The Things We'll Never Have

By Hilary Hauck

Everleigh's arrival in a small Italian town unearths a web of secrets, shame, and unexpected honor in this gripping blend of mystery and psychological drama.

Everleigh's dreams are crushed when her fiancé disappears weeks before the wedding she was counting on to color her otherwise dull existence in 1964 London. Driven by a need for closure and armed with letters from Gualtiero's family as clues, Everleigh travels to Italy, convinced that he has returned to his roots. But when the man everyone claims is Gualtiero walks in the room, she finds herself staring into the face of a stranger.

Everleigh's quest is no longer to find out where her fiancé is, but who he is. Her search takes an enthralling twist as she forges alliances with two unlikely companions. Together, they peel back the layers of hidden truths to unearth shocking revelations that set them on a collision course and shatter the foundation of everything they believed about family… and even their own identities.

Winner of the Historical Fiction Company's "Highly Recommended" Award of Excellence, The Things We'll Never Have is a gripping tale of kinship, broken trust, and self-discovery painted against the vibrant backdrop of 1960s Italy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olive Rose Press
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223401599

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The Things We'll Never Have

Hilary Hauck

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Olive Rose Press

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Hilary Hauck All rights reserved.

1st edition

OLIVE ROSE PRESS July 2023 Interior and Cover design by Hilary Hauck

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Everleigh

The house is hardly designed for secrets. The keyholes on the doors might as well be windows. I don’t consider it snooping, not really. It’s more like humoring the home’s intentions. We could just say it’s my little indulgence, a last nod to independence before our lives meld in marital bliss.

It’s not as though anything earth-shattering happens in there, anyway. I know what I’ll see. The same scene that greets me every Saturday afternoon. Gualtiero’s narrow frame sitting in his favorite chair, a bottle green affair with a lime cushion—a rather ghastly contrast if you ask me. Feet crossed, bent forward, black curls cascading, the two furrows between his eyebrows pointing to his magnificent nose. His deep brown eyes stare into the corner hidden from the keyhole. I know every inch of the room—there is nothing there.

He likes to stare at nothing. It’s not that he’s dull. I worried about that at first. He’s forlorn. Saturdays are when his cousin’s letter arrives with family news—who could blame him for a case of the doldrums?

I glance up at the landing to make sure the coast is clear, bend down slowly, and look. It’s a little check-in, just making sure everything is all right.

Well, I’ll be pickled. You’ll think me a liar—which I assure you is the last thing I am—but for the first time in all the Saturdays we’ve been living under the same roof, albeit not on the same floor, Gualtiero is not in his favorite chair.

It’s a tad disconcerting, a change in routine, and for a fleeting moment I am a six-year-old, as sad as Gualtiero on his worst day, sitting on the stairs waiting for the postman. But that was many moons ago. Now I’m a twenty-six-year-old plain Jane whose career high is a senior typist in the typing pool.

There’ll be an explanation. Perhaps Gualtiero has relinquished his favorite chair to plan our trip to Italy. I can just picture him sitting at the rolltop desk, holding it steady with his knees. The desk is our first shared piece of furniture, a rolltop desk propped up by the arm of the sofa. We picked it up at a jumble sale with the promise that he would mend its broken leg before our marriage. Rather stiff to open, he sets nothing on top of it in case it should fall. Ironic really, how our first piece of furniture came with something so fragile and breakable as a promise.

No doubt he is holding a pen in his gloriously flawed hands, his large palms, his underproportioned fingers, the perpetual split on his thumb. Writing to his family, telling them about the train journey we’ll soon take to visit them.

The keyhole isn’t big enough for me to see the desk. I can only see part of the mantelpiece, and I know what is on that, too. Not a thing.

I set my bag on the very edge of the bottom stair where dirty shoes are least likely to have walked, shuffle my brolly, which is still dripping, into my left hand, and knock a robust knock, clear in its intention. I’ll just say hello, check that we’re still on for dinner, and steal a look over his shoulder to see if he has the ink and paper out.

