title from "goodnight new york" by vienna teng (which i also referenced in chapter 2! time is a flat circle, etc)
today begins and it's all that we have
may 1943
He doesn't cry when he awakes, not this time — he hasn't for many years. Instead, Walter blinks his eyes open with a faint twitch, just as the shell is about to hit.
The room is quiet, a shaft of moonlight turning it bright, casting deep shadows across Una's face where it rests against the pillow.
"Are you awake?" Una whispers.
"Sorry. Did I wake you?"
"It's alright," Una says, which is her way of saying yes. "I wasn't sleeping well, myself."
Walter's fingers find Una's cheekbone, trace down over her lips and the long-softened line of her chin.
"I could stop her, if you want me to."
Una is quiet for a long moment, her eyes sliding away from him. She presses her lips together, hand coming up to curl around Walter's. He waits for her to speak.
"Could you?" she whispers.
"I know the editor from our magazine days. I could call him. Forbid him from letting Romy go."
Una does not tell him to do it, does not nod her encouragement. She only rests her chin on their joined hands, eyes distant and wistful.
"I don't know," she says finally. "I fear that…I know what the right thing to do is. And I can't stand it."
The bed is suddenly too small, for all that is between them right now, too small to hold out everything that is pressing down on them from the outside. With effort, Walter pushes himself upright, pausing to catch his breath. Breathing is harder these days — not in the fanciful way of poetry, but in the banal way of injured lungs. Una worries, and in truth, sometimes Walter does too, but he tries not to speak of it. There's nothing that can be done.
"Do you want to take a walk?" he whispers.
He sees Una's smile in the dark. "At this hour?"
"Come. I want to see the moon."
Una slips out of bed and comes 'round to his side, taking his hand as he braces himself against the bedrails with the other.
He is fifty years old. His own father was rather spry at fifty, still attending to his patients in the Glen, swooping his grandchildren up to carry on his shoulders. Sometimes…sometimes Walter thinks — knows — thinks — that he will not know his grandchildren, if he has any.
But perhaps he might. There are so few things one can be certain of.
Perhaps they — critics, readers, young scholars trying to make sense of the past — would like him better if he had not lived to this age — if he could be immortalized, young and beautiful, like Brooke or Owen or Mallory, dying for an empire, for the dreams of a future. Instead, he is alive, hair graying, shoulders beginning to stoop. He has mortal cares, like thinking of how to tell Una that one of their neighbors rather outmaneuvered him in conversation at the post office, and so she is coming by tomorrow to bring back Una's willow-ware platter, like it or not. "I'd rather she keep it," Una had muttered to him while washing the dishes, the other day. "I don't enjoy trying to parry every little jab she makes in conversation every time she comes up." Walter had laughed — which is rather mortal of him, too.
They wrap themselves in their dressing gowns and walk down the hallway, the faint, thick shadow of Carl's new book on the hall table. Well — it is credited to Carl and his wife; it is Carl's writing on the flora and fauna of western Canada, and his wife's photographs and plant pressings. They have not actually seen Carl in several years, though he writes and sends photos. Perhaps Walter can convince him to come for a visit, sometime this summer. That would make Una happy.
They walk past the half-open bathroom door, where the metal of Walter's razor and one of Una's combs glints in the moonlight — into the front room, past the piano — the dark shapes of Una's music books atop it, Walter's notebooks and journals left carelessly on the bench.
They have never left this little house in Toronto, never had need to. It has stayed the same, year after year — or nearly so; they had to replace one of the front windows when a neighborhood boy threw a baseball through it; they repainted the front door blue when its paint began to peel. The little garden in the backyard has been pruned and nurtured to life; their next-door neighbor planted a willow many years ago that droops over the fence.
Walter had occasionally entertained thoughts of moving back to the Island; it was always a certainty of his that one day he would return, perhaps when he has retired from work. Romy would bring their grandchildren to visit them, just as he used to visit his grandparents in Avonlea.
