Shell House (32 page)

       
She read a few paragraphs and slammed it shut, tears threatening then spilling down her face. She hugged the book to her, feeling his presence again. She placed it back on the desk, not feeling ready to read it just yet.

        M
oving round to the other side of the desk, keeping the shell in her hand as though it were a comfort blanket, she sat in the old Captain’s chair. She opened the diary again and without reading it she found the blank page after the last entry he’d made. She pulled a pen from his letter stand and wrote the date at the top of the paper.

Underneath she wrote:

My name is Rebecca Banford only it isn’t the name I was born with....

And she continued from there
, writing the real story of her life.