I count as I wait for him to answer. His flat is the same as mine, seven and a half steps from stove to door. Ten steps from bed to door. I hear not a single footstep.

Perhaps he’s popped out. Forgotten something. Yes, that’s it, gone to the Italian deli. He’ll have left a note under my door. Maybe today’s letter brought good news. Maybe his family is coming to our wedding after all, and he’s gone for some sweet cannoli or a bottle of Spumante to mark the occasion.

An early celebration of our wedding that is going to deliver me into a life of all-day lunches at the river, idle boat rides, lengthy conversations, warmth, completeness, even children, despite the fact I still haven’t figured out the practical terms of how this will all play out, because having children scares the socks off me. Plus, we won’t actually live in Italy. Gosh, I would never even be traveling to Italy if it weren’t for marrying Gualtiero. But it’s a thrilling thing to imagine, so I’ll cling to it for now.

At the top of the stairs, the floorboards outside my door creak. Good to stop anyone from peeking through my keyhole, which is as large and revealing as Gualtiero’s. I open the door slowly, so wanting to see a note of explanation on the mat, but it is bare.

I’m not sure what to do. I mean, is Gualtiero still planning to make dinner? Saturday is his night to cook. I cook on Wednesdays. Not that we should compare the two dinners—they share nothing in common except for the fact we eat them. Or at least we usually do. My hopeless attempts aren’t always edible.

I should freshen up, but I don’t feel like it. Mum would have me freshen up. She’d also pretend nothing odd was happening. Sweep it under the carpet, ignore the issue until it went away. She’d make a cup of tea. Not by any means the best way to go about things, yet I fill the kettle, set it on the stove, and strike a match to light the ring. In Mum’s world, a cup of tea solves everything. Maybe by the time the kettle whistles he’ll be back.

I check outside the front window. Just cars, tires sloshing, a mother and her little boy jumping in the puddles left by an earlier rain burst. Joyful. Which is what I’d be if I knew what was going on. The boy is passing Mrs. T’s house, which reminds me I forgot to drop off her Woman’s Weekly. She used to come into the newsagents for it but has trouble getting around nowadays.

I grab my keys and the magazine from my bag and march out of my flat. I veritably stomp down the stairs, not quite slamming the front door, but neither am I quiet just in case he’s home. Mrs. T opens quickly. She must have been waiting for me propped on her walking stick in the hallway.

You’re a dear, she says, which makes me feel rather rotten for not stopping for a chat. I can’t. I hate not knowing things I have a right to know.

Back inside, I knock on Gualtiero’s door three times, loudly enough that even Mrs. T might hear. I knock again, then bend down to look through the keyhole. There’s no movement or sound from inside, but in my flat the kettle whistles, making me jump. I stand upright, lift my hand to knock again—surely the whistle and the knock will summon the dead—but they haven’t summoned the dead; they’ve summoned my landlord. He’s standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at me.

Hello. I try to sound casual, ignoring the fact my hand is still raised, knuckles poised. This time, instead of a blasting rap, I knock gently. Nonchalantly. I even smile to show my landlord that everything is hunky-dory, praying he didn’t get there in time to see me looking through the keyhole. Shrugging my shoulders and putting on my best gosh-could-he-really-not-be-home look when the knock fails, I go back upstairs, smiling as I reach the creaky floorboard and point to my front door.

The kettle, I say, in case he hasn’t heard it.

The colors in my flat are red, orange, and blue. I feel they raise me up while Gualtiero’s greens and browns weigh me down. We haven’t yet spoken about what colors we’ll have once we’re married. Nor have we discussed how much decor we’ll have. Contrasting with Gualtiero’s bare mantelpiece, mine has a potted ivy, two empty but decorative pots that’ll one day have plants in them, and a birthday card from Mum. I could’ve quoted the sentiment before I even opened it—sorry it’s late! The card is next to a picture of my brother, Edward, wearing the army uniform Gualtiero thinks denotes him as a hero. I offered to bring it downstairs to Gualtiero’s flat because he doesn’t have pictures of his family. There never have been any. Despite an old wartime camera that kicked around between his friends, his family doesn’t understand modern contraptions like cameras, he told me, his accent adding a couple of syllables to the word contraption. One day, we take a picture usselves. Oh, how I love that promise.

