Read To The Grave for Free Online

of you.”
    “Yes, congratulations,” Margaret added as the glasses met and tinkled.  “And when is the big day to be?  A spring wedding perhaps?  If you can wait that long.”
    Edward and Mary exchanged glances and both began to speak at once.  “We were -”
    Edward continued.  “We rather thought it best to wait until this wretched war was over,” he said.  “I want to do what’s right for Mary and what with the rationing and our families scattered to the four winds...”
    “Quite,” Pop said, though his expression seemed to question Edward’s judgment.
    Margaret voiced their concern.  “Do you think that’s wise, Edward dear?  I mean, with everything that’s going on...  Well you have to live each day, don’t you?”
    “Mother!” Mary said.
    “Well you do, dear.  There’s no knowing if Edward will -”
    Edward cut in.  “We’re completely decided on the matter.”  He looked into Mary’s eyes again and held them as he spoke.  His voice softened.  “I have no idea if I’ll make it through this war, Mrs Lasseter, but I do believe I’ll stand a better chance if I have your daughter’s hand waiting for me at the end of it.”
    Margaret put a hand to her mouth.  “Oh, Edward,” she said, and she hugged him like all three of her own boys were there in her embrace.
               
    Much later, after Edward had left and the cold moon was high over Oadby, Mena sat in her chair by the window and looked out over the crystalline landscape.  Pop had not long retired for the night - always last to bed and first to rise - and the house was still again, but she couldn’t sleep.  She pulled her blanket up beneath her chin and continued to wonder why everything about her life was so unfair.
    Why couldn’t I have been born before Mary?
    Things would have been different then, she supposed.  Perhaps then she would be allowed to wear make-up and she would have been allowed to join-up and get away from home as Mary had.  Perhaps then she would have been the one her mother had matched with Edward Buckley so long ago and now she would be getting married and setting up her own home, somewhere far from Oadby and everything else about her life that was wrong.
    A creaking floorboard interrupted her thoughts.  She imagined Pop had had one too many glasses of stout too close to bedtime, but a moment later her bedroom door opened.  It was Mary, dressed in a pale-yellow nightdress that matched her own.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” Mary said as she came into the room.
    “Oh?”
    “I was worried about you.”
    “Worried about me?”  Mena laughed to herself.  “Whatever for?”
    Mary approached the window and sat opposite Mena on the edge of the bed.  “You’ve hardly said a word all evening.  Now I find you sitting up in your chair.  You can’t sleep either?”
    “I’m not tired.”
    “Is it because Edward and I are getting married?”
    Mena looked out the window and the moon seemed to reflect her melancholy.
    “It is, isn’t it?” Mary said.  She squatted beside the chair, between Mena and the moon.  “It won’t change anything, Mena.”
    Without looking at Mary, Mena got up and jumped onto her bed.  “It will.  It will,” she said.  “It will change everything and I’ll be left here alone with Mother!”  She was under the covers before Mary had the chance to stand up again and from beneath them she heard her sister laugh in that gentle way that always told her what a silly little girl she was being.
    “You can come and stay with us whenever you like,” Mary said.  “You know that.”
    Mena felt the bedcovers slide back over her face.  She did nothing to stop them.
    “It won’t be half as bad as you think,” Mary added.
    Mena was back in the moonlit room, staring into her sister’s eyes.  She felt a soft hand brush a tear from her cheek.
    “How long have you known?” Mena said.
    “About a month.  Edward had been in Italy until the end of summer.  They