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1919.
Two years had passed since Florence lost her brother. Those two years were dreadful. Her father carried himself well, and seemed to be holding strong despite the death of his son. Her mother, on the other hand, never seemed to recover. Florence rarely saw her smile, or even leave her room. The woman Florence was knew was gone, and had completely transformed into something else.
When Florence lost William, she lost her mother too.
As for Florence, the girl was slowly but surely healing. Not a day went by that she didn't think about William, and some days went by easier than others. She could wake up and carry on with life happily one day, and spend the next day crying from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep. She started to smoke cigarettes in the evenings when her parents were asleep. She decided to get a second job, she often worked at her mother's dress shop but she began to work as a barmaid on the side. Though it wasn't common for a woman to financially support her family, Florence was doing it. Her parents both needed the help desperately. They were getting too old to make money for themselves. With William gone, it was her role to help and provide for her parents. And she wanted to do it more-so for him.
But after awhile, Florence decided that she wanted to move out of the Olsen home. She was far too old to still be living under her parents' roof, and although she didn't have a man to wed or her own children to provide for, she was ready to leave. Her parents were doing well enough that she didn't need to be with them at all times. And she had the opportunity to get out when a childhood friend, Grace Burgess, reached out to Florence after William's death. Grace was closer to William than she was to Florence, but the two girls were still good friends. Grace was moving to Vadstena for the time being and needed a flat-mate.
So, Florence didn't hesitate to take her up on the offer to live together.
The two women moved into a small flat in November of 1918, and both worked as barmaids to make ends meet for their flat and for food on their table. Grace quickly became Florence's best friend, as the two had been several years prior.
But one day nearly a year later, Grace came home and announced that she was moving out. She planned to move to Birmingham, England to be close to some of her relatives. She had already found a flat owned by her second-cousins, or so she claimed, who were willing to rent it out to Grace while she was staying in town. Florence didn't have to go with her, but the girl had nowhere else to go beside her parents' home. She wouldn't mind a change of scenery. She spent all 25 years of her life in Vadstena, and had never left Sweden before.
So, the two women packed up their belongings and moved to Birmingham.
When the two women arrived to the small town, Florence was a bit taken aback. It didn't seem like the best, or most stable, place to live. The town was dirty, the buildings seemed to be falling apart, and the two women had witnessed a robbery nearly minutes after arriving. Florence felt a knot in her stomach grow with every passing moment they spent walking through the town. She began to wonder if following Grace was a good idea. The town didn't seem like an easy place to settle into.