As it appears that I’m on my own for supper, I throw together some cheddar cheese on toast and heat—or rather burn—some baked beans to pour over the top. All the while, I listen out for doors opening or closing.

Before bed, I contemplate going back down to knock just in case he came in without me hearing, but gosh, Gualtiero, this is so unfair. I stay resolutely put. Let him see that I just don’t care.

Everleigh

Mum phones on Tuesday. It starts out as the normal conversation—the weather, yes, it’s been chilly, and yes, I’ve worn my mackintosh. Work still fine. Was I remembering to eat fruit? Apples and plums this week. And then she reaches the bit where she asks about Gualtiero.

Yes, he’s fine, I would think, I manage to say, not technically a lie, then try to jump ahead to ask about her garden, but Mum’s having none of it. She won’t let me skip the wedding plans.

And the big day, all set? This is her chance to convey her disappointment that I am not having a traditional wedding in front of the vicar, a congregation of men in their Sunday suits, women adorned with flowery dresses and hats that should only be seen at Ascot.

I should tell her the plans have been finalized, remind her a simple registry office wedding is not complicated. I will wear a cowl neck dress from Debenhams—not entirely traditional looking, but at least it’s white. After we’ll have a shindig at my brother’s house. Fine, I, too, am disappointed the reception won’t be a fancy affair, but I’d sacrifice a posh dinner for our honeymoon in Italy, even if it isn’t traditional to stay with family on a honeymoon.

I haven’t responded to her question about our wedding plans, and it doesn’t go unobserved.

Everything all right, dear?

Not quite. I stumble to recover my telephone composure.

She pauses, and I wonder if she’s hesitant to get involved with my problems. Something’s wrong, is there?

Her tone isn’t accusatory. It is merely a statement, and perhaps because it is a statement rather than an accusation, I find myself saying, It’s just that I’m not entirely sure where he is.

Well, could he be working late? Or gone to help a friend?

No doubt, I say because I don’t want to tell her how long he’s been gone—I shouldn’t have mentioned anything at all. As for friends, I won’t lie and pretend he has any. I don’t lie. Ever. Lies only tie you in pickles.

Mum and I get little further partly because we’ve already reached what is an in-depth conversation for us and partly because we are both more comfortable skirting around the fact that he’s probably left, skipped town, got out before he gets stuck with unworthy old me.

On Wednesday, Mum phones again. Two phone calls in a week are unheard of. I just wondered if he showed up for dinner. You normally cook on Wednesday, don’t you? I hadn’t realized she’d been paying attention.

On Thursday, she breaks all previous records and phones again. This time she announces she’s coming over.

What if he shows up by then?

There’s a pause while, I imagine, she considers laying it out to me straight—I never deserved him in the first place, or I’ve driven him away. But whatever she’s thinking, what she says is, Then we’ll have dinner together.

Until now, I have managed to stave off the notion that Gualtiero has deserted me, and I’ve justified his absence by imagining he has been called away by his boss or a colleague to help with an urgent matter. Or that he’s already been back, that I’ve just not happened to catch him—I’m a little cautious at the keyhole since the landlord incident. Mother’s imminent arrival somehow makes things official.

Delving into my life on the phone is one thing. It is an odd comfort picturing her standing against the wallpaper in the hallway the color of cherry bonbons.

On the phone, she delves from afar. It is somehow manageable. Her coming to my home slaps me with the reality that I am a grown-up, set adrift from a childhood that isn’t waiting for me to go back to if things don’t work out. It also slaps me with the reality that I have or have had a fiancé and that I seem to have no bloody idea where he might be, excuse my French.

