A Renault lorry bounced into view, slamming on its brakes when it drew even with them. Had God answered their prayers before they’d even had a chance to pray them? He was ready to believe so.
Until Emile swung out of the cab, his eyes wide with disbelief as he looked at them, as iftheirappearance was the unexpected one. “How did you escape?” His voice was low but still reached them.
Henri and thegendarmesall surged toward him, urgent whispers flying, presumably in explanation.
Marcel and Zelie both held their ground, hands gripping tight.
Emile motioned the men into the lorry and strode toward Marcel and Zelie, the moonlight painting his face in silver determination. He stopped a few feet away, hands up. “I know. I know you don’t trust me, and you shouldn’t. Not after what I did. But let me atone.”
“Do you think we’re stupid?” Zelie hissed.
He winced. “I thinkIwas. I’ve known it for a while, but there was no denying it today. Marie and I came home to introduce our parents to the baby. And he—her father—he said we were no family of his, not given that my cousin had been arrested as a spy.” He shook his head, lowered his hands. “Everything I did for his approval. And it didn’t even matter. You don’t have to forgive me. But let me do what I can to make it right.”
Marcel couldn’t speak past the burn in his throat and didn’t know what he would have said anyway.
Zelie squeezed his fingers and tugged on them. Stepped toward the idling Renault. “What do we have to lose, Marcel? This is our only chance.”
Marcel shook his head, barely able to pry his jaw open enough to say, “You just happened by at the right moment?”
“Happened by?” Emile’s face somehow went both cloudy and amused. “I’ve been driving around this place for hours, you numbskull. Making circle after circle, trying to get a feel for the joint. As Marie’s father kicked us out, he mentioned where you’d be taken, boasting that it was a fortress you’d never get out of. So I took it as a challenge.”
That sounded like Emile, the cousin he’d known all his life. The one who, yes, had always turned over the game board or stolen the ball when it looked like he was about to lose.
But the cousin who always, always came back later. Apologized, and offered a rematch. Something Marcel hadn’t even let himself remember when the situation was so much more than a game.
Something that now seemed to say, in that Voice he’d learned to obey,Even this can be redeemed. If you aren’t afraid to trust, to risk, to go.
He dragged in a breath, let the truth settle. This couldn’t be part of some scheme. The Germans hadn’tletthem out. And Zelie was right. If they tried to run on foot, they were sure to be caught.
One brisk nod, and they propelled themselves into action. Marcel helped Zelie into the back of the truck with the others and then climbed into the cab with Emile. Risk was one thing—but if his cousin planned anything, he wanted to be there to try to stop it.
Emile was soon in, door closed and lorry back in gear. They trundled off, Marcel glancing back every moment. So far, no other vehicles, no spotlights. They must be searching the fortress first.
“You’ve really been driving around all afternoon?” His voice came out hoarse, tight.
Emile’s enthusiastic nod looked... well, like Emile. Like childhood and memories and days when they were on the same side. “Thought I’d get the lay of the land tonight and then tomorrowstart asking around the villages nearby to see who knew a way in.” He flashed Marcel a grin. “You knowsomegroup of boys had to have investigated that place after it shut down.”
Marcel couldn’t manage a smile in return. “Happily, some oldgendarmeknew a way out. They were going to kill me tomorrow.”
Emile’s smile faded too. “I’m sorry, Marcel.”
Silence pulsed, and he let it rest there between them for half a bar, a full one. “It wasn’t your fault.”Not this time.
“Not this time.” Emile’s fingers tightened on the wheel as he turned toward a beautiful stand of trees. Marcel had no idea where they were going, but it didn’t much matter, as long as it was away from their captors. “But it was my fault before. I thought... I don’t know what I thought. That everyone would be slapped on the wrist, I guess. Maybe sent to a camp. No one was leading a coup, like Navarre. I didn’t think anyone would be killed.”
Gabriel. Lucien. So many others. “You were wrong.”
“I was. And I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.” Emile darted a glance at him, then focused once more on the road. “Marie was furious with me. Thank God, she’s giving me another chance, even if it’s more for the baby’s sake than mine. I’m not going to make the same mistake again.”
Marcel swallowed, stared out the windscreen. He didn’t know, in this case, what forgiveness looked like. He couldn’t say it was all right—it wasn’t. He couldn’t say he trusted him again—he didn’t. Trust God, yes. He was willing to trust that the Lord would use this, redeem this, and certainly he could be trusted to use even Emile.
But maybe forgiveness, these first steps of it, didn’t have to look like total trust in the one who’d betrayed them. Maybe it was just a hand outstretched. A question asked. A song given its chance to be played. “Did you have a boy or a girl?”
“Girl.” Emile’s sigh said he recognized the question as the gesture it was. And his smile filled his voice. “Most precious littlething. We named her Charlotte, after Mère. But we’re calling her Lottie. Maybe... maybe someday you’ll meet her. If you want to.”
An innocent life, not to blame for her father’s poor choices. He nodded. “Someday. Someday I will. Perhaps when I’m not being hunted by every Nazi in France.”
His cousin laughed. “Fair enough.”
