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I look away, wishing he would just let it go once and for all. Why does he insist on revisiting this topic? “They’re ugly stories I don’t care to remember, and how could they possibly matter now anyway? It’s in the past.”

He pushes my hair back from my face. “It changed you,” he says. “In small ways, things I barely see now, but I know they’re there. And no matter what they are, I will love you. I will love you just the same, I swear it. But until you know that, it will always be between us.”

I meet his gaze, so open and full of love, and feel the ugliness of everything that lies inside me. He would never look at me the same way again, if he knew. He thinks he would, but only because he has no idea how dark this piece of me really is.

“I love you,” I tell him, “and there’s nothing more to say.”

He is still for a moment and then nods. I try to pretend I don’t see disappointment in the gesture.

* * *

Christmas in Saint Antoine is a quieter affair than I’m used to at home. Not that my mother ever made the holiday particularly festive, but there were always ample decorations in town, carols playing in the stores and a flurry of parties leading up to the event itself. I don’t miss any of it, however. It’s the first time I’ve ever been part of a family that actually wants me, and that alone makes this holiday the happiest I’ve ever experienced.

On Christmas Eve, Marie goes into town for mass and Henri, Cece and I remain behind. There’s been something fragile about Marie since the baptism that I can’t put my finger on, as if happiness has stretched her too thin, turned her into something that might shatter with the smallest provocation. Edouard has always struck me as a good man, a decent person. I was sure that if he made his feelings known to Marie, he’d offer some kind of commitment, yet nothing has changed. When I see her high color and the feverish glaze in her eyes now, I worry he’s going to break her heart, but I can hardly caution her about what she’s doing if she won’t admit she’s doing it. She practically skips from the house, and as soon as she’s gone, Henri pulls me by the hand over to the tree we decorated simply with some fine glass ornaments that have been in the family for decades and popcorn and cranberries strung together.

“Perhaps this is a good time to exchange gifts,” Henri says, with a smile that strikes me as slightly mischievous. We agreed to exchange handmade gifts, a rule I broke in small ways and, based on the pile of presents Henri has unearthed from a secret hiding place, he broke in vast ones. First, he gives me things he purchased the winter before, a fact which makes my heart ping with a tiny ache. There’s a beautiful dress I will have few places to wear until the war ends, and lingerie I’ll wear a great deal. There’s a mink stole and muff, a hat from Givenchy.

For him, I’ve purchased a warm winter coat, heavy boots, the most recent book Evelyn Waugh.

I kiss him once our gifts are opened. “This has been my best Christmas ever.”

“It’s not over yet,” he says, producing a small black velvet box.

My eyes meet his. Jewelry, under the circumstances, would not be wise. We have a long voyage to another country and a war to get through.

“Open it,” he urges.

Slowly, I pop the box open to find a diamond ring that makes my breath stop, and I know, before I’ve even asked, that it’s the very one Yvette wanted so badly—his mother’s. It is no trinket, as I suggested to Yvette when she brought it up, but a large emerald-cut diamond set among smaller ones.

“But—” I stare at it. A ring like this will attract notice anywhere, but in Saint Antoine it will be the talk of the town. “I thought we wanted everyone to think we’re poor.”

“In four months, it won’t matter as much,” he says. “And if anyone asks in the meantime, we’ll just tell them you were forced to buy your own ring with your obscene American wealth.” He grins at this. Most of the town is now asking why I haven’t used my money to help the Durands fix up the farm, never dreaming that in truth I’m the one who’s got nothing.

I slide it on my finger and it fits perfectly—as if it was meant to be mine all along. “But…wasn’t it in Paris? You haven’t been to Paris once since I returned, aside from the night you came when I was out with Luc.”

“I got it last year, before you left,” he says. “And then, when I thought you were dead…I buried it. Under the hay bale. Stupid perhaps, if this farm will no longer be ours soon as you say, but I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else wearing it.”

I press my mouth to his. “Now we just need the annulment,” I tell him.

“Wear it now anyway,” he says. “I dare anyone alive to tell me you are not my wife, wedding or no.”

28

SARAH

1940 arrives. Everyone toasts to a new decade and, in town, people have already begun to move on with their lives, as if the uneasiness with Germany was a brief moment of ugliness that has nearly passed. We continue preparing to leave, however, and offer Jeannette the farm in our absence. It means she’ll have fresh milk, fruit and eggs for the children, but it still feels like we haven’t done enough to keep them safe.

Marie spends so much time at the church that I worry she will balk at leaving too, but when I press the topic, she changes it entirely. It seems only fair to leave her alone when I’m so immeasurably blessed. Cecelia, who now sleeps in my old room upstairs, smiles all day long and makes every waking hour a happy one for me. Each day, I see a little more of who she will become, and a little more of who Henri will be as a husband and father. When I watch him give Cece her evening bottle I marvel that I ever believed I could marry someone else.

I want to relish every moment we have together, yet my approaching return to 1989 weighs on us both. I need to maintain the ability to travel forward because there may be times when we want to know what’s coming down the road or when the ability to skip ahead could help or even save a life. And it’s best that I do it before the war begins in earnest and it’s just me and Marie, alone in the British countryside.

As much as I hate the idea of leaving, it bothers Henri far more. It’s a small source of friction between us, just like those nightmares I won’t discuss, and I wish I could fix it.

“What will you do there?” he asks one night, though I am not leaving until the end of March, still a month away. His face is grave, as if we’re discussing something far more serious than a two-week trip.

I shrug. “I really don’t know. Why?”

His glance flickers away. “I was just wondering.”