“Devastating,” he said. “It was the type of heartbreak that never really goes away. Even after all these years, I’m still sad about losing Helga. There isn’t a day that I don’t wake up thinking about her. It’s like I have a splinter deep in my heart that can’t work its way out.”
She clasped hervater’s hand.
He gave her a squeeze. “I understand that things are raw. But I believe, with time, that your heart will heal, and you’ll learn to feel affection again. Someday, you’ll experience the type of genuine love that I had with yourmutter.”
Anna rose from her stool and hugged him.
Norbie released her and wiped his eyes. “Max is making dinner. How about we join him and Nia in the kitchen?”
Anna nodded. She followed him up the stairs, feeling grateful for hervater’s efforts to ease her pain and restore her hope.
The trio ate a dinner of turnip latkes and acorn coffee. Afterward, Norbie went to tinker in his workshop and Anna joined Max in the living room, where he was sitting on the floor and grooming Nia with a brush.
“Need some help?” Anna asked.
“I can handle it,” Max said. “But Nia and I would enjoy your company.”
Anna sat on the floor with Nia between them.
Nia tapped her tail on the hardwood floor as Max ran the brush over her fur.
“She likes being groomed,” Anna said.
“Ja.” He paused, locating Nia’s front paw. “But having her toenails clipped, not so much.”
Nia rolled onto her back and raised her paws in the air.
Anna rubbed Nia’s belly. “Her paws might always be sensitive from her time in the muddy trenches.”
“You’re probably right.” He ran the brush over the dog’s coat.
She looked at him. “I appreciate you being here for me.”
“I wish there was more that I could do for you.”
“You’ve done more than you realize,” she said.
“I’m glad.” He brushed Nia. “I’m so sorry about everything.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?”
She swallowed. “Being here with me must remind you of what Bruno did in Ypres, and how you were blinded.”
He put down the brush and turned toward her. “I don’t blame Bruno for my blindness, nor do I assign responsibility to his family. Even if they hadn’t participated in the use or production of chlorine gas, the military would have ordered another officer to lead the installation of gas cylinders at the front. And the military would have procured their poison from another manufacturer. In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
She greatly appreciated his words, but a deep-seated guilt, if only by association, burned in her abdomen.
“And as for being here with you,” he said. “There is no place that I’d rather be.”
Anna blinked back tears.Me too.
Max finished brushing Nia and disposed of a pile of shed hair in the kitchen garbage. He returned to the living room, running his hand along the wall to guide his way.
“Are you feeling up to working on your composition tonight?” she asked.
“Only if you are.”
