The Child Left Behind by Anne Bennett

town, Finn acknowledged that the captain was right. If he was honest with himself, what he really wanted to do with Gabrielle was roll her in the first available cornfield and show her how much he desired her. Not that he would ever even hint at such a thing. He would not debase her in that way.
    He felt that he had been reborn, that his life before had been sterile and meaningless, and he knew that at that moment he wouldn’t change places with anyone in the world.
    The following week, when Finn met Gabrielle in the park he went alone. Christy had to work, although he admitted to Finn that he hadn’t tried that hard to get the time off. ‘I value my hide more than you obviously value yours,’ he said. ‘Anyway, last time I was hanging about like a spare dinner.’
    Finn could see his point, but there was no way he was passing up a chance to see Gabrielle and so he set out the next Sunday, which was dry and fresh, though extremely cold.
    When Finn joined them in the woods, Yvettemoved on ahead to give them privacy and Gabrielle smiled as she said, ‘You may hold my hand if you wish to.’
    Finn was only too happy to do that. ‘But we must walk quickly lest you get cold,’ he advised.
    Gabrielle hesitated. There was an urgency about their time together rather than a normal courtship, when she could invite Finn to the house and walk out openly. And so, though she wouldn’t normally have admitted such feelings on such a short acquaintance, she said in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘Don’t worry about me being cold, for I feel as if I have a furnace inside me, just because I am near you.’
    Finn’s heart soared with happiness, and he pulled her closer. ‘Ah, Gabrielle, those words fill me with such joy. Now tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you.’
    Gabrielle smiled as she told him about her life in the small French town not that unlike Buncrana, where Yvette went to school and she herself helped in the shop.
    ‘Your eyes cloud over when you speak of your father,’ Finn said. ‘Are you so afraid of him?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Sometimes I even think that I hate him because he is so intractable and stern. I can’t see when he is going to give me some freedom and allow me to live like other girls my age. Even dressing me in the same clothes as my sister is his way of controlling me further. No seventeen-year-old girl wants to dress in clothesthat suit her sister, who is four years younger. We are never allowed out alone and apart from Mass the only time we go into the town is when we are being bought clothes by my father, and then he escorts us. That is where we were going that first time that you saw me in the town. We were on our way to buy winter coats and dresses.’
    ‘I think his character is well known amongst the townsfolk,’ Finn said. ‘My captain warned me not even to try speaking to you.’
    ‘Finn, he is suffocating me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And how could we help being drawn to one another?’
    ‘I didn’t think things like this happened.’
    ‘I’ve read about it in romantic novels,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was never allowed such books, but when I was at the school, the other girls would have them and I would smuggle them home.’
    ‘Your father isn’t the only one we have to be worried about, though,’ Finn said. ‘I think if the Army knew of this they’d probably post me somewhere else.’
    Gabrielle shivered. ‘I know one day that this will happen anyway. But I want these stolen moments with you to last as long as possible.’
    ‘And I do,’ said Finn.
    ‘If my father was a kinder, softer man,’ Gabrielle went on, ‘I could probably feel it in my heart to feel sorry for him because he is a baker, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather for generations. He wanted sons to follow on from him and all he got was two girls.’
    ‘Surely it is not too late,’ Finn said. ‘He may yet have sons.’
    ‘No,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My mother was