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Not even officially winter, and already it’s unbearably cold. Our heated floors and fireplace offer me little comfort. I can only think of Henri. Where does he sleep now? Was he taken prisoner? Is he floating at the bottom of the sea?

At night, after the children are asleep, I weep for him, asking one question again and again: Why can’t they just tell me what happened?

Our lives have tightened and narrowed until it feels like there’s almost nothing left. Because I anticipated that Jeannette wouldn’t plan sufficiently, I’d already stocked the cellar with non-perishables last spring, and we live off of that and almost nothing else. I rarely get into town to buy anything more since it means leaving Charlotte and Lucien here alone, and when I do go, I only see resentment—Why should a homewrecking American be getting rations? they wonder.

It’s not that all, or even most, of the townspeople are bad, but it only takes one of them to feel their own lot might be improved by lessening ours. And that one will give our names to the authorities, if they haven’t already. It’s inevitable. The revolver now sits on a high shelf near the table, waiting for the moment it will all come to a head. The girl I once was believes murder is wrong. But I still plan to kill anyone who enters our home and beg her forgiveness later.

I set dinner on the table, and Charlotte’s small face falls when she sees another bit of tinned ham with powdered milk. I don’t blame her—I understand how lucky we are to have it, but I’m sick of it too.

She picks at her food and then helps me clear the table. “What will it be like when we get to England?” she asks.

I smile at her. It’s one of our favorite topics these days. “We will live in the country, like this,” I tell her. “You will go to school, and while you’re there, I’ll take Lucien and Cecelia to the market and we’ll buy lots of food and when you come home each day, I’ll have a big supper waiting.”

“Will there be pie?” she asks.

“More pie and cake than you could ever want to eat. With fresh cream.”

“But no tinned ham,” she says firmly, wiping her hands against each other in a perfect imitation of me.

I tuck in my smile. “If anyone suggests we eat tinned ham, I’ll kill them myself with my bare hands.”

She laughs. “What about powdered—"

There’s a sound outside. Boots on the front step.

And the door is still unlocked.

The plate in Charlotte’s hand falls to the ground and shatters. I stand frozen before I remember my plan and spring into action, darting across the kitchen for the revolver.

Kill whoever is at the door, the first part of the plan. It doesn’t feel real now, even as I repeat the words.

The door opens. I point the gun just past it, ready to fire. “Halt!” I yell.

In spite of my fear, the desire to punish our intruder throbs in my veins. If he sets one more foot inside this house, I will put a bullet in his head, and some part of me will enjoy it.

“As you wish, little thief,” comes a low voice in reply.

My hands shake. It’s too much. It’s too good to possibly be real. I’m scared to believe it.

“Henri?” I breathe.

He steps into the light. Thinner, and tired, but him. As beautiful as ever. “Is there another man who calls you little thief?” he asks, with a smile I’ve missed more than I even knew. “I thought in that one way, I might have been original.”

I set the gun on the counter behind me and run to him from the kitchen, throwing myself into his arms, weeping like a child. He seems impossibly tall now, perhaps because he’s so thin, but he’s still my Henri. His clothes are in tatters and stiff with dirt, but beneath it is the same skin, the same smell, the same broad hands against my back, holding me as if I’m all that’s keeping him from falling overboard into a stormy sea.

“Don’t leave us again,” I whisper.

“My poor little thief,” he says. “Has it been awful here?”

“It’s been awful wondering if you were alive or dead for the better part of six months,” I reply.

“I’m home now, though I wish to God I hadn’t found you here,” he says. “When Marc told me you’d stayed behind I—”

Cece begins to cry too, unsettled by all the excitement, or perhaps just feeling left out. I release her father and his face lights up at the sight of her before he takes in our other guests and turns to me with a raised brow.

“Our family grew while you were gone,” I tell him quietly.

He blinks once, putting it all together, and then smiles, twining his fingers through mine. “I always wanted three children,” he says.