A Rendezvous To Remember
Geri Krotow
World War II to Present."My dear Melinda, I hate to see you throw away what may be the love of your life…"Melinda Thompson knew that her grandmother had always adored Nick. But Grammy's gone now and Melinda's on the verge of divorce…When she comes home to her widowed grandfather, Grandpa Jack hands her a leather-bound journal–and invites her to look into some family secrets. Grammy's voice rings out from the journal, begun when she was in her twenties and living in Nazi-occupied Belgium. Breathlessly, Melinda reads the story of a young woman involved in the Resistance and the British airman whose life she saved. The story of passionate love and a wartime promise. One that saw her grandparents, Esm? and Jack, through World War II. And a marriage of more than sixty years. With the example of her grandparents' lives, Melinda looks for the courage to believe again. In the love of her life.
A Rendezvous to Remember
Geri Krotow
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dedication
For Stephen
My Everlasting
Contents
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Acknowledgment
My heartfelt gratitude, respect and love to
Haywood Smith, Susan Wiggs and Debbie Macomber
for believing in me and my potential. You are soul sisters.
Special thanks to my editor extraordinaire,
Paula Eykelhof.
Chapter 1
November 10, 2007
He stood hunched over the azaleas, shaping the bushes with ease despite the cold. Melinda Busher-Thompson burrowed her gloved hands deeper into the front pockets of her Berber coat as she watched him. Her exposed skin stung with the raw damp of the November day—another reason for her desire to leave western New York.
Yet Grandpa Jack moved through his garden as though he was still forty, like her, and not eighty-seven.
As if Grammy was still here.
“Hey, Grandpa.” Her all-weather moccasins squished over the scattered dead leaves Grandpa Jack had laid down for insulation.
“Hey, yourself, kiddo!” Pleasure lit up Jack Busher’s face. Melinda caught the sparkle in his violet-blue eyes before he enfolded her in one of his famous bear hugs.
Grandpa Jack might be thinner than he’d been when she was a child, but his embrace still held all the love in the world for her. She breathed in his scent—fall morning rain mixed with soap and old-fashioned cologne.
“I didn’t think you’d get here until tomorrow.”
The familiar vestiges of his English accent comforted her.
Jack pulled back to look at Melinda’s face but his hands were still on her upper arms. He squeezed her with just enough pressure that she felt it under her thick coat. Her heart pounded in response to the unconditional love she’d only ever found here with him and Grammy.
“I got into town late last night.”
“I see.” Jack grunted as he hoisted a pile of twigs he’d gathered and tossed them into his wheelbarrow.
“I didn’t want to wake you.” She held her breath for a moment, then watched the cloud of vapor as she expelled it forcefully from her lungs.
“I slept at my house last night but I have my luggage in the car so I can stay with you for the next two weeks.”
Jack’s expression stiffened.
“That won’t work, honey. You belong in your own place.”
“Grandpa, I belong with you right now.”
She felt her neck muscles tighten in exasperation. Grandpa refused to accept her broken marriage for what it was.
Irreparable.
“Melinda, you’ve always belonged with me, you’ll always be part of me. But no one’s been in your house for months, except me checking on it, and it needs some living. It’ll do the place good to have the furnace on and water running through the pipes.”
Jack paused in his raking and leveled a look at Melinda. It was the same look he used to give her as a teenager when he saw through her schemes.
“I’m not so old that I need a babysitter, honey.”
“I’m not here to babysit you, Grandpa. I miss you and we’ll have more time together if I stay here.”
“Phooey. We’ll have all the time we want. You need to be in your own home.”
He wasn’t going to back down on this one. Nor was he willing to discuss Nick with her.
Not yet.
“You taking care of yourself, girl?” Jack’s body might be fading but his eyes and perception weren’t.
“Sure, Grandpa.” She glanced down, but felt the strength of his gaze. “It’s not easy, you know….”
Her cheeks flushed with shame. How could she stand here whining about her loss when Grandpa mourned the loss of his life’s partner of more than sixty years?
His breath caught, and she heard the rasp in his throat. When she raised her eyes back to his, she saw the unshed tears. Guilt and grief washed over her and she clenched her fists in her coat pockets.
“Of course it’s not easy, pumpkin, but we have to go on. We’re still here. You know your Grammy wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He bent down to pick up the shears he’d dropped at their feet. When he straightened, she saw the strain on his face.
“I know, Grandpa. I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Nothing this family hasn’t experienced from its women before.”
They both laughed, and for a moment all the sorrow of the past three months was gone and it was just Melinda and Grandpa Jack out in the garden.
Exactly the way it’d been since Melinda could remember. She’d even taken her first steps here. Busher family legend said she’d reached for a tulip to pick, unaware of the rarity of bulb flowers in a Buffalo spring.
“Honey, I called you for a reason.” She heard the slight quaver in his voice, saw the deep lines around his mouth.
“Grandpa, you don’t have to explain. I told you I’d come whenever you needed me, and I meant it. I’m just sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
The truth was, she’d had to convince Senator Hodges that she’d only be gone two weeks. Thank God it wasn’t an election year or she’d never have gotten this vacation time. Since she’d taken over as head speechwriter for the senator, she’d had exactly one week off.
When Grammy died.
“You have your own life, Melinda. I don’t expect you to drop everything for me. You know that, honey.” He raked up the clippings from the azaleas and stooped to put them in the black plastic bag.
“Let me help you, Grandpa.”
Together they finished the rest of the job, and within twenty minutes were inside the warm kitchen. The kitchen was home to Melinda ever since Grandpa and Grammy moved into the large suburban house in the 1970s.
Hot coffee steamed from Grammy’s chipped ceramic mugs that Melinda set on the table in front of them.
“Your Grammy was always closest to you, Melinda, even more so than she was to your father or Lille.” Jack’s hands tightened around his mug.
“We don’t have to talk about this, Grandpa.” Sad conversations weren’t good for Grandpa Jack. Not in his deep state of grief.
“Yes, my dear, we do. Now let me finish.”
He covered Melinda’s hand with his, and a lifetime of Grandpa Jack conversations flooded through her heart at the contact. Tears seeped from her eyes but she remained silent.
This isn’t about you, Melinda. Be strong for Grandpa Jack.
“As close as Grammy was to you, my dear, she didn’t share everything. We didn’t share everything, not with anyone, really.”
Melinda sucked in a breath. Now what? She was going to find out she had long-lost sisters or brothers? The family had a fortune from bootlegging that they’d kept in Swiss accounts?
Grandpa Jack appeared oblivious to her thoughts.
“As you may remember, we married after the war, here in Buffalo.” Grandpa Jack looked out the kitchen window and as much as Melinda wanted to follow his gaze, she couldn’t stop staring at his face.
What was he going to tell her?
“But that’s not where the story started. Your father was born in 1944.” Melinda heard Grandpa’s words but still didn’t follow him.
“Yes, so he’s sixty-three.”
“And your aunt Lille’s one year older than he is.”
“Sixty-four.” As she did the math, Melinda realized that Aunt Lille seemed much younger than her years. But surely this wasn’t why Grandpa Jack was going through the family timelines.
“And your Grammy and I were married for—”
“Sixty-one years,” Melinda finished for him.
Silence fell, and Grandpa Jack just watched her. She looked back at him, unsure of where he was headed with this. Okay, so there were a few years between her aunt’s and father’s births and Grammy and Grandpa Jack’s wedding. That was hardly uncommon during World War II.
