant, alive… even in death. Like her dad had been. Well, if they accused her of calling on her connections, at least she could make a good showing for herself in this respect.

And maybe embrace a little makeover.

The afternoon before callbacks, she skipped out on her session with Dr Ryan and went along to a hairdresser's close to the college. She had passed by it many times but had never gone in. It was a little more street than the regular salon she and her mother went to, and when the young woman manning the desk smiled at her through various facial piercings, she felt she'd found the right place.

She was seated straight away.

"Gorgeous hair, hon. What'd you have in mind for it?"

Anne smiled slowly at her reflection in the salon's mirror.

"I'd like to go shorter…" she fiddled with the tendrils reaching her elbow. "Um, maybe shoulder length, with a bit of a razor-cut, sort-of blunting the edges?"

The woman nodded approvingly. "We can do that."

"And I thought some color…" she took a breath. If she was going to aim for the role of edgy best friend Kelly she might as well look like she meant it. "I'm thinking… green."

Chapter Notes

This week's chapter title is from 'A Man's Requirements' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

*Not wish-fulfillment but true fact! As of writing, the UPEI plans its first intake of medical students in August 2025, in partnership with MUN (Memorial University of Newfoundland). The University of PEI would act as a campus for MUN's Faculty of Medicine. But as the original date for this first intake was in 2023 we continue to watch this space…

And a little correspondence…

Guest of Nov 21 (Ch 20): Thank you for your lovely thoughts! Honestly, I too have been to numerous parties where bathrooms etc have been a refuge and have at least two Very Bad Fancy Dress Experiences I'd rather not remember! Thank you for sharing, as I hope that glimpses of this story, being a modern setting, do have different relatable circumstances. Meanwhile, I do love including these little moments of connection Anne and David have to Anne and Gilbert, such as over the pendant, even if David is unaware and Anne is only going on feeling. They will hopefully make the end-game pay off (and there WILL be one eventually!) so much sweeter! I am delighted you are still enjoying this story x