That night, I slept on the sofa and Eva took my room, although she didn't appear to know why.

Goose, who hadn't experienced much change since she had started living with us, ended up being thoroughly confused about where to sleep once I started to make myself comfortable on the sofa. In the end, she opted for sleeping on the end of my bed with Eva, although I think that was more to do with comfort than anything else. Still, at least Eva wouldn't be alone and considering what had happened, that was a good thing.

The sofa turned out to be a very uncomfortable place to sleep, not that I expected anything less. I spent the night trying to get comfortable and when I did, the cockralls started cawing outside. Even with my chores on the farm to do, I ignored the sound and buried myself deeper under the blanket. Upstairs, the sound of footsteps also broke through the silence of the early morning, informing me that Jonathan and Barbara were now awake and I wouldn't be alone downstairs.

Neither of them tried to wake me up. Both of them tiptoed downstairs and tried to be as quiet as possible. With the floorboards repaired, that was a lot easier than it had been when I first arrived.

"Should we wake her?" Barbara asked, trying to keep her voice. Little did either of them know that I never went to sleep.

"No, let's leave her for now. Sleeping on that can't be comfortable and I think we can probably get all the chores done ourselves," Jonathan whispered.

Barbara sighed. "I'm worried about her. I know she's trying to keep it together for Eva's sake, but she would have grown up with Anthony. Not to mention her father being out there too. It won't do her any good to pretend like none of it is happening."

"I don't think that's what she's doing." I heard the sound of teacups being moved. "I think she's just trying not to fear the worst. That, and she's only known us for a few months and I doubt she's going to open up that easily. She most likely talks about it with Eva so I doubt she keeps it all to herself."

"She needs to know she can trust us."

"She does, and I'm sure Sybil will open up in time, but we can't expect her to be so open after just a few months. If she knows we're here for her and we will listen, she'll come to us when she's ready. It won't do any good to force her, either."

The room fell silent once more and I fought to keep my breathing steady so they wouldn't know that I had been awake the whole time. I listened to their footsteps as the two of them left the house to complete the early morning chores and split the farmwork between them, something Jonathan and I usually did. When the front door had clicked shut, I opened my eyes and stared into the living room. The clock ticked loudly and broke the silence.

Although I knew my relationship with Barbara had changed significantly compared to when I first arrived, I didn't think she would be that serious about me not opening up to her. The conversation we had the night after my picnic with Alec did stay in my head for a few days after, but I thought nothing of it and believed she might have had more of an ulterior motive for even mentioning it. That morning, she proved me wrong.

I had always been careful of my emotions because I knew how they would be taken in a world that looked down on women and didn't see them as up to the task of most jobs. Being on the farm had helped me to prove that I could do anything a boy could do, and oftentimes more, but I still kept myself guarded. Not just because people may not take me seriously, but because I didn't want to open up emotionally to Jonathan and Barbara.

Part of me believed that if I opened up in that way, it would be like betraying my real family in favour of someone new. Mum had always been up for those sorts of conversations, especially as I had grown older and she wanted to discuss my future. When Mark and Enid had received permission from their parents to start seeing each other in a romantic way, Mum had pushed me to talk about whether there was anyone at school I liked; I didn't. If I started to have those conversations with other people, I would be leaving Mum behind.

Besides, Jonathan had been right. I wasn't completely ignoring the way I felt since Eva and I discussed the war and our families at great length during our time together. I suppose that would be a little harder now with Anthony stuck in Dunkirk with seemingly no way home.

At some point, I must have drifted off again to the soft ticking of the clock and the silence that smothered the house like a blanket. I didn't even wake up when Jonathan and Barbara returned from completing their chores. It ended up being the smell of food that woke me up, along with the sizzling of eggs being fried and the usual smell of burnt toast filling the living room.

"Ah, she's awake," Jonathan said when he saw me staring up at the ceiling, stretching my arms out behind me. They had become stiff from sleeping on the sofa and my shoulders ached from how compact I had been forced to be.

"This is not a comfortable place for someone to sleep," I said, stifling a yawn.

"Noted." Jonathan chuckled. "We've turned breakfast into lunch since you've been asleep for so long. You're free to stay in your nightdress for the day if you wish to do so. I do have one request of you, and that is to go upstairs and see to Eva. We haven't heard from her yet."

"Eva would sleep all day given the opportunity, but I'll go and get her up. She didn't eat anything last night."

"Thank you."

I nodded and kicked the blankets off my legs, standing up and pausing for a second to stretch out my body. The sofa had compacted my body and I needed several seconds of stretching before I could get my legs to move in the direction of the stairs in order to wake Eva up.