Wasn’t he her biological grandfather? Was that the big secret?
“So you weren’t Grammy’s first husband?”
What kind of question was that? she asked herself. How much of a comfort was she to Grandpa Jack now?
Grandpa Jack showed no concern at Melinda’s comment. He laughed.
“Oh, honey, no, that’s not what I’m trying to tell you. Your Dad’s my son, no question.” But he didn’t say anything about Aunt Lille.
Melinda knew she should’ve asked Grammy more about her life, especially after Grammy was diagnosed with cancer last year. But the final date of her divorce from Nicholas loomed, and overwhelmed by the thought of losing Grammy, it hadn’t occurred to her.
She’d been too self-absorbed.
“So why the gap, Grandpa? It was the war, right?”
“I was in a concentration camp.”
The words flew like bullets from a sleek pistol. Quiet. Oh, so smooth.
Shocking.
“But, Grandpa…why? Are you Jewish?”
Melinda had never seen any great religious fervor in Grandpa and Grammy. They were spiritual, and both their children, as well as Melinda, had been raised Catholic, but not in a strict way.
Melinda racked her brain, trying to remember everything she’d learned about concentration camps during World War II. She recalled that more than thirteen million had been slaughtered in the Holocaust. Six million Jews and the rest a mix of Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals and whoever else didn’t fit Hitler’s grand scheme for the “master race.”
She’d never seen any connections between her grandparents’ lives and what she’d studied.
“No, honey,” her grandfather answered. “I’m not Jewish, but your Grammy and I tried to help the Jews. We also worked against the Nazis when they moved into Belgium, and the rest of Northern Europe, for that matter.”
Grandpa Jack’s statements poured out of him as though he’d spoken of this his entire life.
But Melinda had never heard any of it before. All her grandparents had ever said about their lives prior to arriving in America was that “times were tough. We’re happy to be together now.”
Certainly their son, James, Melinda’s father, had never revealed any knowledge of their past. He just said his parents were from Europe. Aunt Lille had never revealed that she knew anything, either.
“You’re from England, and Grammy was from Belgium, right?”
“Yes, that’s true. But it was unusual for a Brit to meet a Belgian like your grandmother during the middle years of the war. The circumstances we found ourselves in…”
Grandpa Jack’s voice trailed off and he gazed down at the coffee in his cup. He took a swig.
After a moment he said, “Your grandmother kept a journal. Hell, more than a journal—it’s our life together. And her life before she met me. Our tough times, even after the war, here in America. It’s part of your legacy, Melinda.”
“Why didn’t you mention this sooner?” Melinda searched her memory for all the times Grandpa Jack could’ve told her about Grammy’s journal. For that matter, why hadn’t Grammy said anything while she was alive?
“We’ve always been reluctant to talk about the war years.” Jack grew still, his expression somber. “We experienced struggles that, until recently, would’ve been unimaginable to you, to your parents.”
Melinda knew what he meant. Until September 11, 2001, most North Americans wouldn’t have been able to fathom the depth of suffering experienced at the hands of the Gestapo in occupied Europe.
“There’s one more thing, my dear. I kept a diary after my release from the concentration camp. I’ve never even shared it with Grammy. She’d already suffered too much by the time I found her again. But you deserve to know both sides of our story.”
Grandpa Jack looked at her and raised his chin. Slightly, but enough for Melinda to read the pride and conviction on his face.
“We went through hell to get our freedom.”
Chapter 2
The heavy, leather-bound journal sat on Melinda’s lap. Pages jutted out from its frayed edges, added later or falling out from age. It was one of several books Grandpa Jack had given to her, all with Grammy’s writing.
Melinda ran her hands over the dark brown cover, as though she could somehow sense Grammy’s love, feel her presence.
God, she missed Grammy so much.
As an adult she should be past needing her grandmother’s affection. Most of her friends and colleagues had lost their grandparents far sooner than she.
Yet the long talks and the hours spent cooking and baking together were all woven into the fabric of her life with Grammy. She just wanted to be able to pull out that blanket one last time.
A tear slipped from her eye and Melinda blinked.
She’d cried enough these past few years, hadn’t she?
If not about Nicholas, then about Grammy.
Nicholas.
She glanced around the Victorian home they’d restored in the early years of their marriage. The floral wallpaper in the living room reminded her of her neglected rose garden, out back. She and Nicholas had made love there on more than one occasion, in the gazebo.
What had brought that memory to the surface?
She swiped at her tears. Maybe coming home to Buffalo hadn’t been the best idea, after all.
But Grandpa had called. And Grammy’s words called her now.
And no way was Grandpa going to let her stay with him.
Melinda pulled on the leather string that held the journal together. Despite the cracked condition of the book, the string ran soft and supple through her fingers. She whispered a quiet prayer, lifted the old leather cover…and saw a large cream envelope with her name written on it in Grammy’s shaky cursive.
Melinda
The envelope was fairly new.
Grammy had left her one final birthday card, perhaps? She’d turned forty a week ago, and Grammy had always made it a point to celebrate Melinda’s birthday. Even when she’d been on assignment in D.C. last year, Grammy had sent balloons and chocolate to her one-bedroom efficiency condo.
Melinda opened the envelope. The edge of the flap gave her a paper cut but she paid no heed.
This was no birthday card.
Grammy had left her a sympathy card. A white embossed dove rose from a pale blue background, and the words To Comfort You in Your Loss were written across the top in silver. Melinda read the message inside.
Dear Melinda,
This is a sympathy card because by now I figure you’re missing me a lot. Know that I am with you and I’ll always love you. As much as I’m confident that I’ll be having a grand time wherever I am, know that I must somehow miss you, too. Unless, of course, I’m allowed to haunt you. In the most positive way, of course! No, I haven’t lost my mind, I’m just losing my body and I wanted to write this before it’s too late. Please read the enclosed letter before you start my journal.
XOX
Grammy
The enclosed letter had dropped onto Melinda’s lap when she opened the card. Along with it wafted the scent of Grammy. Baby powder and roses.
Grammy’s hand cream of choice was always rose-scented.
Melinda couldn’t help laughing through her tears. Grammy never lost her earthy sense of humor, even when the cancer limited her world to her bedroom those last few months. She shook her head and unfolded the lavender-colored paper.
Dear Melinda,
By now I’ve been gone at least a month. I told Jack to wait until the dust had settled, not just on my grave but in your lives.
Melinda honey, we’ve shared the best of our lives with each other. You and I have been blessed with a wonderful bond these past forty years. As much as I’d be the first to wish your father had been more available to you and that your mother had lived, it’d be a lie to say that I regret the consequences. It was a blessing to me, and to Jack, that we were able to spend so much time with you. Being able to raise you as our own for so much of your childhood meant everything to us.
We struggled financially while your dad was young and weren’t able to spoil him the way we did you. But as you already know, spoiling you with material things wasn’t ever our main focus. We wanted to spoil you with our love.
I’ve worried these last couple of years whether we’ve spoiled you too much. When things got rocky with you and Nicholas, I thought it might pass. All couples go through rough spots—that’s just life. But then you picked up and moved to Washington, D.C., and your whole life revolved around Senator Hodge’s career and agenda.
Jack and I were happy when you went to college right after high school and got your degree. We were so proud! And it always seemed destined that you’d marry Nicholas. Ever since you met him at St. Bonaventure, your eyes held a bright light.
