Page 94 of The Treasure House

He was going to join up and go away, like her father had gone away when she was a baby. Dad had also fought, but in the Pacific. He also had a Silver Star and never said a word about what he’d done to get it.

Freddie could be sent to Korea, where the war was over but the peacekeeping troops still sat. Or to West Germany, on the borders of the Iron Curtain. What if the Cold War turned hot? He might have to fight and maybe die.

“I love you,” Marly blurted. She regretted it immediately. It had burst out of her because of the way he looked there, framed against the swelling waves, his hair blowing out of place, into his eyes. She told him, because if he left and she’d never told him, and then he died, she’d regret it forever. Looking at him there on the beach, pent up with three years of longing, knowing that if he could just see her then he’d see they were meant to be, she’d thrown caution to the wind.

But she knew immediately it had been a mistake.

Freddie had frozen. “What?”

Well, it was done now. And she wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. “I love you,” she said, this time more firmly.

He stayed frozen. The sea breezes gusted around them, kicking up glitters of sand.

“You can’t go away… you can’t go away to the army… without knowing that I love you. And that I’d marry you if you’d ask me.”

Slowly, Freddie removed his sunglasses. He was squinting, but she could see that his gaze was full of pity. And that pity turned her stomach. “Ah, pixie stick,” he said, sighing, “you don’t love me.”

“Don’t call me that.” Even though she loved it when he called her that. He never called anyone that except her. “And I do. I’ve loved you for years. I’ve loved you over every game of tennis and Monopoly, every time you took me out in a canoe, every time we walked on this beach.”

“With Cilla,” he reminded her softly. “We did all that with Cilla.”

“No. You might have. But I didn’t. I did it with you.”

Freddie de Marche swore softly and looked heavenward to the June blue sky, as though seeking help from above. When he looked back at her his pale eyes, the color of ocean shallows, were full of bittersweet sympathy. “Marly.” He never used her name, and the sound of it on his lips made her shiver. “Marly, honey, you only think you love me.”

She shook her head. No. This was love.

“One day you’ll grow up and find a guy…”

“Stop treating me like a child,” she said fiercely. “I’m seventeen.”

“… you’ll find a guy,” he said patiently, “and these feelings will pale in comparison.”

“They won’t,” she spat. “They won’t.”

He was looking at her so kindly. It made her want to kick and scream. This wasn’t how she’d imagined this moment at all. In her daydreams, the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw her and knew he loved her.

“Listen, kid, you’re a knockout,” Freddie de Marche told her gently, “and trust me, you’re going to knock some guy’s socks right off.”

“But not your socks,” she said bitterly.

He looked down at his bare feet and tried for a joke. “What socks?”

It fell flat.

“Marly.” He dropped his shoes and coat in the sand. “One day you’ll thank me,” he said, taking her hands. “For not being a molester after all.” He shook his head. “You feel all grown up, Marly, but you’re just a kid.”

“So? So what if I’m a kid? I won’t be a kid forever.”

“But you are now.” He sounded tired. “And I’m a lot of things, but someone who takes advantage of kids isn’t one of them.”

She tore her hands out of his. “I’ll wait till you get back. Till you’re out of the army. By then I’ll be Priscilla’s age. If she’s old enough, then I’ll be old enough.”

Freddie laughed, but it wasn’t mean. “Pixie stick, by then you’ll have met a guy who’ll turn you weak at the knees. A guy who knows a good thing when he sees it. You’ll be getting married up there in that garden, with all your family around you, and I’ll just be a distant memory—some guy who dated your cousin in those last golden years of your childhood.”

“I’ll never marry,” Marly told him wildly. “I’ll just have cats.”

“What are you talking about?” Even though he was exasperated and sad, he smiled.