Upstairs, I could hear her muttering but it was the same sort of muttering she had been making the day before and I knew it wouldn't make sense. I pushed open my bedroom door. Eva sat straight up in bed with Goose's head resting on her lap and making the occasional snoring sound. Goose darted up when I walked into the room, but Eva didn't even flinch. She just sat there staring at the wall with her mouth moving, sound coming out, but none of it making much sense.

"Eva?" I said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Barbara and Jonathan are making lunch."

"I need to talk to Mum."

"And you will, but you need to eat something."

"I can't." There was something almost child-like in the way Eva spoke, almost as if she had retreated back to childhood to ignore what had happened.

"You have to." I paused. "What would Anthony say?"

Eva looked at me for the first time since the previous afternoon. "Don't. Please."

"I'm sorry, that was the wrong thing to say." I sighed and dropped my hands to my lap, picking at my nails. "You need to eat something, Eva. You can't sit up here and ignore the world, no matter how much you want to."

"Why not?"

I looked at her. After years of smothering my own emotions, I found it difficult to deal with other people's emotions and never really knew how to react when others were upset or angry. The day before, I had just tried to do what made sense, but this was a completely different situation. I couldn't answer Eva's questions and I couldn't put myself into her shoes because I had pushed down my own thoughts about Anthony to focus on her.

"It won't do you any good. Just come downstairs and eat something, you can come right back up here afterwards or Jonathan will take you back to Mr and Mrs Williams' so you can sleep in your own bed."

"My own bed? I like the sound of that."

"I knew you would."

Eva moved slowly. She pushed the blankets off her and stood up, stretching a little before looking around the room in search of the clothing she had arrived in the day before. She dressed, ran my comb through her hair and followed me from the bedroom and downstairs to the kitchen. Both Jonathan and Barbara looked surprised that Eva had dressed, especially as I had yet to and continued to walk around in my nightdress. I explained to them that she wanted to return to the Williams' and Jonathan promised to take her there after lunch.

Lunch was a strange affair, although much of the past few days had been strange so I expected nothing less considering. We had our usual breakfast spread at half-past twelve rather than the usual eight in the morning, which confused Goose an awful lot. She had become accustomed to stealing the crusts from my plate of sandwiches each lunchtime and looked disappointed not to find any, although she did steal some toast which I think made up for it.

We ate lunch in silence with Barbara and Jonathan occasionally glancing at Eva and me picking at the food but not really eating anything. My stomach felt like it had tied itself into several knots and I wasn't sure I would even be able to keep food down if I tried. Eva ate little, but it still ended up being more than me which I knew hadn't gone unnoticed by Barbara who watched me just as much as she watched Eva.

I didn't understand why my stomach had knotted itself the way it had, especially since it had been the smell of food that woke me up in the first place. The night before, I had no problems eating the small supper that had been prepared so it made no sense that all of a sudden I didn't think I would be able to eat anything. If anything, Eva should have been the one struggling to eat.

"I'll be quick," Jonathan said. "The tractor will be easier than Romeo."

"Alright. Be careful."

"I always am."

I looked at Eva. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Eva nodded. "You can help me figure out what I'm going to say to Mum."

"If you need me to."

"Come on then, let's get you back to Mrs Williams. I'm sure she'll be glad to see that you're safe."

Eva nodded a little and she returned to muttering to herself, although very little sound came out this time so it was just her lips moving. Jonathan led her from the front door and Barbara and I watched them from the doorway as they headed down the track and towards the tractor. We both stood there long after they had disappeared from view and listened to the sound of the tractor engine start before the low drone also vanished.

Barbara closed the door and I returned to the blankets on the sofa, placing them over my legs and scratching Goose behind the ears when she came up to me and nudged me with her nose. I sat there and scratched her nose, staring into the living room and trying to ignore Barbara's eyes on me. She had been watching me since lunch.

"You barely ate anything today; that's unlike you," she said.

"Just not hungry, I guess."

"Sybil? What's going on?"

"Nothing. I'm fine. Just tired, I really didn't sleep last night because of the sofa."

Barbara sighed. I knew what she wanted from me. "Why don't you go up to bed. See if that helps."

"Are you sure? I already missed my chores this morning."

"Yes, the farm will manage without you and you need the sleep."

I nodded and once again kicked the blankets off my legs. Goose jumped up from the sofa and followed me up the stairs to my room where I collapsed against my bed and sighed, pressing my back into the mattress. With Eva gone, and my responsibilities having waned, the emotion I had been keeping back since I heard the news about Anthony hit me at full force.

Anthony was trapped in Dunkirk.

Dad was stuck in the Atlantic ocean.

Everything had started to fall apart.

~~~

A/N - We are back! I'm on Chapter Fifty-something so this is definitely a long one and I do have a sequel in mind as well, so there's that!

Questions! Do you think Sybil is keeping her feelings too close to her chest? Should she tell Jonathan and Barbara how she's feeling?

Comment below!

First Published - November 24th, 2021