During the midmorning lull at work on Saturday, I leaf through Vogue. Again, it’s talking about black-and-white outfits. A tad disappointing as I adore color, but Vogue is Vogue, and if that’s what it says goes, who am I to argue? Not that I have the budget to switch up my wardrobe, but a girl can dream, especially as it’s supposed to be the most exciting era ever to be young. A Beatle-fueled, Mary Quant-styled youth revolution. Unfortunately, the closest I can get to all that is by reading Vogue at work, and the most daring I get is wearing trousers when Mum’s not watching and tying a silk kerchief around my neck with a cool knot.

Not that I’d say no to the hat on the June issue. It’s like a huge white flower, capacious petals making a wide brim. Mr. M grunted when he put it on the shelf. He’s grunted at every issue since March when the model wore daisies on her head and on her chest. Nothing else. A bit shocking, really. He almost didn’t put it on the shelf but in the end decided to let his customers choose. Gosh, if I had the panache to wear a flower hat, I’m quite sure my fiancé wouldn’t have disappeared on me.

The next page is a bit of a surprise. A photoshoot in Italy, of all places. Fate is rubbing it in. I’m glad of the distraction when two customers come in one after the other and the pace never slows again.

Thankfully, today I remember Mrs. T’s Women’s Weekly on the way home. I decline a little peek through Gualtiero’s keyhole, but I knock just in case he has returned.

The lack of a response means it’s now one entire week since I lost my fiancé.

At 5:28 p.m., I have a look out the window. Right on time, Mum is walking toward my house. She is wearing her toffee-colored raincoat and carrying the tatty cotton bag she uses for groceries.

I look around to make sure nothing is out of place in my flat. Oh dash, the room is fine, but I am not. I am wearing trousers, and Mum is almost at my door. I have exactly thirty seconds to put on a skirt.

Mum shares none of my fascination with changing fashion. She grew up when showing a knee was risqué. When she was my age, skirts barely gave a nod to anatomy, which is why she would go barmy if she saw me in trousers. The fashion revolution is for us, the young people, as if we all have the means and courage to be part of it.

The thought of Mum’s disapproval at my meager attempt at the revolution is motivation enough to climb out of my stirrup pants and into my orange gingham skirt without tripping, fling the stirrup pants into the bottom of my wardrobe, and open the front door with a welcoming smile.

She walks in, seemingly oblivious to how my skirt is askew and to my lack of ankle socks. She doesn’t return my smile, instead looks grave, which is probably a more fitting look considering the circumstances. The familiarity of her tatty grocery bag and all hits me like a gaping hole has just appeared in the pavement in front of me, and against my best judgment and to my surprise, I have one of those sudden and fleeting spurts of tears.

You poor thing! Mum murmurs like a lullaby. She hands me her hankie, and I scrunch it against my face, fall against her for a cuddle, and sob. She pats my arm to inform me the cuddle is over.

How about you make me a nice cup of tea?

How about she make me a nice cup of tea? I’m the one who’s misplaced a fiancé. My sadness tapers a little, exchanged for a more familiar sense of duty to do as I’m told and not cause any other living creature even a hint of discomfort.

What have you done to find him? she asks in a veiled but effective shift of the burden of our separation onto my shoulders.

I put the kettle on and choose not to ask the question that pops to mind—namely, does she think I’ve intentionally driven him away?

Milk and sugar? I ask, knowing the answer is milk, no sugar.

We sit at either end of the sofa and replay the weather, work, and fruit routine—this week it’s pears instead of plums. Because we can’t then move onto a registry office wedding, which now has the added disappointment of not knowing if the groom will actually show up, Mum asks what, exactly, I think has happened and what, exactly, I plan to do about it.

What follows is a stunted conversation where I pretend to contemplate where he might be, all the while going from somewhat annoyed right through to fuming at why she cannot, just once, think I am in the right. We put our empty mugs in the sink and have a less strained conversation about the health of my African violet on the windowsill. She doesn’t waste much time bringing the conversation right back to where she wants it. What are you going to do?

About what? The fact that I lost my fiancé? I shoot back.

