Page 66

Marie

I stare at her neatly formed words for several long minutes, jolted from them only when I hear the sound of my joyful daughter babbling in her crib. The house already feels quieter without Marie, and the truth is I’m terrified to be doing this alone, even though it’s me, not Marie, who cares for Cece, and there’s little to be done on the farm in the week before we leave the country. Instead of three adults with one baby, it will be just me and Cecelia. Now that the troops have been mobilized, I won’t be the only person fleeing the country, which means the ship may be crowded and porters may be scarce. I don’t want to undertake it alone.

Mostly I’m frightened for Marie. In a few weeks, bombing will begin and there will be a mass exodus from Paris. People will wind up abandoning their cars and their belongings, sleeping by the side of the road and dying there too, from hunger and thirst and German attacks. Marie will either be a part of that, or worse—she’ll be a Jew trapped within the Occupied Zone when the war begins, unable to get away.

As far as I can tell, she left everything behind—all the cash we took from the accounts, everything of value. She’s floated by her entire life with someone there to catch her when she fell. Her mother and Henri and, during captivity, me. I doubt it even occurred to her how badly things might go.

She isn’t a child, but in some ways she’s as ill-prepared as one. How am I going to leave without knowing she’s okay?

* * *

Three days pass without word. I call the monsignor’s office and they refuse to tell me Edouard’s whereabouts, which means they probably refused to tell her too. So why isn’t she home?

The next morning, I meet Jeannette at the train station in Saint Antoine to take Lucien and Charlotte. The station is far more chaotic than normal. “What’s going on?” I ask when I find her, as people push past us, carting trunks and hatboxes.

“Everyone is fleeing Paris for the countryside,” she whispers over the children’s heads. “They think the Germans will punish us for assisting Norway. But where’s Marie? She didn’t come to help you get the children home?”

I hesitate. It’s still possible Marie will return with her tail between her legs, either unable to find Edouard or having discovered he wasn’t as honorable as we thought. She won’t want the whole town knowing she’s pregnant with the priest’s child. But Jeannette is a friend, and not a parishioner. It might seem slightly less risqué to her than it would to others.

“Marie has left,” I admit with a sigh. “She’s in love with Father Edouard and has gone to Paris to find him. She says she’s not coming on the trip.”

Jeannette’s mouth forms a small, shocked circle. “Does he reciprocate her feelings?”

Does he? I’d have sworn to it, once upon a time. But now he’s slept with her and left, and perhaps his excuses make sense, or perhaps they are merely excuses. Though I don’t have much experience with men, Marie has far less, and her love for Edouard is so unshakeable I don’t think she’d be capable of doubting him regardless of the situation. I shake my head. “I don’t know. But there’s nothing to be done,” I tell her. “The monsignor won’t give me any information, and she’s an adult. I can’t force her to come with us.”

“I’ll go to the monsignor’s office myself once I’ve seen my grandmother,” Jeannette offers. “Have no fear, my friend. Unlike you and Marie, I’m not scared of priests. Nor am I attracted to them.”

I sigh. “I’m no longer finding Edouard so handsome myself.”

She pulls Lucien and Charlotte close, pressing her lips to their foreheads in turn. “Behave for Amelie, my angels, and I will be back to put you to bed.” Lucien’s eyes tear up and he clings to her leg, refusing to let her go. It makes me wonder how I will ever be able to leave Cecelia the next time I return to modern days, when she’s older and aware of what is happening.

I drop to the ground. “She’ll be back tonight,” I say, pulling him against me. “Shall we make a pie to celebrate her return?”

He’s too young yet to understand the concept of pie, or to be bought off by it, but when he sees how excited Charlotte is, he dries his eyes.

I walk home, pushing Cece in her pram while Lucien and Charlotte hold hands beside me. The walk is peaceful, but once Lucien is at home, I realize just how much my life will change once Cece is his age. He’s a human missile, endangering himself constantly, and I soon give up on the idea of pie and devote myself mostly to keeping Charlotte entertained and Lucien alive.

Late in the afternoon, I begin to anticipate Jeannette’s return and collect their things, but dusk comes and goes with no sign of her. I serve the children a cold dinner of tinned ham and milk and bread, the best I can do given the situation.

Soon, it’s Cece’s bedtime, but I can’t allow Lucien to run wild while I put her to bed, so all three children are awake—and cranky—as the hours pass.

By nine PM, the last train from Paris has arrived and moved on, and there is still no sign of Jeannette. That’s when the small, niggling fear in my chest that began this afternoon and seemed paranoid at the time begins to bloom and grow.

Jeannette is a good mother, a careful mother. She wouldn’t have failed to return, and she wouldn’t have failed to call…but she did.

We have forty-eight hours until we must leave for Calais. I sit in silence, watching Lucien pull books from the bookcase, finally allowing myself to ask the question I’ve been avoiding all night. What happens if she’s not back in time?

* * *

The next morning, Charlotte is waiting by the door for her mother, and Lucien climbs into my lap. “Maman home soon?” he asks. His hopeful little face makes my heart twist in my chest.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him. “Sometimes the trains are slow.”

I long for Henri, or even Marie. I don’t want to be the only adult in this house, the only person to make the decisions I must. If we don’t leave for Calais tomorrow, we will miss our boat, and once the war begins in earnest in a few weeks, we may not get another chance to go. But who can I possibly leave Charlotte and Lucien with? Jeannette had no other friends in town, and right now, thanks to the war, anti-Jewish sentiment is running high. I doubt anyone would even be willing to take them in. Finding her mother in Paris and delivering the children there is really the only reasonable option, though I shudder at the idea of the children in Paris a few weeks from now.

I find Jeannette’s address book in one of the boxes she brought over. Her mother is listed simply as Maman, no last name, no address. I dial the phone number listed there. It rings and rings but no one picks up—I can only assume because she’s at the hospital with Jeannette’s dying grandmother. And I can’t exactly call the hospitals in Paris asking for Maman, a woman whose first and last names I don’t know.

As night falls, I finally admit the truth to myself. Jeannette is gone, and all my careful plans will need to be abandoned. Until something changes, I remain one hour from the enemy, with three children considered Jewish under German law.