Chapter 17

Wendy Hollyflower came out of the kitchen and stopped in her tracks when I stepped out from behind her daughter. She froze in the middle of her sentence and her stride and in a voice full of astonishment and hope she said, “Paul?”

She rushed to me and took me in a tight embrace.

“Mother!” Penny said in surprise. “This isn’t Paul. This is Paul’s son Michael. He’s called Mick.”

Wendy released me into a more relaxed hug and looked at my face. For several seconds, she studied it and then she slowly ran the back of her fingers down my face from my hairline to my chin.

“Um ... I’m sorry ... you look so much like Penny’s father.” Then she realized what she’d said and snapped her hand over her mouth in horror.

“Mother, relax. Mick knows.”

“He knows?” Wendy’s eye flew wide open.

“Hello Miss Hollyflower. Wendy. I’m so happy to finally meet you.” I held out my hand, but both of Wendy’s hands were wiping tears from her face.

“You look and sound like Paul. Is he still alive?”

“Yes and he asked the same question about you. Before I leave, I must give you his address.”

“He’s married?”

“Yes, he married the girl he left behind.”

“The one that never wrote to him?”

“Oh she wrote to him, but my grandmother intercepted the vast majority of the letters going in both directions. She didn’t want father to worry about things at home and get himself distracted and killed. When he got home all was revealed and my mother snatched him up. I’m told that I was made that very same day.”

“Oh.”

Wendy Hollyflower suddenly dropped down into one of the chairs in her salon and seemed to go limp. Then it hit me that she had been living and hoping all these years that my father would return to her and her daughter.

“Mother, you, Mick and I need to have a long talk. I’ve fallen in love with him and I want to marry him.”

“Of course you fell in love with him. He’s an O’Dell. How could you not.”

Wendy paused again as she began to understand the impact of her daughter’s words.

“But his father, your father.”

“I know, mother. That’s one of the things we need to talk to you about,” Penny said calmly.

“Oh my darling. What have I done to you. And to you Mick. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said softly. “If I’ve learned anything over the course of this war it’s that sometimes the best plans fall to pieces and the things that come together on the fly sometimes work out best.”

“Well come in and sit. Do you drink tea or coffee, Mick?”

“I know how expensive coffee is, I’ll be quite happy with a cup of tea.”

“Tosh. If you want coffee, I’ll make coffee. I’m still that much an American,” Wendy said, puffing out a chest that matched her daughter’s.

We sat at Wendy Hollyflower’s kitchen table and drank coffee and I told her as much of my father as I could. She always looked sad when I spoke of my mother. And she always laughed when I told her stories of my grandmother.

Our conversation went on for hours and hours and I’d noticed that the sun was setting. I must have looked apprehensive, because Penny placed a hand on my arm.

“Mick, you’re on leave. We don’t have to go back tonight. We’re staying here tonight. You and I will sleep in my bed.”

“But Penny, we’re not married, and I don’t feel right sleeping with you in your mother’s home.”

“Mother, perhaps Mick should sleep with you tonight.”

“WHAT!?” Both of us responded to Penny at the same time.

“Well, it seems like it would all be in the family. Besides you’re related to me, not my mother. Is what we’ve been doing more evil, in most people’s eyes, than having sex with my mother?”

“Penny,” her mother said softly. “I appreciate your offer, and it’s sweet that you would share, but since you were conceived, I’ve not had a man in me. I only want to sleep with the one man I’ll ever love, and Mick isn’t him.”

Every time I thought about the fact that I was in love with, having sex with, and wanting to marry my sister, a chill went up and down my spine. In one way it seemed so wrong and yet it felt very right and correct.

We talked some more, and I was starting to get hungry. A fact announced to Wendy and Penny by my rumbling stomach.

“Oh my, we’ve been talking for such a long time. Let me get supper started.”

Wendy was stopped as she moved to the pantry by a loud knock on her front door. She looked strange.

“I wonder who that could be at this time of day.”

She left Penny and I in the kitchen and walked through the house to her front door. We heard the front door open and then there was a loud gasp and a thud; then a familiar man’s voice loudly exclaiming, “Wendy!”

Penny was up and off like a shot, running to the front door, I was close behind. When I got to the front door, Penny was on the floor at her mother’s side and I was frozen in my tracks staring at...

“Father!? Mother!?”

“Hello, son,” Paul O’Dell said.

“Hello, Mick,” my mother said from behind him in the small doorway.

“How? When? What?”

“Later, son,” he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Just relax and let’s see if Wendy is all right.”

Paul O’Dell knelt beside his daughter and her mother, and as Wendy began to come around, he scooped her up and carried her to her couch. Before he got there Wendy came around and looked up into the face of the only man she had ever truly loved.

“You came back to me.”

Her voice was still a little weak and she was still a little confused, but she knew a dream come true when she saw it.

“Hello Wendy,” was all he could get out before she launched herself off the couch, clutching him in her arms.