A flicker of her eyelids suggests my tone has rubbed her the wrong way, not that I am about to be bullied into feelings of guilt.

You need to take a bit more control of things, she says, meaning I have to take responsibility even though he’d done the disappearing.

I am hardly to blame. I mean, apart from spying through the keyhole, which he doesn’t know about, I have done nothing that merits being dumped. Unless it is the cooking, that might have done it, yet Gualtiero has stuck with me in the kitchen so far. He’s never given up instruction, so he has to believe I will learn to cook a decent dinner one of these days.

It’s hardly my fault.

That’s not what I meant, Everleigh. She’s always insisted I should go by my full name, even though Everleigh is a waste of perfectly good breath.

At school, people would call me Vellie. When I started at the typing pool, I asked people to call me Ever. Gualtiero doesn’t like shortening it. He has a grand name himself, he says, but at least when he pronounces Everleigh in his strong Italian accent, it’s dreamy. Come to think of it, though, he’s called me Ever a few times recently.

As I haven’t come back with any useful course of action, nothing beyond another cup of tea, Mum asks if there are any circumstances under which I think the landlord might let me go into Gualtiero’s flat to look for clues. I wish I’d thought of it. Usually, if Mum pips me at the post to an idea, I might rebel and do quite the opposite, but this is too big of a temptation.

And so here we are, with the landlord in the hallway, outside Gualtiero’s door, and I can’t even have a prelook through the keyhole.

Lucky for me, our landlord either thinks he knows us well enough, or he really doesn’t care—he doesn’t blink an eye when I tell him that Gualtiero has some important papers for me in his flat and that I have to meet him at the registry office. I’ve phrased it so I’m not actually lying, just taking a few liberties with the order of things, but even so, I almost choke on my words. At least Mum’s presence adds to the authenticity of my request—who, after all, would blatantly lie in front of their mother? Though if we deigned to tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, it may even surprise him to learn it was my mother’s idea to ask to be let in.

The landlord takes a huge chain of keys from his navy blue corduroy slacks that he inevitably wears with a navy blue sweater over a collared shirt, clanks through them until he finds the right one, and lets us into Gualtiero’s flat.

I’m not sure whether I hold my breath because I am worried about being caught in a lie or because I am worried about what I will find—or not find—but I do hold my breath.

Mum and the landlord stay near the door. I am the only one permitted to trespass by virtue of my engagement to Gualtiero. Lucky, too, because otherwise they might see my worried look. My being here doesn’t quite feel right even though the desk technically also belongs to me. This must be what it feels like to snoop while being watched.

The desk creaks as I lift it open.

Right at the front, in plain view, the envelope where Gualtiero keeps our savings looks like it’s been tossed in, willy-nilly. This is disconcerting. Gualtiero hates papers being anything other than perfectly set in their right places. I straighten it carefully and scan the desk contents to see if anything else looks wrong. Nothing does. Just the envelope. The one thing Gualtiero would need if an emergency were to occur.

An emergency—last Saturday’s letter—it must have brought bad news. Yes, that’s what. He hasn’t willfully abandoned me. He’s simply been called away and was in too much of a hurry to leave a note.

The contents of the envelope will provide the answer, or at least a clue.

I reach for it. I want to turn and see if Mum and the landlord are watching, but the tone or loudness of their voices has not changed—they are looking at each other, not at me.

A deep breath. Then I open the flap of the envelope, already knowing from its weight that it is not empty, that it contains at least some of the cash we’ve saved. The stash of notes looks thinner, and there are definitely fewer coins.

This time I look up at Mum and the landlord. Reassured that neither is watching, I slide the envelope of cash into my cardigan pocket, reach my hand back into the desk to grab something—anything to authenticate my claim to the landlord that I came to retrieve something for Gualtiero—close the desk carefully, and say, Well, that’s that. I have the— I glance down at what my hand has randomly taken from the desk—the envelope he needs.