We thought you were proud of his service in the Reserves and understood that it meant he could be called away at any time. So when he was called to war and you took it so badly, we questioned our assumptions. You said you believed that if Nicholas loved you, he wouldn’t go. That he’d put family first.
Since you’d been unable to get pregnant I wondered if you worried he was leaving during the time you’d have left to get pregnant. Remember when I took you out for coffee and ordered you that huge maple scone? And you said, “I’m not supposed to eat refined sugar or wheat.” I was trying to get you to relax, to enjoy yourself.
You’ve worried about so many things in your short life, Melinda.
It’s clear to me that Nicholas is a true patriot and simply answered the call he always knew could come. Maybe he’s even relished the challenge, in the way only a warrior does.
But you took it personally.
I’m sorry if this sounds like a lecture, Melinda. I just hate to see you suffer, and to see you throw away what may be the love of your life.
I know what pain that brings, as there was a time when I’d lost the love of my life. It was the bleakest period of my existence.
As you know, I’ve always liked writing. I’m sure you recall the column I wrote for the Buffalo Evening News. But what you don’t know is that my greatest work is what you’re about to read. Mind you, I started it when I was young, idealistic and thought myself a cross between Jane Austen and James Joyce—unlikely though that sounds!
I kept the journal hidden throughout the war but, just in case it was stolen or fell into the wrong hands, I wrote in English. Even though I was fluent, I was speaking my native French daily, so you may find some errors.
Read my story—you’ll figure out quickly that it’s not just my story but also that of Grandpa Jack, and millions of World War II survivors. Read this with an open mind and heart. Finally, understand why I found my peace and love here, in Buffalo.
Think about coming back to Buffalo, dearest, so you can give yourself a real life. I’ll never believe that working in that rat race on Capital Hill is good for you, Melinda. You’re certainly smart enough to be there with the best of them, but I don’t want you to waste your heart on things that won’t mean anything once you’re my age. You were such a natural in the classroom. Your former students still ask about you.
I’m feeling bold, since you’re not here in person to roll your beautiful blue eyes at me. I want you to reconsider your marriage to Nicholas. Twenty years of love and laughter—including the fifteen you’ve been married—is a lot to throw away, Melinda. Trust me when I tell you that no one will love you the way he has. I’ve seen both sides of love and marriage, and what you and Nicholas share is real.
I want to write more, but I’ve given you enough to read in my journals. I’d say “read it and weep” but unfortunately, I know you probably will. It is my prayer that you’ll also find some things humorous, and that you may even find a reason to believe in love again.
XOX
Grammy
Melinda let the letter fall back onto her lap. Leave it to Grammy to think she could fix everyone’s problems, even from the grave.
But her problems with Nicholas were about more than not having a baby. Their communication had broken down when she felt restless as a high-school English teacher. She’d wanted more.
“Why don’t you write the great American novel?” Nick wanted to solve her problems for her.
“I’m not a novelist. I’m interested in politics, Nick. I really think I’m supposed to use my talents in this direction.”
“Honey, I’m not being patronizing. But don’t you think your restlessness is mostly due to your biological clock ticking away?”
Melinda had rejected his observation that this was all about her hormones. Sure, they’d been trying to conceive and nothing had happened, but it wasn’t the entire focus of her life.
Or was it?
Nick had made his decision without her. He’d chosen to take another tour in Afghanistan. And she’d decided to take the job in D.C. without his help. They’d stopped relying on each other’s judgment years ago.
All they had in common now was this house.
A house neither of them lived in anymore.
She plucked at the multicolored yarn on the afghan she’d snuggled into on the brown leather couch. Grammy meant well. She was a woman who’d always been with the love of her life, so Melinda understood the basis for Grammy’s opinions.
But Grammy didn’t understand that the situation today wasn’t the same as during World War II. Nick had a choice—whether or not to serve. Whether or not to break Melinda’s heart.
Esmée’s Journal
May 25, 1940
How can this be happening? How can men of intelligence bring us to our knees again? Haven’t we suffered enough?
I’ve spent my entire academic life studying the Great War and how it destroyed our beloved Belgium. My family’s strength, faith and resourceful nature are the only reasons I am able to write this entry today.
A scant generation later we’ve begun another ugly battle.
Ugly it is. The Germans have no room for anyone except themselves. They tolerate us, they use us. Over the past three weeks I’ve seen everything I’ve ever read about in my literature studies—and more.
Bloodthirsty warplanes bombed our capital, and smaller, tactical aircraft strafed my village’s cow pastures. Douglas DuPont, who owns the fields behind our street, was shot dead while he tended to a birthing cow. His widow and five children are heartbroken and see no justification for his death.
Only Nazi barbarism.
My parents are quite vocal about what we’re experiencing. They warn my sister and me of many years of sacrifice to come. Surely this won’t last as long as the Great War. The Allies are on the right side of morality, of justice.
I will keep this record, so the world will know what happened. I will write in English—for practice and security.
Selfishly I wonder if I’ll be able to continue my studies. I graduate in three weeks and plan to attend university this September.
The current situation may dictate otherwise. The simple act of taking the train into Brussels each day may well be impossible.
Does this mean life as I know it is extinguished?
July 15, 1940
Any hope of escape, of fleeing, is over now. I desperately wanted to run to the French border but Mother forbade it. Besides, with Elodie, who will take care of them? Elodie still can’t walk without a lot of help, even using her cane. The polio could have been worse. Maman says I could have contracted it as well. But none of us did.
Just poor Elodie. My sweet little sister.
She looks more like ten years old than sixteen.
Maman and Papa are fine right now, but from what I’ve heard, the war will bring us all up against tough times. We could starve, or get sick, or both. Grandmère and Grandpère told us so many horrible stories of the Great War. I thought it was something I’d never experience. Yet here we are.
Maman and Papa need me, but I feel sorrowful over the loss of my hope, my plan, to study English literature. I can keep reading, of course, but how will I find books? The Nazis are already censoring newspapers and even library books. There are rumors the schools may close, as they did during the Great War.
If I am destined to remain in Belgium for the duration, I vow to make a difference. Not just to Maman, Papa and Elodie. But to my countrymen. To the boys from my class who’ve been forced to work in German factories. To the boys who’ve escaped to fight with our allies.
I wish I were a boy so I could carry a weapon, too.
I will find out what I can do.
Melinda knew Grammy studied English as a girl and spoke and wrote it fluently by the age of sixteen. Her breath caught as she realized that Esmée had kept such a detailed account of her life in a foreign tongue.
Esmée had high aspirations for a girl back then.
Esmée’s Journal
September 14, 1940
My first wish has been granted. I’m officially a member of the Belgian Resistance! Maman and Papa are, too, but we associate with different groups. They’re working with the older folks, doing more in the way of disrupting our occupiers’ everyday misdeeds, like not cooperating when asked for papers or goods the Germans have no right asking for. But they have to be careful; if they anger the enemy and end up in jail, or worse, it won’t help any of us.
I’m in a more active group. Right now, we’re getting the local boys who stayed here in touch with their counterparts in England. Thank God for the radio. Still, we have to monitor each and every broadcast so as to not miss one clue the Allies might send us.
May 29, 1941
It’s only been a year, but it feels like ten. I worry for us all. Our food has been so limited. If this war lasts much longer, we may starve before we’re liberated from these evil bastards.
