Page 28 of Lost Dreams

Aurora turned to look at both Oren and Kenny. Kenny looked vaguely panicked, like he wanted to stop recording, but Oren’s eyes urged her on. It was clear they’d struck on something.

“According to our research,” Aurora said delicately, “Edmund died in battle. In the war.”

Benjamin wrinkled his brow. “No, that’s not right. He died as a baby.”

Aurora had brought Great-Grandpa Charles’s journal upstairs with her, but she hadn’t imagined she’d need to use it. Now, she dug through her bag and pulled it out, handing it over to her grandfather. Benjamin took it, looking mystified. He hadn’t imagined the discussion going this way.

“I don’t think you have your facts right,” Benjamin said, his voice jagged. “My father would have told me if he’d lost his brother in the war.” But even as he said it, there was a ring of falseness to it. It was clear that his father had been cagey. There had been secrets.

Aurora sliced her hand over her neck, telling Kenny and Oren to stop filming. She no longer wanted anything to do with digging through her grandfather’s memories. It felt ugly to her.

But Oren shrugged and kept filming. Benjamin seemed to have forgotten that any of them were around, save for Aurora. With shaking hands, he opened the journal to the pages that Aurora had marked. His eyes were wet. Aurora watched him read, panic lacing through her.

Suddenly, Aurora stood and glared at Kenny and Oren. “I told you to stop,” she said.

Kenny looked shocked. He reached down and stopped the camera, while Oren extended his hands. “He agreed to be interviewed and filmed,” he said.

A tear drifted down her grandfather’s cheek. Aurora’s heart felt cracked. All at once, all she could think about was herself at nineteen, waiting in that hospital room in Berlin, waiting for the news that her boyfriend was either dead or too injured ever to walk again.

Bad news like that could hit you like a bomb.

Just because the bad news that Benjamin read about now had happened eighty years ago didn’t mean that it wasn’t enormous. She could feel it playing heavily on her mind.

“Let’s wrap this up another time, boys,” Benjamin said, unable to look at Oren and Kenny.

Oren looked irate and made a big show of packing up his things. Kenny was quieter about it, more respectful. It took them no more than three minutes to get everything together and leave the office. After they closed the door, Aurora thought, I’ve really done it now. I’ve destroyed my relationship with them. We’ll never finish that documentary.

But the look on her grandfather’s face told her she’d done the right thing.

“I can’t believe he never told me,” Benjamin said. “You probably think I’m foolish, not to know this about my uncle. I never knew my father had to mourn him. I never knew he died in battle, for goodness’ sake.” He closed his eyes for a long time.

Aurora couldn’t believe how secretive her family was.

She couldn’t believe how secretive she was, in fact. It seemed that she’d come by it honestly. It seemed that Aurora and Lorelei and Benjamin and Charles had all kept secrets from their family. But why? Why did they want to preserve themselves and their lives within themselves? What was the point?

Benjamin rubbed his temples. “Aurora, I’m sorry. I imagine you wanted that to go differently.”

“No, Grandpa. I’m sorry.” Aurora was endlessly embarrassed. She reached for her grandfather’s wrinkled hand.

“It’s just that, well, I lost my own brother. Ronald. He drowned in the Nantucket Sound.” Benjamin told a story that Aurora had only heard vaguely. “It pains me so much to hear what happened to my uncle, my father’s twin. Because I know it means my father had to go through such incredible pain twice in his life. He had to say goodbye to so many people he loved. Why should anyone have to go through that?”

“It’s senseless,” Aurora said quietly.

“It really is.”

Aurora considered all the awful things that had happened to Benjamin, all the bad things that had happened to her. She considered Oren and Kenny, probably back in the stables by now, complaining about her.

“Does it ever end, Grandpa?” Aurora asked. She surprised herself with her naive question, but it spilled out regardless.

Her grandfather considered this. “You mean, loss? Does loss end?”

Aurora closed her eyes as an answer.

Benjamin squeezed her hand again.

“I feel like I’ve lost so much the past few years,” Aurora said. “I don’t know how to rebuild my life. It feels like bad things keep happening and knocking me down.”

Benjamin was quiet for a long time. When Aurora finally opened her eyes again, she saw honesty and strength in her grandfather’s eyes.