Rilla watched the young blonde take in Eaton's as they came through the doors. After a quick check-up at the hospital for both young woman and infant. Who was given both good bills of health despite the journey?
"Come find me when you're ready to check out," Jimmy told Rilla who was about to protest.
"Mom, I got it," he told Rilla before she could offer to pay for the purchases. "She might be eighteen, but she's my responsibility while she's here. It won't break the account I promise." Jimmy shook his head.
"As soon as I can find a job I'll be contributing anyway," Willow reminds them both.
"And Fleur?" Jimmy asks knowingly.
"I'll figure it out all right," Willow says hoisting the infant in her arms more securely.
"Mrs. Ford?" Willow asks as Rilla leads the way to the lady's department.
"You can call me Rilla dear," Rilla told her with a smile. "You know Jimmy named you Willow because for a long time he called me Willa, instead of Rilla."
"Really?" She says. "Most of my friends in Paris called me Willie more a French name for girls than a boy's name there."
"My nieces and nephew who were born in Paris, Elodie and Lunette carry more a French name, while Jasper was Shirley's choice," Rilla tells her with a nod of her head. "Elodie is sixteen like Oliver. Oh, this would be lovely on you?" Rilla says holding a floral dress with a background of pink.
"It's…" Willow says looking at it. "I haven't worn pink in a long time." She settles with.
"We can always get Lillian to make you something if nothing suits your fancy, though we should get a few things and basics," Rilla tells her. "Here let me hold her?" She offers to let Willow unhindered by the infant.
"Honestly I didn't get to pick out my clothes in England, Grandmama always bought everything, and in Paris, I just wore whatever I could afford?" Willow explains.
"You should get some dungarees and trousers," Rowena said bounding forwards with an armful of clothing. "Though you usually have to raid the boys section for those things, if you don't want them over feminine."
"Go shop, I'll get some things for Fleur and we can meet up in an hour or so by customer service?" Rilla tells the girls. For a moment Willow is more childlike than the young woman she strives to be around adults. She hands over Fleur though, kissing the top of her head before doing so.
In the end, they find Willow a dress for church, an everyday casual dress, two skirts and two blouses, a sweater to keep warm and to her delight a pair of dungarees. Adding to the lot was a pair of flannel pyjamas and a nightgown some woollen socks, a pair of shoes and boots for wet days. In her way Willow poses in front of mirrors for Rowena, showing her different angles and poses.
"I have a boyfriend," Rowena says with a smile. "Did you ever have one?"
"I knew a few boys in Paris from parties and art shows. None of them were truly special to me?" Willow says after a moment of thinking. "Otherwise I went to an all-girls boarding school?"
"It must be nice to be eighteen, and to be able to do what you want?" Rowena sighs.
"It's not all that it's cracked up to be," Willow says quietly, thinking about fighting her way out of Paris, trying to manage to get to someplace she had never seen and only heard about. Marcel, Phillipe, and Vernon all called her crazy, Paris would be fine. German occupation would be fine, it was fine last time.
Something in her told her to get out, with Martine if she could who had been with someone that might not make the list of approved people?
"So you have kissed boys?" Rowena asks impishly as her little sister might do. Willow just blushs, she had done a bit more than kiss a boy, not all the way of course but she had been close a few times before calling it off. "Oh! What is his name?" Rowena says excitedly.
They meet Jimmy and Rilla who are chatting up at customer service and find their things waiting for them and true to his insistence Jimmy took care of the bill not even blinking at the cost of things. After so many years the few things that he heard Ken and Rilla argue about was money from time to time. It was always about her love of clothing and today's total didn't even come close to one of Rilla's gowns he remembered hearing about once.
"I have to go to work tonight. You'll be fine with the family tonight? I know they are slightly younger than you." Jimmy rambled on.
"I'll be fine," Willow shook her, not wanting to worry him. "They all seem nice enough," she said quietly.
"I'll leave you the station house number," Jimmy told her.
"I'll be fine, I've been on my own at school for many years now," Willow told him with a shake
of her head.
"I will leave you then," Jimmy told her kissing her hair like he had been doing it all his life. It made her feel oddly important. "I am going to try and shift around some shifts since you are here. So we can have some days together."
Willow only nodded as she watched him say goodbye to Rilla with a kiss on the cheek and did the same for Rowena. She watched him leave, it sent a shiver down her back. A snippet of a memory came forward in her mind. A memory of someone she barely remembered yet who had given half of his being to them.
"Do you want to stop by the art store? Do like to sew or knit?" Rilla asked her.
"I can embroider things?" Willow said not understanding the question fully. Rilla seemed to understand and nodded her head.
"I don't like it, nothing exasperates me more when something not working in a pattern," Rilla said honestly. "But, with three growing children who have plenty of cousins. Things get passed around and it is easier to do it yourself sometimes when things need letting in or down."
Willow nodded as she walked beside the older woman.
"The art store would be nice," She says wanting to get more charcoal and paper, for the things that run through her mind.
"Well head over right after the pharmacy counter, we can get you some toiletries among other things," Rilla said knowingly. "Last thing we need is Jimmy blushing over feminine hygiene things."
"Mom don't say things like that!" Rowena groans, cheeks flushing red.
When it was all said and done, Willow was exhausted as she hung up her clothing. Stored her boots, and set out her small basket of toiletries in the small room she had been given. It had been a great debate, of where she would stay. Jimmy had been adamant that she come stay with him but the half-finished house and infant didn't mix.
"What do you wish to do?" Connie asks from the table. "With Fleur I mean? Most will think you are her mother and unwed given your age?"