It’s my duty to provide for Maman, Papa and Elodie. We can’t expect Elodie to roam about the countryside looking for food or fuel to keep our house warm. Maman and Papa remain healthy but the war is wearing on them, and I see it reflected in the deepening lines on their faces, the sharper angle of their bent spines.
I pray for an answer.
Melinda took a sip of the tea that had grown cold and looked out the front window, past the Belgian lace curtains Grammy had ordered for her. It wasn’t dark yet, but hazy with the gray that comes before a late-autumn sunset.
Her surroundings, which she’d taken for granted only a few journal entries ago, seemed luxurious, even excessive. On her drive up from D.C. she’d actually complained to herself that her leather car seats weren’t heated.
Grammy had life-or-death issues to face when she was two decades younger than Melinda was now.
Esmée’s Journal
June 1, 1941
A miracle may have happened today.
I met a young man, recently widowed, who owns a farm a few kilometers south of here. It’s a little more rural than I’m used to, but the small town is familiar to me, as some of my schoolmates have gone there to live out the war with extended family.
His name is Henri. We met in Brussels at the Grand Place when I escaped to the city center, trying to remember what it used to be like. I was searching for some fresh vegetables for us, brought in from the countryside.
Henri handed me an apple.
He said he travels to Brussels to sell his produce as it comes in.
He’s lonely, I see it in his eyes. And he has food. Enough for all of us.
June 5, 1941
Henri took me bicycle-riding in his town today. We rode the train to the station, and walked to his home. I didn’t tell Maman and Papa what I was doing. They thought I was out doing Resistance work.
I was, but even Henri doesn’t know that. I told the leader of my group in Brussels that I may have an opportunity to move out to the countryside, to Le Tourn. He told me they’d be happy to have me working there, since that’s where many of the RAF insertions take place.
They warned me not to tell my new friend about my work. Just in case…
I can serve my country and keep my family fed with one simple vow.
June 10, 1941
Henri came by to meet my family today.
Maman and Papa were social enough, but I could tell this is not a man they’d ever trust. Nothing concrete, just an undercurrent of distrust. When he left, they fired their questions at me.
“How did you meet him? How do you know he didn’t find out you’re Resistance and isn’t going to turn you in? How can you be sure he’s loyal to Belgium?”
I can’t answer any of their questions without hesitation. But I know one thing—we won’t starve if I marry him.
He is kind and polite to me. He’s very interested in me, and although I’d normally not give his type a second glance, I have to be practical. I’ve never yet been in love, and with the war, I may never be. So why wait when I can marry a man who can provide for my family?
Henri? Grandpa’s name was Jack. Had she been married before? Had this other man been her first husband?
Intrigued, Melinda turned the page to Grammy’s next entry. She kept reading through 1941 and the start of 1942. Grammy married this Henri. The entries were bland at best, certainly no mention of undying love or passion. But nothing shocking, either.
Until she came upon an entry she’d never have believed Esmée Du Bois had written.
Esmée’s Journal
March 17, 1942
I hate him. As much as I’m relieved to write these words, I’m trembling that he’ll find me doing this. Or worse, he’ll find this journal and use it as another excuse to slam me up against the cellar wall.
He’s smart. He never hits me upstairs, where someone might see. No, he waits until I’m doing the laundry over the cellar fire, when I’m tired from the work and can’t fight back, as well. Then he comes up to me, a snake in farmer’s clothes, and sooner or later his hand reaches out and inflicts yet more pain.
If not for Belle, the Belgian Shepherd dog who showed up on our stoop last year, I’d have not one confidante. Henri threatened to get rid of her at first, but since she’s grown to ninety pounds he leaves her be. I make sure their paths don’t cross often. He’s incapable of compassion for any living creature.
I couldn’t go out to the market or see my family in Brussels for three weeks after the last beating. Can’t risk hurting them. If they see me they’ll know, even if they don’t see the bruises under my clothes. They’ll see the despair in my eyes.
I thought I’d done well for my family by marrying Henri. His kind words and thoughtful manner before our marriage seduced me, as did the food he’d provide for my family.
I never imagined what horrors awaited me.
Oh, Maman and Papa. Elodie! I miss them so much. They are also active in the Resistance and I fear for their capture. Yet they wouldn’t be my family if they didn’t do what they believed in.
And I’ve been able to keep them fed. Potatoes, beets, even some meat when Henri slaughters one of our remaining cattle. We have to stretch the meat, using a little at a time, but it keeps our bellies full enough. The hunger pains don’t hurt or distract as they did before I married this bastard.
Although, there are days I’m too nauseated to eat from the ferocity of his attacks.
April 16, 1942
The one good thing that remains is my Resistance work. He has no idea about it and never will. At first I didn’t tell him to protect him. Now I don’t tell him for fear of being killed, and all my work being for naught.
The group needs me. They need my information, my language abilities. I don’t speak fluent German but I understand enough to know when the bastards are planning another domestic raid. My English has improved, too, since I’ve worked with the RAF intelligence planted here.
Originally I’d thought that when I married Henri, he might support me in providing a safe landing spot for the spies England sends us.
I will never tell him about my Resistance work. It’s what sustains me, even more than protecting my family. When he’s smashing my jaw or I crack another tooth on a door frame from his strike, I just think of what our young boys are going through. We will persevere.
Belgium will be free again, thanks to our strength of will and our Allied angels.
Like manna from heaven they float down, infiltrate our society and use the information they glean to help the analysts back in London.
The war will end quickly.
Our Allies are strong.
If only I felt as strong. This morning, as he does every morning, Henri wanted me upon wakening. I’d prefer to keep our relations in the dark. It’s easier if I don’t have to see the devil when I have to suffer the weight of him.
And the brutality of his lovemaking. It’s not lovemaking; it’s forced violence. He rapes me every time. Except I don’t resist. What good would it do? He’d just knock me out with a blow and have at it anyhow. At least this way I can get up and do my best to wash away any chance of his seed implanting.
May 24, 1942
He’s angry. It’s almost a year and no whisper of a baby yet. At thirty-five he doesn’t want to wait. While I, at almost 21, pray he’ll die in his sleep, God forgive me.
I pray I can have babies with real love one day.
Even as I write this, I can’t say I believe love exists anymore. Not when my Jewish friends are being murdered, not when I’m beaten senseless for not making my pommes de terre tender enough.
I made a horrible mistake last week. In a moment of weakness, when Henri again mentioned his anger at no child from me, I suggested we could adopt. I have contacts. I didn’t tell him this, of course. With luck, we could adopt a Jewish baby. One whose parents have been sent away or will be soon. Several families in our town have adopted these babies, though it’s done quietly, without fanfare.
We could save a life and might even have a chance at saving our marriage.
At changing his heart.
He answered by shoving my head into the tub of water I’d used to wash the dishes.
“Do you desire a slow miserable death? That’s what the Gestapo will give us both if they hear your filthy talk. The only babies in this house will be mine.”
He kept ranting as he pulled on my hair, allowing me to gasp for air, then plunging my face back into the dirty water.
Sometimes I think of a different day, when I was young and looked forward to life and love. Before the Germans came back to our beautiful country and stamped out any hope of freedom.
Chapter 3
Esmée’s Journal
November 23, 1942
Winter is upon us. But my heart is far colder than any wind from the North Sea.