But he needs his job at the university. He cannot support his family on writing alone, not when he hasn't written anything worthwhile since September of 1939. And so they stay in Toronto. Some dreams, Walter knows, do not always come true.
It's not so bad here. He has his friends, the theaters and bookshops, this little house where he and Una were so young and happy together.
The night air is warm, so close to summer. A breeze stirs their hair, loose strands from Una's braid tickling his face.
They fall into step, circling the garden, Walter's cane steadily thumping the earth as they go. All of the flowers are blue in the night, the shapes of their petals indistinct. He only knows where they are by memory — the marigolds are here, near the doorway. They are Romy's favorites, but if she has her way, she will not be here to enjoy them this summer. She has been offered the opportunity to accompany a newspaper reporter overseas, as a photographer. They plan to remain in London, she says, but that is dangerous enough — and should they need to go to the continent, Walter is sure Romy will not remain behind.
"What were you seeing?" Una asks, taking his hand.
"I had the strangest dream…of the first war," Walter says slowly. "I'd never seen it this way before — it was as though I were outside myself — watching it all happen from very far away, as if it were a film. Is it strange — that I remember it better now than I did ten years ago?"
"No," Una says. "I don't think that's strange at all."
The nightmares had stayed at bay for nearly twenty years. They have returned now, and they are almost a comfort. He has kept his promise, he has not forgotten.
"What are you thinking of, Una-my-only?"
"I am thinking…" Una's breath catches. "…that we should let Romy go, Walter. If she truly wants to."
Her hand is a fist in the sash of her dressing gown. Gently, Walter uncurls her fingers. The skin of both of their hands is beginning to loosen, folding around their wedding rings. "I was thinking the same."
He's sure Romy would go anyway, whether or not Walter and Una approve — but he wants her to know that he does, that he believes in her to choose what is right.
And if it is a mistake? He believes in her to live with that in time, too. As much as his own war still lingers in his mind, as much as he regrets that it all happened…he supposes, perhaps, that he no longer regrets his choice, if he ever did. After all, could he have truly stood by as every other boy of his age went to the front? Could he have ever written another line without knowing what they had all faced, without ever standing at the edge of the chasm that swallowed so many of his generation? He had not looked away. This is what he tells himself.
They pass the lavender, the tea roses, and the fox's brush growing from the garden walls, which Una can never bring herself to cut. Under the willow are lilies that mark where they buried Pearl, many years ago.
"Do you think she'll have time to visit before she ships out?" Una asks.
"Perhaps." Walter turns to look at her. "Or we could. Shall we go with her to Halifax to see her off? We could visit Shirley, too."
Una's hand presses harder against his. "I'd like that."
They come to a stop, the breeze carrying the scents of rosemary and thyme. Una always despairs that they are the liveliest plants in the garden; that she can never quite keep all the ornamental flowers alive with such ease.
Una looks up at him, anguish in her blue eyes. Walter can do nothing but pull her closer, try to give her back all the strength she has given him over the years. Over her head, he looks out at the garden, the flowers blooming in the sweet grass. It reminds him, quite suddenly, of how blue the sky could be over the trenches, how bright the stars, how unconscious the earth is of their human matters.
Cool, silver light begins to dapple the garden. Soon the quiet of the night will be over; the world will wake up once again.
"I'm sorry we couldn't be closer to them," Walter says. "That we never went back to the Island. I know…you never wanted to leave — but my work is here — "
Una turns to him, her eyes bright. "You're here," she says. "You — Romy, God willing — Rilla and Ken — all of my friends…"
She reaches up to kiss him, lips warm and a little chapped against the corner of his own. "This is home," she whispers.
Walter draws Una close, leans down to murmur in her ear. The words he speaks are only for her, but the early morning air catches them too, softly echoing through the garden. They disappear into the wind, into time — but Walter knows them, and so does Una, and for now, they are still here.