“Mother, what are you two doing here?” I asked watching the two former lovers reunite.

“When we got your letter, your father was beside himself. Then a few weeks later the war ended, and he got us on one of the last Yankee Clippers coming over. The seaplanes are being grounded in favor of faster planes that land at airfields. We landed in Bournemouth yesterday and took a train here to a place called King’s Cross and then a cab. Your father got her address from people he knows through the military hospital, and here we are.”

My father looked up and for the first time got a close look at his daughter.

“Hello Penny. I’m your father, Paul O’Dell,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m so sorry to not have been around for you. I ... I didn’t know.”

“I know, Father. Mother told me that you were hurried out of the country after receiving your medal. She didn’t even know she was having a baby until you were gone and out of touch. I’d give you a proper hug, but you seem to be catching up on hug time.”

Penny smiled and stroked the tears running down my father’s cheek before turning her attention to my mother.

“Hello, I’m Penny Hollyflower.”

“And I’m Patty O’Dell, I think I’m your step-mother.”

“That sounds about right for now.”

Penny pulled my mother into the house and embraced her as I stood by wondering how this was all going to come out. After a considerable amount of time, Wendy finally released my father and he helped her to stand. She straightened her hair and her dress before looking at everyone and regaining her composure.

“I’m so sorry. Penny, please help me get some tea for everyone.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” my father said. “Wendy is there a restaurant or pub nearby that will allow us all to sit and talk? My treat.”

“The Broken Axe public house is just down the street. I’m sure they can find room for us.”

“Good, let’s go for a walk,” my father suggested. “After being on that plane for the better part of a day and then the train, I’d like to stretch my legs.”

“Does your hip still bother you, Paul?” a concerned Wendy asked.

“No, Nurse Hollyflower, it does not. However, after the trip we’ve been on, I believe I have a new affliction called “going flat on one end”!”

We all laughed at that and dressed for a cold, wet English Spring evening. When we walked to the door, Wendy took notice of something.

“Wait! Paul, where are your bags? Don’t tell me you jumped on an airplane with no travel bags.”

“We stopped at the hotel first and had everything brought to our room first. We’ll go back there tonight.”

Finally we were all bundled up and we walked down the street to the pub. I held hands with Penny and my mother. My father walked in front of us and held hands with Wendy Hollyflower.

“Mother, doesn’t that bother you?” I asked my mother quietly as we walked behind them.

“No Mick. Paul explained what happened to him, at least the short version, before we married. After your wire he filled me in on the whole story as he knew it. I understand his feelings completely. You know your father, Mick, he’s been agonizing these past few weeks over his failure to be a responsible father.”

“But he didn’t know.”

“I know, but he’s been struggling due to his sense of duty, and his love of our family.”

“Do you have any idea as to what is going to happen?”

“Of course,” mother said with a knowing smile. “You don’t think I came all this way blind, do you?”

“No, I guess not. Maybe I should l change places and let you talk to Penny.”

“No, you keep her in hand. I’ll pin her down at the pub,” she said with a loving squeeze of my hand.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Penny held on to my hand tightly and every time I looked down at her she smiled confidently and squeezed a little more. When we arrived, my father opened the door and we filed in. The landlord saw us and waved. He was familiar with Wendy. She walked to the bar and spoke to him and he came out and asked a man sitting alone at a large table to come to the bar and give up his table for the five of us.

When he agreed, my father thanked him and offered to buy him a drink. Then my father went to the landlord and told him to put the man’s meal and drinks on our tab. We took seats at the table and the bar maid took our orders. My mother and father had tea, I needed something stronger and ordered a double whisky. Penny and her mother each had an ale.

“Well, who goes first?” I asked.

Wendy spoke right up, holding back more tears. “How are you Paul? I’ve missed you so.”

“I’ve been very good, my love. After the awards ceremony at the base, I was whisked away to a troop ship and sent home. I so wanted to come back to you and ask you for your address and give you mine so we could stay in touch when you came back to Georgia. If only I’d known about Penny.”

“Oh, my love,” Wendy replied stroking my father’s cheek in front of my mother. “I understand. I asked about you and found out about your Medal of Honor and how they sent you home straight away. My heart was broken, but I dare not do anything. I was still married, and I knew nothing could come of us. I did write my husband, out of guilt and told him the truth, that I was pregnant and in love. He ended up taking his own life. I remained here, doing my duty to my daughter and the wounded soldiers.”

Right there in front of God and everyone, they shared a light kiss on the lips. I looked at my mother and she was smiling as she patted my hand on the tabletop.

“When I got home,” Paul continued. “I found out that Patty HAD been writing to me and my mother had purloined the letters to stop me from worrying about things at home. Mother was worried that I’d be distracted and get myself killed. I didn’t need her help in almost getting killed. Anyway, Patty dragged me off to bed as soon as I walked in the door. We immediately made my son and were married in a matter of days after I got home.”