Yesterday I saw the ultimate betrayal. More painful than any of his slaps or punches or kicks.
I watched that bastard, my husband, give food—first-quality harvest and three pigs—to our enemy. He smiled and laughed, and even smoked a cigarette with them. He doesn’t think I saw them. He thinks I was busy in the cellar, boiling our linens. I fumed inside as he sold his soul for our country’s blood.
Thank you, God, that I never told him about my involvement in the Resistance.
Now I’ll have to be more careful than ever when I go out, which can only be when he’s either passed out from beer or when he goes into Brussels, which is rarer. I used to think he went into Brussels just to sell his goods, but now I wonder if he’s been making friends with the Germans all along. Maybe he’s charming one of their vile wives?
No matter to me. I am determined to get my family, my real family, through the war. I pray his seed never takes root inside me. God forgive me, I don’t want a child with this devil.
Melinda closed Grammy’s book and leaned her head against the back of the worn leather reading chair. She needed a break. It was as if the venom in Grammy’s words could burn Melinda’s skin more than sixty years after they were written.
She shoved her feet into her scuffed slippers and went to the kitchen to make a large pot of tea. She looked at the antique clock on the wall; she’d wound it last night.
She and Nicholas had bought this clock together, during a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The intricate carving on the simple wooden box was yet another reminder of her own love gone bad.
Here it was, eight-thirty on a Saturday evening.
Dinner wasn’t even an option. Her stomach was as tense as her nerves. Tea was the only thing that ever helped her through these times, and there’d been many cups in the last few years.
The backyard light flicked on, evident through the toile curtains that hung halfway down the picture window, which ran the length of the kitchen.
Despite her nervousness, Melinda walked over to the door. Probably just some wayward raccoon or neighborhood cat, but it never hurt to check. She’d been living in the heart of D.C. for too long to ignore any hint of danger.
The baseball bat she kept at her bedside was upstairs. Her fingers itched for it. As she stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, the teapot started to whistle.
The figure of a large man loomed in the window of the kitchen door. Melinda screamed.
And then her brain registered what her eyes saw.
“Nicholas!” His name was a strange mix of strangled cry and whispered prayer. Before her feet could respond to her brain’s order to move, Nicholas had unlocked the door and it swung open.
He looked as tall and imposing as ever, albeit a bit slimmer than she remembered. He was bundled against the cold in a charcoal overcoat.
He’d always been the most attractive man she’d known, and still was. Her gaze went to his face, and met his blue eyes that, right now, blazed fire at her.
He hadn’t expected her any more than she had him.
“What are you—”
“Why are you screaming at me?”
They both spoke at once. Their eye contact remained steady while the words hung in the frosty air between them.
“It’s freezing in here.” She broke the contact and nodded at the door he’d left wide-open behind him.
“Don’t want that, do we?” He slammed the door shut with his foot, never moving his eyes from her face.
But the motion of his foot distracted her, and she glanced down.
And saw the cane.
She tried to look away before he saw her discovery but wasn’t quick enough.
His eyes narrowed, his mouth curled. He’d never accepted pity from anyone.
“You’re hurt?” Her words came out in a squeak.
“Nothing major.” He tapped the cane on the tile. “This helps me negotiate uneven ground—or with an intruder in my home.”
“You don’t have to be so snippy. It’s still legally half my home—for the next two weeks.”
She walked to the teakettle and took it from the hot stove. She hoped her actions conveyed a tranquility she didn’t feel. First Grammy’s venomous words and now Nicholas’s censorious presence.
“‘Snippy.’ Yeah, that’s how I’m feeling. Snippy.”
He strode across the room to the coat closet, the cane tapping in rhythm with his steps. The rustle of hangers and winter coats was followed by a muffled curse, just loud enough to reach her ears.
She stopped plunging her teabag into the cup.
It wasn’t like Nicholas to swear. At least it hadn’t been, not while they were married. Or rather, together.
Melinda bit her lip. How could she know what he was like now? They hadn’t communicated in more than six months. Not one e-mail, not one phone call.
There’d been times when Melinda itched to take advantage of her staff position in Senator Hodge’s office and use a Pentagon resource to trace Nicholas’s location.
But she hadn’t.
If Nicholas wanted her, he could find her.
He’d been in Afghanistan, last she’d heard. He could’ve died and she wouldn’t have known. Not until the casualty assistance officer knocked on her door. If Nicholas had even bothered to change her emergency-contact information after she’d left Buffalo.
“What are you doing here?”
“Aaagh!” Melinda dropped the bag she’d steeped too long in the hot water and whirled to face Nicholas.
Don’t look at his eyes. Don’t remember why you loved him.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? In case you haven’t checked, I’ve had no information from you in the past six months—except the divorce papers I was served with four months ago!”
She stared at him, as surprised by her outburst as he obviously was.
After a long moment, he glanced away. The anger that fueled her accusation ebbed but left her knees shaky. Melinda sank into the 1940s-style red-and-white striped chair nearest to her and looked down at the tiled floor.
Anywhere but at his eyes.
She heard the scrape of a chair, then a vibration as the table shook with Nicholas’s weight against it.
“You never responded to the papers, except to sign them.” His voice was flat. Melinda’s tension flared into resentment at his apparent nonchalance.
“What was I supposed to do, Nicholas? The last thing I knew, we were separating to see if living apart was what we actually wanted. I didn’t realize you’d already made up your mind.”
She hated sounding so pathetic but there it was. The truth as she saw it.
“The last thing I knew, you packed up and left for D.C.—a week before I had to ship out.” His quiet tone tugged at her and she risked another look at him.
She gazed openly at his strong features and noted that his skin appeared paler, more drawn. The lines that crinkled when he laughed made him look tired, even sad. But his eyes bore the intensity she’d always seen in him and for a second Melinda didn’t know how she’d lived without her husband these past months.
“What else could I do? I was reacting to the news that you were leaving again the best way I knew how.” Her words ended on a whisper, and she looked down at her hands.
Her bare hands. She wore her wedding ring on a thick gold chain around her neck. It had been Grammy’s chain from before World War II. Had he noticed?
His sigh reverberated around her. “Doesn’t matter now, Melinda. We’ve made our choices.” His fingers drummed on the table and she saw that he, too, had removed his wedding band. She didn’t think it was for safety purposes since he wasn’t in uniform.
“How long will you be here?” His question caught her off guard. She had Senator Hodge’s blessing to take at least two weeks.
“I don’t know.” Maybe Nicholas needed some time alone here, she thought, before they put the house on the market. Their home.
“Do you need me to be out of here?” she asked.
“This is your home, too, Melinda. All I want to know is whether I’m sleeping on the couch for tonight or if I should go ahead and unpack in the guest room.”
“Grandpa Jack gave me this journal of Grammy’s to read, and his diary. I’d planned to stay with him—do whatever he might need me to do before winter sets in. But he insisted I stay here.”
She shrugged, trying to appear casual. “I think it would’ve upset him too much if I fought him on this.”
Nicholas’s expression remained impassive. “Fine. Take your time,” he said. “I’m home for good, so after about a week or so I’ll be back at work full-time.”
His stamina was close to his pre-injury level. But he hadn’t had to test it in a real environment for so long.
His leg ached from the flight and the drive home. But he was secure in the knowledge that no one—not Melinda or anyone else—could tell just how much his active-duty stint in Afghanistan had cost him.