My first thought is that the envelope contains household bills. I have one similar. But no, I recognize this envelope. It contains the letters from Gualtiero’s family. Those letters that I consider sacred. I never would have taken them intentionally, yet here I am, stealing them in full sight of Mum and the landlord.

Everleigh

Mum sits patiently as I put the kettle on. I tip the contents of the savings envelope onto the small table in the corner of the living room. She keeps on looking at the window, probably feeling like she is intruding by knowing how much we’ve saved.

I count twice.

He took exactly half.

I count a third time. There’s no doubt. There is little point debating where the cash has gone. Gualtiero has taken his half, and there is only one reason he’d do that—for the very purpose we’d saved in the first place—namely, to travel to Italy. And, to be precise, to his family home. A family emergency—who is hurt? Has someone died? Or did he simply get cold feet and not have the courage to dump me?

Whatever the reason, Gualtiero has gone without me. A month ahead of our wedding, and either there’s such trouble at home he’s not managed—in an entire week—to get word to me, or more likely, the coward has not bothered to tell me.

We have chocolate spread sandwiches and an orange for a light supper, listening to each other chewing crust, then tearing off the orange peel, our plates balanced on our knees.

Gualtiero and I sit at the kitchen table to eat. Mum doesn’t like eating in the kitchen. She says the sofa is more comfortable. I suspect it is because she makes such a mess while she cooks. She doesn’t want to be reminded of the chores ahead.

The clock turns backward. Five years wash away. We sat like this when I first moved in. Mum helped reluctantly, commenting on how unnecessary it was for me to live alone, to move so far from her. Me explaining how in my generation, women can be independent. We can gain the skills I was about to gain in the class I was attending. Not that I’d had a lifelong dream of becoming a typist, but it was a class not offered near home, and there was something glamorous sounding about a typing pool, as though once we joined, we’d be part of an essential group of valued workers.

With the uncomfortable feeling that Mum and I don’t quite fit together comes the feeling that Gualtiero is just a stranger I have yet to get to know. Not a fiancé, not a person I know and share dinners with, and soon a glorious family. And if he is a stranger, there is no call for grief. I can do this. I can get through the days until I can learn the truth. But that’s just it. The truth. Not knowing it is worse than losing him. I’m more upset at not knowing the truth than I’d be at being jilted. I can rationalize that—I was probably never worthy of him in the first place. But a truth, something so simple, absolute, and utterly free, couldn’t have been so hard for him to share.

Do you think he’s gone home? Mum asks.

If he’d told me, I would know, wouldn’t I?

Why don’t you call his family, then you’ll find out whether he is there.

They don’t have a telephone, I say.

Hmm. The noise she makes sounds judgmental, despite the fact that she only has a telephone because she happens to have a telephone box right outside her front door.

They spend plenty of time together, so why would they need a telephone? I feel a need to protect the most exciting thing about my fiancé—namely, his family—but I think I strike a nerve when I say they spend plenty of time together. I don’t mean it as criticism, though I see why she takes it as such.

Our families couldn’t be more different. Mine is a widow in limbo and a brother who insists on a life of grime and secondhand junk. Gualtiero’s comprises two parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. His family gathers every Sunday for enormous feasts that last for hours. Laughter, conversations, walks to digest the first three or four courses before they dive in again.

Here, in London, Gualtiero has me, who can’t serve an egg that doesn’t choke you with burned, dry edges or bits of jagged shells I’ve dropped in. His soon-to-be mother-in-law, my mother, puts a pleasant roast dinner on the table on the odd Sunday we visit. Nice, but what brings the entire experience down a notch is that she expects us to do the talking.

No, our families are nothing alike. We were both supposed to benefit from his family’s joy.

A telegram? she offers.

Maybe, I concede.

How else will you know?

I could always march on over there and find out, I say, full of sarcasm, which earns me one of Mum’s best withered looks.

We put our plates in the kitchen, and I offer another cup of tea.

We don’t talk about Gualtiero anymore, though it’s obvious that’s all either of us can think about. We chat instead about Edward, and