Although nearly two years had passed since her fiancé died, she still wore black. Mourning is never becoming to a young woman, but Alice Moreton fared better than most. There, sitting in the stark room, she made me think of a crocus blooming in a snow drift.
We sat in the front parlour, I stiff on the settee and she straight-backed on the armchair opposite. The room was a vault, sealed off from the life that streamed noiselessly by the front window. Only the insistent ticking of the mantel clock disturbed the silence.
Her slender fingers traced the words Holy Bible on the cover of the mangled book I’d passed to her. She stared at the sickening hole, pulped and bloodied. She drew in a breath, but she said nothing.
The clock marked time.
In my head, words swirled, pooling and scattering, refusing to form into complete sentences. I’d rehearsed this conversation ever since Tom died. Maybe if… I clenched my eyes shut in an effort to halt my demons.
When I opened my eyes, I found Miss Alice looking at me.
“I’m sorry, Mr Truman. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just so shocking,” she said, glancing at the pocket Bible in her trembling hand.
“Tom and I had an agreement…” I swallowed hard as visions of muddy trenches, exploding shells, and open-eyed corpses flared in my mind. “…if anything were to happen.”
Her gaze returned to the small book in her lap.
“He told me to tell you he loved you more than life itself, Miss. He told me to tell you he would not want you wasting your life in sorrow and your beauty in mourning clothes.”
Her fingers floated to the collar of her black dress.
“He told me he would want you to move on, to find love, to get married–”
She winced, and her lovely face contorted. “How?” Her eyes searched my face.
I shrugged. “Live—because of your love for him.”
Doubt clouded her face.
I stood. Leaning on my cane, I made my confession. “I owe him my life, Miss. He’d told me about Jesus and lent me his Bible. Made me promise to read it, but I just tucked it in my breast pocket and forgot about it.” I opened my palm to reveal a flattened German slug, the same size as the hole in the Bible’s pierced cover.
A 400-word short story to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible, the world’s best selling book.
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