She laughs as we move around the clearing. I dip her, and she giggles.
The song ends, and I pull Jess closer. The next one isn’t a slow song, but I sway her on the spot as though it were. “I’m sorry about my mother. I’m not going to apologize for her behavior. Only she can do that. But I am sorry for the pain she caused you. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
Jess’s smile fades. “Like she said, you’re still her baby.”
I grunt, not exactly thrilled to have my grown-ass self referred to as a baby.
Jess laughs softly, the low sound vibrating through her chest and into mine. “You might not like that, but it’s true. She might never accept me as your girlfriend. She might always think the worst of me.” Jess looks down, hiding her face from me.
I lift her chin with my finger. “I have a hard time believing it. She’s smarter than that. But no matter what she thinks, my brothers and our friends and I don’t believe any of the lies about you. You’ll always have us on your side.”
“I know,” she whispers, resting her head on my chest. “I know.”
43
ANGELIQUE
April 1944
France
Exhaustion refusesto let go as I slowly open my eyelids. The afternoon sunlight streams through the window and brightens my bed with its sorrowful glow.
I roll over and push to a sitting position, blinking the room into focus. My gaze lands on a man in the rocking chair in the corner of my room, his golden hair glowing in the light.
Surprise widens my eyes. “Johann?”Please tell me this is not a dream.
My vision is a little blurry from my nap, but I’m positive it’s him. Our two-week-old daughter is in his arms, cosy and asleep in her blanket. “Are you real? Or am I imagining you?”
He smiles the grin that always has my heart soaring, and he laughs. That has to be one of my favourite sounds. He’s as handsome as I remembered. He’s also worn at the edges and thinner than the last time I saw him, but we all look like that after years of occupation and struggling to stay alive.
His clothes are frayed and soiled. It’s obvious he has been in hiding for a while.
“I’m definitely real.” The adoration in his eyes propels my heart into my throat, loosens a sob from my lungs.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I whisper and wipe away tears with my fingers, grinning at him in the same way he’s smiling at me. “How did you get into the flat?”
“A rumour reached me that I now have a daughter. I was able to make arrangements to visit you. Your flatmate let me in before she left.”
My heart splinters, already knowing the answer to my next question. “You won’t be able to stay, will you?”
“Unfortunately, no. We still have so much to do to end this war.” He pushes to his feet, walks over to the bed, and sits next to me. He leans down and kisses me softly. “God, I’ve missed you, Angelique.”
I smile, hiding how my heart is cracking into several pieces. “I’ve missed you too.”
His gaze slowly sweeps over my face as if to memorise it. His attention then shifts to our daughter in his arms. “She’s beautiful. Like her mother.” He tenderly strokes the fuzz on her head. “Your friend told me you named her Anna, after my sister.”
“I did. Is that all right with you?”
He glances up, and his beaming smile is the only answer I need.
“I was afraid you were dead because the maquis didn’t trust you,” I tell him.
“That was one of their top choices when I first approached them. It was only due to what I could provide—my language skills, my knowledge of some of the German plans, and my engineering background—that they let me join them. But that was not without a lot of arguing amongst themselves first. I’ve had to do things I never wanted to, but I don’t regret it. Not much, anyway.” His gaze returns to his daughter. “I’ve never been one for killing, whether it be animal or man.”
Pain lies raw and naked in his voice. I want to hold him close, to banish it. This war is forcing us all to be something we aren’t. It’s a regret that will haunt us to our graves. At the end of the day, it does not matter if we’re killing the enemy; we are still taking human lives. Not everyone is a monster in human clothing. The true monsters are the cruel and soulless ones getting other people to do their dirty work and the ones who relish killing. Everyone else…is just their puppet.
We’ve all lost so much due to greed and hate and ignorance.
