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“Sure.” Kaden rocked back on his heels, eying her with unwavering scrutiny. “I’d love to know what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“What?” Abby took a step back. The seriousness of his expression disarmed her.
“Your head.” He reached out and tapped the side of her head. “I can tell this thing is running a million miles an hour, like a rat in a wheel. Do you ever give it a rest?”
Abby swallowed. “I have a lot going on right now. There’s this thing... I can’t tell anyone about and... I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes. “I’m just preoccupied. But did you just compare me to a rat?”
When she blinked her eyes open again, he grinned and shifted his gaze from her face to the fists by her side. In slow motion, he reached out to her like she was a caged animal, easily frightened and ready to run, and placed his hands underneath hers. His fingers moved, brushing her skin and uncurling her nails from the flesh of her palms. The warmth of his touch eased the rubber bands in her chest, stronger than any painkiller.
“So, I take it you’re not mad? About my forgetting to pick you up?” she asked.
He shook his head, saying nothing.
Nerves mounting in the silence, Abby shifted on her feet and began to blab as a way to ease the beating of wings in her belly. “That’s the second time I’ve had to ask if you were mad at me in the last three days—the entire length of our knowing each other. Two out of three. That’s some record, huh?”
“Two of three days for you, maybe. But I noticed you long ago. The night in the park wasn’t the first time.” He released her hands and took a step back and smiled. “I’ll see you tonight at six.”
“Tonight? For what?”
“You don’t remember? I’m coming to dinner.”
Abby screwed up her face, confused. “You’re coming to dinner?”
Kaden shrugged. “Okay, yeah. I guess I can come.”
“Wait a minute. I—”
“Gotta go.” With a grin, he turned and waved goodbye.
Abby dropped her arms by her side. “What just happened?”
CHAPTER NINE
April 14, 1943
After we arrived at Auschwitz and they separated us, my father and I shuffled forward, away from the cattle cars.
My father bowed his head, while tears silently streamed down his face. This lack of composure, so unlike him, scared me more than the smoke or the flames because I’ve never seen him cry.
“I’m sorry,” he said, unable to meet my eye. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, son.”
One of the Jewish prisoners told the man next to us to lie about his age. “Do you want to go to the crematorium? See that smoke?” He nodded in the direction of the brick building with the black smog. He turned to my father and me, but before he could say anything else, a man with a clipboard—clearly a doctor—assisted by SS Officers, questioned us. Our age and health, to which my father did not lie. He’d always prided himself on being a man of integrity, and I suppose that was all he had left.
The seconds of scrutiny felt like hours, and when they finished, they broke up our group, yet again. They separated me from my father.
“Be brave,” he whispered to me. “Keep hope.” He moved into the first group, and a part of me wanted to go after him, to throw myself alongside him, no matter what that meant because I couldn’t lose everyone. I couldn’t be on my own. I was sixteen. Nearly a man, but I suddenly felt like a little boy—not near old enough.
I didn’t run after him. I didn’t follow. Instead, I stood there and watched as my father shuffled along while my group was ordered to move alongside the train tracks. And as we neared the ditch with the flames, my stomach sunk because I knew...
In horror, I watched as the front group—the one where my father marched headfirst to his own death—arrived. I watched as an officer put a bullet in his head, then threw him into the pit. Some of the children, too young to work in the camp, were wrenched by the arms and thrown in alive.
It wasn’t until I took the butt of a gun to the head a second later, I realized I was screaming. I wobbled on my feet and fell to the ground, choking on my own vomit. A man behind me prodded me to get up, and somehow, I managed. The fear of being thrown into the fire with the burning flesh propelled me forward. Just as we neared the pit, the officers told us to make a righthand turn where we arrived at our bunkers.
I had survived. At least for one night.
ABBY SHIFTED HER GAZE to her speedometer and nudged the gas pedal a bit further. She had been engrossed in the journal, sipping her chai tea at Daily Grind and perfectly content in her solitude when she realized she was late. For a dinner she hadn’t even scheduled.
She glanced at the clock again, like the numbers might magically change. In reality, she hardly knew Kaden so the thought of upsetting him shouldn’t bother her. But it did. And that revelation was more frustrating than any
