I'll Be Seeing You Read Free Page B

opened out the letter. It was dated three days before she died and the writing was shaky.
    My darling Juliet
,
    I have known for several weeks that I am going to die soon and I hope that you and Drew will understand my reason for not telling you, or anyone. I truly believe that this way has made it easier for all of us, without spoiling the precious time left
.
    There has been time, too, for me to think about things past and to reach another decision, which I pray is also the right one. I believe that I should tell you something that I have always kept from you – again, for what I felt were also good reasons. But now things are different. Vernon has gone and I shall soon be gone. I think you should know the truth and there is no way to tell it except straight out
.
    Vernon was not your natural father. Your real father was an American pilot serving over here in England in the war with their Eighth Air Force. He was the captain of a bomber crew and I met him when I was in the WAAF. We fell in love. Deeply in love. We were going to be married as soon as his tour was over but he was shot down over France in 1944 and posted missing, presumed killed in action. I found out then that I was pregnant with you – his child. Vernon, whom I had already known for many years, offered to marry me and to accept you as his own. I agreed because I truly believed that it was the best thing for you. In those days, to be born out of wedlock was a terrible stigma. Later, I discovered that your real father was still alive and had been hidden by the French for months in Occupied France. When he got back to England, he found out that I had married someone else and he went home to the United States without knowing of your existence. I never told him, partly in fairness to Vernon, and partly because telling the whole truth could only bring unhappiness to everyone concerned. As you know, Vernon loved you very dearly. So far as he was concerned, you were his daughter and he was a wonderful father to you, just as he was a wonderful husband to me
.
    I had never intended to tell you, but lately I’ve changed my mind. Your real father was a wonderful man, too, and I never forgot him or stopped loving him. Not for a single day. You are a part of him, Juliet – all I had left – and I treasured you twice over. Incidentally, you get your artistic talent from him
.
    Even though you may never meet, I want you to know the truth before I die. It seems only fair to him now, as it was fair to Vernon before – though perhaps it’s not so fair to you? Right or wrong, I feel that you should know. Whether or not you choose to tell Flavia is your decision alone, but I think she would understand. I hope and pray that you will
.
    With my everlasting love, Mama
.
    The handwriting had deteriorated progressively so that the final lines were hard to read, the signature a clumsy scrawl.
    I don’t know how long I sat there, clutching the letter in my hand – staring at it, rereading it and then reading it all over again, and yet again, as though doing so might somehow change its content or meaning. But my mother had, as she had felt compelled to do, given it to me straight out. The gentle, kind, quiet man I had adored was not, apparently, my father. Instead, my true father was some unknown bomber pilot who had met my mother when she had been the beautiful young WAAF in the photograph downstairs. One of those overpaid, oversexed, over-here Yanks. I simply couldn’t believe it. I refused to. In her last days Ma must have become confused. She had been prescribed strong drugs to combat the cancer and the pain – the doctor had told me so – and she had imagined the whole thing. Old memories mixed with new drugs had played silly tricks on her mind.
    At last, I put down the letter and picked up the photograph to look at it more closely. I could see now that the air crew was wartime American. These were unmistakably Yanks. The four standing