Esmée’s Journal
December 19, 1942
My hands shake as I write. This has to be the coldest winter on record. Or do I feel the damp penetrating every inch of my body because fear has left me hollow?
I managed to bring Maman and Papa enough turnips and potatoes to get them through the next week or so. I hid them in the folds of my old wool coat, which grows thinner each day.
I caught Henri snooping about our room and pawing through my few possessions. Having to act as if that didn’t bother me wasn’t difficult, as this journal, this account of my hell, is the only thing of value to me in the house.
I keep it hidden behind the old tapestry that hangs in our sitting area. The entire wall appears to be plain old brick. Several of them are loose, but I’ve dug out a hole behind one brick. I then placed another brick in the hole to the right, so that anyone who pulls out the front brick and reaches in will find an empty space.
I live in fear that he’ll learn about my work with the Resistance. Yet death would be preferable to the humiliation he brings with his ugliness and dark heart. There are times I want to take my rolling pin and crush his skull with it. But where would I go? To prison? Then my family would starve.
I will hang on as long as I can. As long as there’s food for Maman, Papa and Elodie.
The stove fights me each day. Henri has a stash of wood he monitors closely. If I use too much he smacks me. If I allow the fire to burn out, he uses his belt.
I live for the times he travels to Brussels, or wherever he goes. The house isn’t peaceful unless he’s out of it.
I told Philippe in our group that I live on a farm, and if I know that Henri will be gone long enough, our Allies could use one of our fields as a safe place for RAF insertions.
December 21, 1942
The phone rang the other day and I answered, hoping for news from Maman and Papa. Henri was out in the field, earlier than usual. I picked up the receiver and before I could say “Hallo,” I heard a string of German before the caller hung up.
For some reason—pure luck?—we’re one of the few homes that still has our phone line connected.
So now they call Henri at home. What kind of creature is he that he supports the enemy so blatantly during our worst years in Belgium? While my male classmates and cousins fight God-knows-where for our release and freedom from these bastards.
I long for the day the Germans will go home. If it’s up to me, they’ll go home in shame, having lost to our Allies.
And Henri will go with them. If I live that long, I’ll divorce him as soon as the War is over. I don’t care if it ruins my life. He already has. Divorce will ruin my reputation but will save my soul. What’s left of it.
Chapter 4
Esmée’s Journal
December 25, 1942
This is a Christmas I will always remember.
I now have a man to nurse back to health and a husband to grieve. I don’t grieve for Henri, but I grieve for the marriage that never was. For the hope I had at the beginning. For the hope of what I once thought was a mutual friendship that might blossom into a true marriage.
Let me start again.
I’ve learned during the past weeks that Henri has helped the Germans rout out the Jewish children from our village. He even knew where they were staying if they’d been sent to relatives.
As he beat me for what would be the last time, he snarled, “I’ll bet you think they’re the same as us, don’t you? Don’t you?” I said nothing. I couldn’t; my lip was swollen and bleeding. But I laughed inside as I knew that once I told the Group what Henri was up to, they’d take care of him. And I had to tell them. It wasn’t about my conscience or my soul. It was about saving innocent lives. The Nazis occupy our country but they can’t take my heart. And I’d die before my husband (in name only) could give them one more piece of information.
I went to Midnight Mass on my own on Christmas Eve. I figured Henri had some urgent evil business, so I went to pray it wouldn’t work out well.
The night was cold and crisp. For once we had no rain, just a wide clear sky above, with the stars floating close enough to touch. I relished my walk home in the dark. This isn’t a Christmas for parties and celebration; it’s one for prayer and hope that our hell will end soon.
I came home from Mass to an empty house. But Henri wasn’t passed out drunk on the sofa, as usual, nor was he waiting to pummel me. A frigid breeze blew through the house and I heard my dog, Belle, barking out back. Henri was always careful to make sure she was outside when he beat me—Belle would have killed him if he’d ever left her in the same room when he hurt me.
Her barks alarmed me with their persistence. I ran through the house to the kitchen door, which stood wide open. I could see a lantern about halfway across the field, which was lit up by the full, full moon. I made out Henri’s silhouette and Belle’s, across from him. But who was the figure next to Belle?
I grabbed one of Henri’s hunting rifles. I may never know why I did; I’d never allowed Henri to find out that I knew how to fire a weapon. He would’ve locked up the rifles, and for some perverse reason I’ve always felt safe knowing they were there. Just in case.
I ran into the field, the frozen mud crunching so loudly beneath my feet that the sound drowned out whatever Henri was saying to Belle, and to the figure. As I neared, I realized with a jolt that Henri wasn’t even aware of my approach. Belle’s barks had helped to cover my steps, but that’s not why he was distracted.
Henri was enraged. But for once, not at me.
“You stupid shit of the earth. Do you think I don’t know who you are, what you represent?” Henri had his rifle up and cocked, pointed at the figure.
It was a man. He wore plain dark clothes and there was a large cloth draped on the ground next to him.
A parachute.
The Group had said they’d use my pasture, but they’d give me advance notice—if they could. Obviously they hadn’t.
“Please, friend, let me explain.” The man spoke perfect Belgian French. Henri started to yell at him in German.
“I’m not your friend, nor am I a friend of any supporter of Churchill’s.”
“I don’t understand,” the man answered, again in fluent French, but I had the sense that he understood Henri perfectly. At this point he’d spotted me, although I noticed he gave away nothing in his expression. He was sitting, both legs in front of him. He held his right ankle in his hands.
“Understand this. You’ll be sorry you didn’t break your neck in the fall.” Henri raised his barrel and from his stance I knew he was a stroke from killing the man.
“Henri, don’t!”
Henri barely started. He didn’t even look at me.
“Shut up, Esmée. Take Belle back in the house before I shoot her, too. You know not to disobey me.”
Disobey him?
I hoisted my rifle and shot Henri in the head.
His body dropped in slow motion, and I wish I could tell you I felt guilt or recrimination or compassion at his fate. But all I felt is what I feel now. If I must suffer in hell for Henri’s blood, better that than letting him spill the blood of more innocent Jewish families. God only knows how many have met their untimely fate at his hands, through his help.
“Nice shot.”
Again, the stranger spoke in fluent French and I responded the same way.
“I just saved your ass and all you say is ‘nice shot’?”
“Merry Christmas?” he offered, and I laughed.
I actually laughed. I, who had just murdered my husband in cold blood, after Christmas Mass. War does strange things to a person, and sadly I’m no exception.
After our laughter stopped, we were left with the still, cold night and the prospect of figuring out if indeed this man belonged here. And what was I to do with him?
I studied him more closely. He looked like any local Belgian. A full beard and spectacles covered most of his face. I couldn’t see much more in the dark, no matter how bright the moon. But he had a quiet, intense presence about him.
“You are Muriel.”
He spoke my Resistance code name. He’d heard Henri call me “Esmée.” Still, he could be an undercover German. A double agent. But at that moment I decided to trust him.
“Yes, I am.”
“I am from across the way.”
This time he spoke in English.
He meant, of course, the English Channel. He was another one of the many Allied operatives who were landing in Belgium to help the Resistance.
I put down my rifle. It ran through my mind that this Ally probably thought I was crazy. That I could stand there having a calm chat with him in my cow pasture on Christmas morning, as my husband’s body lay next to us.
“Did you love him?” His question shocked me. I responded before I could think.
“I hated him.”