"I promised Martine I would look after her," Willow says frowning. "I can manage, I can get a job, and I can find a way to make it work."
"We still need a guardianship for Fleur," Connie tells her frowning. "You being eighteen…unless she is kin to you she most likely wouldn't give you guardianship," she says sighing…thinking trying to find a possibility that she could keep them together.
"What do you mean? You can't take her away?" Willow says holding the infant close to her. "Then I'll say she's mine, they don't do anything if she is mine?"
"And lose your good standing?" Connie looks at her. "Toronto can be old fashioned Willow."
"Well, considering you've been married for two months and further along than that…" Willow's eyes narrow and Connie sighs.
"Ken and I can be legal guardians of Fleur while Willow is here with us?" Rilla says breaking into the conversation. "It's our best option to keep everyone together and happy?"
"We need proof of her mother's death?" Connie says after a moment.
"I can write to the convent with helped us at one point but I don't know how to get actual proof. France is a war zone?"Willow frowns.
"Would you swear in front of a judge?" Connie asks looking at her.
"Of course, I would," Willow says nodding her head.
"Then I will help all that I can," Connie says. "And you are more than welcome to stay at the house you know that right?"
"I know but, really you're newlyweds I don't want to disturb you," Willow tells her. "I'll stay here until I can get a job and be on my feet."
She brings the little one up to the attic for a nap before pulling out her sketch pad and some pencils.
Martine, Fleur would need a picture of her. The photos they had together were most likely long gone.
She traces out the shape of her face by memory, nose, eyes and lips are pencilled in lightly adjusting when she needs to, ensuring it was the right proportions.
She napped for a short while before she wandered about the house. There was little way to get lost in such a place, but there was a lack of familiarity that bothered her. She found the sitting room empty as she sat down at the piano. The sheet music was still out for whoever had been tinkering away on it. She flipped through all the pieces she knew as a child. Instead, she played from her memory, letting the opening to Fur Elise flow through note by note.
The little imp came running down the hall, poking her head around the wall to watch her. Before she plunked herself down on the bench fixing her glasses. She stared openly as she watched the older girl play. Mouth slightly agape, as she flawlessly moved into another song. Moonlight Sonatas haunting melody drifting out of the piano.
"Ollie plays piano, you're almost as good as he is," Clara tells her.
"Does Jimmy play?" Willow asks curiously.
"No, but he will dance with you if someone plays," Clara informs her. "He's a good brother, he would do anything for us if we needed it. Though if you hurt him I will get back at you. He was my brother first." Clara says her eyes narrowing.
"Clare-bear, Willow was Jimmy's sister long before you were," Oliver says entering the room.
"He's still mine," Clara objects. "I know him better!"
Willow laughs lightly. "It's all right Clara, I have no plans on taking Jimmy away from you. He will always be your brother." She says as you can hear the infant upstairs cry out. "I should go to her," Willow says getting up.
Both Jimmy and Connie work, sometimes opposite shifts, but Jimmy still came the next day to take her lunch in hopes of learning more about each other. It's a quaint cafe, and he introduces her as his sister to the matron who serves them when she asks about his darling wife who was in earlier for a snack.
"So you worked jobs and shared a flat with Fleur's mother?" Jimmy says repeating information he knows.
"I worked in shops and did commissions when people asked, sold things occasionally?"Willow tells him quietly. "Whatever paid the bills and kept food on the table for us especially when Martine couldn't work herself."
"Why though? Why didn't you stay in England weren't your grandparents wealthy?" Jimmy asks trying to make sense of the situation.
"So they could marry me off? I was their sweet granddaughter until I didn't comply with their wishes. I didn't want to be married, I wanted to be free of all the rules and regulations. I wanted real friendship and companionship. I wanted to draw, to paint, be who I wanted to be and not be someone, little wife." Willow tells him with an edge of urgency to her voice.
"Fair enough," Jimmy says quietly. "I'm not accusing you of anything, I just…I am trying to piece together who you are. I grew up wondering, imagining who you might be and it's hard to replace that image I made of you, unlike you who never probably knew about me?"
"Mom would tell me about you," Willow tells him. "Mom says you were a lovely young man when I was young anyway. I remember her reading your letters and then she passed away and I never saw the letters again. You are exactly who I figured you would be, minus being a cop and having a shotgun wedding?"
"It wasn't a shotgun wedding?" Jimmy tells her firmly. "We've been together for three years, we couldn't marry until her brother was out of school and she could leave her mother. I love her dearly."
"I would hope so," Willow says giving him a look.
"I love you as well, even though we don't know each other, I thought about you every day for years wondering, hoping you were safe and happy?" Jimmy tells her.
"I wasn't always happy, but I was safe for the most part," Willow tells him truthfully, stirring her coffee awkwardly. "I ran away from England after school, I just didn't want to be there anymore. I caught a ferry to France and then a train to Paris and I felt free for once in my life. I met Martine, Marcel Julian and Clover and they took me in, under their wing. We helped each other and modelled sometimes for each other when we were stuck on positions and proportions. It was a family I never had for a long time and then the war broke out and no one was safe anymore." Willow says voice teetering as she remembers the last months.
Jimmy reaches out, wanting to comfort her.
"I just kept telling myself that if I went back to England I would be forced into some marriage, and my promise to Martine to watch over Fleur would be broken. Then there was you a stranger…who didn't know his life was going to turn upside down with my appearance. You have a life, I didn't know what sort of life but given your age, there was a large chance of you being married and having children of your own, who might not even believe or want me around."
"Willow, I am glad that you came, never fear that. We are strangers learning about each other and that's fine if we aren't best friends or connecting right away." Jimmy tells her.