“So saving my ass wasn’t too much of a sacrifice, then?”
“No.”
I wish I’d been able to explain to him that I wasn’t a monster. That years of living with this horrible man in a horrible time had left me with no hope for my future. That my only reason for getting up each morning has been to save more people from the Germans, and to save any future victims of Henri’s efforts to aid the enemy.
But all I said was “no.”
Melinda heaved the journal off her lap and placed it on the mahogany end table she and Nicholas had refinished last year.
The conversation they’d had then played in her mind as if it had just happened.
She’d landed a position in Senator Hodge’s local office but she’d been offered one in Washington, D.C. She’d wanted to take it. Planned to take it.
Nicholas had rejected her suggestion that they move. His accounting practice was flourishing and, even though he’d have no problem landing a great job in D.C., he didn’t want to leave western New York.
“It’s all we’ve ever known. We’ve been so happy here,” he’d argued.
“Exactly. It’s all we’ve ever known. But it was pretty damned desolate while you were in Afghanistan.”
She’d loathed the entire year he’d been gone, and was grateful he’d returned in one piece.
But the year of separation and isolation had stirred a restlessness in Melinda that she needed to explore. She was like her father, James, who’d worked as a civil servant, first for the municipal government in Buffalo and then in Arizona. She was interested in federal politics. Grammy, like Nick, had thought maybe it was time they had a baby, but the baby never came.
They’d been unable to conceive.
“Honey, we’re in an adjustment period,” he’d said that fall day. “I’ve only been back six months, and we were apart an entire year.” He’d placed his hands on her shoulders, but Melinda couldn’t accept any comfort from him. Not then.
“You’ve only been home for six months but you’re already talking about leaving again.” Her words were spoken quietly but their weight was deadly.
Nicholas dropped his hands from her shoulders and took a step backward.
“You’ve always supported my Reserve training before. Surely you understood it was training for war.”
“Yes, but you seem so eager to go, Nick. It’s as though you have some sort of death wish. I mean, to agree, to volunteer again—”
“Cut me some slack here, Melinda. I’ve been with the same team for the past ten years. We’re like family. I can’t let them down now.”
“What about me? Us?”
“There’s always us. That never changes.”
“You say you want a baby, but how can we work on it when you’re halfway around the world fighting in a war?”
“The same way we’ll work on it while you’re in D.C. and I’m here.” His resentment at her more and more frequent business trips was reflected in his tone.
They’d thrown accusations at each other that day as if words didn’t hurt, wouldn’t stay ingrained on their hearts for a long while to come, if not forever.
On Sunday morning, Nicholas rose with the sun. Mornings were always the toughest time. He had to stretch, put on his prosthesis and remember how to walk with his new leg. Sometimes the phantom pain took his breath away. Not today.
Today he was under the same roof as Melinda. His heartache far outweighed any pain he’d suffered as a result of the IED, improvised explosive device, and the subsequent loss of his leg.
The pain he felt at the loss of his squad mate, Tommy, who hadn’t survived the IED, could still leave him breathless if he dwelled on it. But it didn’t compare to the pain he felt at the thought of losing Melinda.
Waking up in the trauma unit and finding out that Tommy had died, leaving a widow and three kids, was a gut-wrenching blow. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over it. He’d certainly never forget Tommy.
But if he lost Melinda, their marriage, he’d lose his most important reason to live.
Melinda was his life, his soul mate. But they’d gone wrong somewhere in their fifteen-year marriage. He intended to right whatever he’d screwed up.
He went downstairs and started a pot of coffee. He was happy to see that Melinda had replaced the Starbucks coffee he’d left in the cupboard seven months ago. While the coffee brewed, he walked to the front door, intent on the morning paper. After he opened the front door and was greeted with an icy blast he realized the paper service had been terminated.
Of course. He’d made the call himself two days before his departure.
A week after Melinda had left.
“You’re up early.” Her voice seemed to touch the tender place inside that he’d thought was dead.
“Habit.” He turned away from her, and went back into the kitchen. But not before he caught a whiff of her morning scent. Shampoo, hair products, perfume. For a split second, all their bitter words dissolved and all he wanted was to pull her into his arms.
Instead, he settled for looking at her.
Big mistake. The IED had taken his leg but, thank God, nothing else. Right now he was acutely aware of his physiological response to her.
Big blue eyes stared at him from behind fringed lashes that he knew to be pale blond when not coated with mascara, as they were now. She’d cut her hair, and as much as he missed the straight, silky length that fell to her shoulders, the new sleek chin-length style was stunning on her.
When she raised an eyebrow, Nicholas turned away. He had to stay cool if he was going to pull this one off.
“Learn anything interesting from Grammy’s journal?” He poured them each a cup of coffee. He was generous with her half-and-half, just the way she liked it.
Melinda’s expression looked as if she’d refuse his attempt at a truce. After a few tense moments, the lines in her face relaxed.
He watched her slim hands wrap around the ceramic mug. She lifted it to her lips and he had to avert his gaze or risk another surge of hormones.
“I’ve—” she narrowed her eyes “—we’ve always known that Grammy was a strong person. But I’m reading about someone I don’t know at all.”
She related what she’d read so far, and while Nick was saddened that Grammy had suffered at the hands of an abusive husband, he wasn’t surprised to learn how resourceful she’d been.
“This guy who landed in her pasture—he was a Brit, I assume? Grandpa Jack?”
Nick took a long sip of coffee and watched her across the kitchen table. The sun was rising and sent slanted beams of light across Melinda’s face.
“I haven’t read that far yet. They always said they met during the war, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but neither one of them ever told me the full story. They were experts at enjoying today, the here and now.”
Nicholas longed to share the last conversation he’d had with Grammy. But not now. Not until Melinda was ready to hear him out. After he’d told her about his leg.
Melinda sighed.
“It’s weird. I thought I was coming home to take care of Grandpa Jack. You know how lifetime couples often pass on very close to each other? I’ve been expecting to hear Grandpa’s gone, too. Instead, I come home to find him in his garden, working away, and he gives me these journals to read. Tells me they’re very important.”
She swished her coffee around in her mug.
“I keep thinking I should feel more grief or an extra closeness to Grammy as I read this. But like I said, it’s as though I’m reading the story of another woman’s life.”
She stood up and went to the refrigerator.
“Most of us don’t see our parents or grandparents in an objective light, the way the world sees them.”
Nick smiled to himself as Melinda pulled out eggs, cheese, vegetables and Tabasco sauce. She was making them an omelet. Did she realize how easily they’d slipped back into their Sunday-morning breakfast routine?
Minus the lovemaking, of course.
“True. But, Nick, she killed a man!”
Melinda’s voice snapped him back.
“I see what you mean.” He shook his head. “Hell, she wouldn’t even let me kill the slugs that were eating her prize tomatoes two summers ago. She said ‘just let me take them down to the creek.’”
“Right, exactly.” She cracked two more eggs against the ceramic mixing bowl.
He studied Mel’s movements about the counter and stove. God, he’d missed her grace, her warmth.
“You know, Mel, We’re all capable of things we wouldn’t have any reason to think about unless—or until—we’re faced with the circumstances.”
What would Melinda think of him if she knew he’d killed? Even in self-defense, in war.
What if she knew about the hatred he’d carried in his heart for the person or persons who were responsible for the IED that killed his friend and blew his leg off?
Chapter 5
“Have you ever had to kill anyone, Nick?”
Her question sucked the air from his lungs. She’d never asked about his time in Afghanistan. After his first return, she’d spoken only of the future, mostly about her desired transfer to D.C.
This new intimacy wasn’t much, but he’d take it.
“I’ve been in a war, Melinda. What do you think?”
He saw her shoulders tense. She stopped whisking the eggs and turned to look at him.
“I suppose you’ve had to do things I don’t want to know about.”
“You’re correct.”
Melinda turned back to the counter. A few minutes later, she sat down with two full plates of omelet, sliced melon and rye toast. Drool threatened to drip from the sides of Nick’s mouth as he stared at their meal.
“This is incredible, Mel.” He hadn’t had a homemade meal in, what, seven, eight months?
She dug her fork into the fluffy omelet and raised it to her lips. Only then did she meet his gaze, and laughed.
“You act like you haven’t eaten in years, Nick.”
“It was a long trip home.” He couldn’t say any more or he’d scare her with his newfound devotion to their marriage.
So he shoved a forkful of egg into his mouth.
This was going to be far more difficult than he’d imagined. He didn’t want to overwhelm her with his emotions. Their marriage had broken down over a long time. He didn’t expect to mend it in one conversation.
“Let me warm up our coffee.”
She went to the counter and he was grateful for the reprieve. There was so much at stake here. Because if he didn’t win Melinda back before the divorce was final, he’d lose the biggest part of himself.
The best part.
“I’d appreciate it, thanks.” He needed to switch gears or his emotions were going to become obvious.
“Have you heard from David?” Melinda’s half brother still lived in Buffalo but rarely came around. He was always too busy with the next deal in local real estate.
“Not since the funeral.” She sipped her coffee. “He isn’t as close to Grandpa as I am. Besides, he and Tari spend a lot of time with the kids.”
Kids we never had.
Nick sighed.
“Just because they’re raising children doesn’t mean you can’t ask for some help if you need it with Jack.”
Melinda’s face was relaxed, her expression thoughtful. This was how it was supposed to be between them. How it had been, before they’d both screwed things up.
“I’m not afraid to ask him, if that’s what you’re getting at. But I don’t see any need to bother him at this point. Grandpa’s doing fine from what I saw yesterday. He’s even cooking for himself.”
“Did the casseroles from the neighbors run out?”
Melinda laughed.
“The original round, yes, but several of the widows keep bringing him a fresh meal every few days or so.”
“No one’s asked to marry him yet?” Nick smiled at her. There’d never been anyone but Esmée for Jack. And the widows knew it, too. Still, they couldn’t resist feeding the neighborhood’s most eligible senior.
“I hope not. That’s the last thing he needs.”
“Still, it has to be a welcome distraction from his grief.”
Melinda looked at him, her eyes large.
“When did you get so introspective?”
“Every now and then I actually do reveal some human characteristics, Mel.”
Esmée’s Journal
February 1, 1943
The man with the broken ankle will only tell me his name is “Mac.” But I doubt that’s his real name. I went through all his clothes as I washed them but there’s no identification, no indication of who he is or where he came from.
I’m almost positive he’s RAF, or an agent for the Brits. No matter, as we’re all on the same side. We speak in a mixture of French and English.
Philippe from the Resistance Group has become invaluable to me. He and three other members came and took care of Henri’s body. Philippe told me to tell my neighbors, family and friends that Henri went away on Christmas Eve and never came back. He wouldn’t be the first Belgian to disappear in the middle of the night. No one questioned my explanation.
I live in fear of a German soldier rapping on my door, demanding to know what I’ve done with Henri, but so far it hasn’t happened.
I should worry more about how I’ll explain my new visitor. Yet none of my neighbors even know of him. Since I helped him into the house that night only a little over a month ago, he’s remained hidden from them.
I’ve been able to keep Maman and Papa away thanks to the cold weather. I don’t want them implicated in any of my doings.
February 3, 1943
I’ve seen him looking at me. At first his glances were questioning, as though he was trying to figure out how I could have shot my husband. He speaks to Philippe in quiet, hushed tones whenever he stops over. Philippe tells me nothing except “You’re doing a great patriotic service to your country, Esmée.”
When I joined the Resistance I understood that I’d be given many tasks I would not be able to ask the why or how of. That lack of information is to protect our cause, ourselves and our Allies. Even if we’re captured and tortured, we can’t give the enemy what we don’t know.
But I long to find out more about Mac. Where is he from? What lies behind those dark blue eyes that watch me with such intense interest through the coldest months of the year?
His eyes reveal more to me than he realizes. When he first arrived, during those terrible days after Henri died, his eyes would glaze over with pain, or from fever, and show me his need. Need for healing, for comfort, yes, but I saw more in his eyes. I saw his soul.
This is a good man, perhaps haunted by something, some need I can’t identify.
I haven’t craved a man’s touch in so long. When my marriage to Henri went sour early on, I sometimes fantasized about having a husband who really loved me, whose caresses I cherished. But as my reality became more and more gruesome, it wasn’t worth the pain to tease myself with fantasies of a happy relationship.
The longer Henri is gone, the more aware I become of my own needs. I’m twenty-one years old. I’m no longer a girl. I know what goes on in the marriage bed, physically if not emotionally and spiritually. I can imagine how a true joining would be.
But to imagine it with Mac—have I lost my mind? Perhaps one of Henri’s slaps or punches wiped out my sanity and common sense.
A man’s touch, other than my father’s, has only brought me suffering.
Yet my fingers itch to touch Mac.
I did touch him, when I cleansed him, and when he had the fever. I told myself it was to soothe him, but even in his sweat-drenched sleep I wanted to touch him. To feel that the skin over his bones was real. That he was real. That my nightmare with Henri had ended.
I protected his privacy, of course. I helped him with the bedpan as much as he needed, but kept my eyes averted.
All right, I did get a glance. Or two.
Mac is an attractive man.
Or would I find any man who isn’t beating me attractive?
February 4, 1943
Mac’s socks are taking longer than I expected. I keep dropping stitches when he speaks, which has been more often lately. I speak to him of my hopes for the future, always careful to leave it simple. To let him think that I have my own life to get back to after the war.
He is so endearing, even when the pain or his restlessness makes him cranky.
I had to put my pen down a minute—I thought I heard Mac’s bell tinkling from his room. But he’s still sound asleep. It’s twelve-thirty in the morning and I can’t sleep. I should be exhausted these days. The simple act of bathing myself, of using the bathroom, is a strain in the cold. We have an indoor toilet, but it’s off the kitchen and not heated. I dread removing even one layer of clothing, let alone stripping down to wash. Each day I have to make sure my windows are blackened so the house won’t draw the attention of the Germans.
There’s only one explanation for my desire to remain awake, to savor every minute of every day.
Mac.
His steps are stronger and his complexion looks healthy now. Even on the meager potatoes and scraps of pork I manage, he’s healed.
I can’t think about his departure. It’s crazy, I know. When this man dropped into my life, I was already deciding to leave Henri. Instead, I killed him.
Yet Mac seems to like me. He’s never judged me for my sin.
Whenever I see Mac, I can’t help feeling all warm inside. His presence makes me aware of my body as I’ve never been before. My hands tremble, my skin tingles, and I swear, I can feel my blood’s heat as it courses across my breasts and down my stomach…No one’s ever made me feel such things before.
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