Page 92 of Hearts of Resistance
She didn’t turn when he touched her arm, didn’t listen to his words or those of his mother as she heard her raise her voice and scold her son as if he were a child still. Instead she walked out with her head held high. Her vision should have been blurred with tears, her face bright red from the humiliation of what she’d just found out, heart racing, but it wasn’t.
Instead she was wondering how to tell her mother, but then that would be easy. She’d done nothing wrong, so her mother could gossip and moanabout John and his family with her friends, her father could be angry that someone had broken a promise to her, and her friends could rally around and cluck like hens about what an awful thing John had done to her. And then she’d be free.
Free.
There would be no more covert operations, no more risking her life or worrying about being caught and killed. And she was free to marry whomever she pleased and to do what she wanted with her life. She’d had a taste of being independent and being treated as the equal to any man, and she wanted that for the rest of her life. Damn it, she was going to demand it!
So instead of crying and running down the road, she burst out laughing and tilted her head back as she walked, letting the sun warm her face and sink into her skin. Her fingers were almost itching to find a pen, to write a letter to the one person she’d tried so hard to forget about and should never have pushed from her thoughts or her heart.
The chains were gone. Nothing was holding her down, not now.
It was time to start her life over again, and she couldn’t wait.
‘You married Harry, didn’t you?’ Sophia asked, shaking her head like she could hardly believe it the moment Hazel stopped talking. ‘You found him!’
‘I did,’ she confessed. ‘I’d never forgotten his address – he’d given it to me before we parted ways – and I wrote him a letter telling him how I felt about him, and that I was no longer engaged to be married.’ She laughed. ‘Writing that bloody letter was almost harder than working in France with you lot!’
They all sipped their drinks, and Hazel spoke again before either of her friends could. ‘John arriving home with an Italian wife should have broken my heart, but it didn’t. I had to pretend to be sad when I told my parents, when I was in fact jumping for joy inside. And the rest, as they say, is history.’
‘You do realise that we could all see it even when you two couldn’t, right?’ Sophia teased. ‘It was almost painful to watch you two falling in love.’
Hazel shook her head. She’d known, of course she’d known, that Harry was the one for her, but she’d been engaged. It wasn’t like she could have acted on her feelings.
‘I suspected as much,’ she confessed. ‘But never in a million years did I expect to end up married to the man. Things turned out pretty well for us,’ she admitted, talking about more than just her finding Harry. ‘I mean, after what we went through, I couldn’t ever imagine coming back home and pretending like our war experience was no different from anyone else’s.Because it was different.’ She cleared her throat and looked each of her friends in the eye. ‘One day the world will talk about us. It will start as whispers about the women who infiltrated France. They’ll talk about disguises and gasp at the type of training we might have done, the fact that we knew how to kill and code and courier. One day, maybe by the time we have grandchildren, we’ll be able to smile, knowing the women who made history, those women they speak about with such admiration...’ She had tears in her eyes now but she didn’t bother trying to brush them away. They fell and she continued on, not scared of crying. ‘We are those women, and it makes me so proud thinking about what we did. Sophia, we’re so fortunate to have men in our lives who know the kind of women we became, because they saw us for who we truly are.’
Sophia held out her hand across the table and Hazel squeezed it, but it was Rose who looked like she needed the comfort, her shoulders shaking as she bravely, openly cried in front of them without turning away.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Rose. Truly I am. We both are,’ Hazel said. ‘I didn’t mean to exclude you. It must be so hard for you to hear about us and—’
‘Don’t say it,’ Rose said, dabbing at her cheeks. ‘It’s enough to see you both happy, to see that you’re loved. I had years with Peter, and it’s enough for me knowing that he would have wholeheartedly approved of everything I did. He would have been in awe, but he also always knew how brave I was, that I wasn’t afraid to stand up for what was right or share my opinions.’
‘Must have made for interesting dinner party conversations, then,’ Sophia said with a giggle. ‘What in the world did his friends think of him, having such an outspoken wife?’
Rose sipped her champagne as they waited for her response, and Hazel did the same, taking a small sip of hers.
‘It did and they couldn’t stand me! But, Sophia, I’m so pleased that you found your Alex. You deserve to be loved and to get your chance at happiness with him.’
‘I wish the end of the war had been different for you,’ Sophia replied, her voice low.
Rose squeezed Sophia’s hand as Hazel watched on. ‘So do I. But I married a man I loved and he treated me with so much love and respect that no man will ever live up to his memory. But don’t ever think I’m not bursting with happiness over you both!’
‘Truly?’
‘Look who I have,’ Rose said, pointing to Francesca. The little girl had fallen asleep, her head tucked into a deep cushion on the sofa, her pretty little mouth open as she slept. ‘She’s my reason for living now. She makes every day worth getting out of bed for, every demon worth facing.’
‘Our men fought that war, on the ground, day after day,’ Sophia said. ‘My own countrymen, my own father, fought against everything I believed in.’
Hazel held her hand tight across the table, listening to her friends talk.
‘But it was what we did that won the war, I’m certain of it. Our networks and our people undercover in France, we changed the outcome, and we need to be so proud of that.’
They were thoughts Hazel had already had, things she often pondered in the early hours of the morning when her husband was fast asleep beside her. If she hadn’t helped, hadn’t been part of their amazing network of men and women, maybe she wouldn’t have had a safe bed to sleep in at all.
‘Shall we toast those in our networks who didn’t make it?’ Rose asked.
Sophia held up her glass of champagne, and they clinked them gently together. ‘To the fallen,’ she murmured.
Hazel held up her own glass and smiled before taking a sip. ‘Can we all promise one thing?’ she asked. ‘Can we all meet, every year, here or somewhere equally wonderful?’
‘We’ll meet here every year, no matter what,’ Rose said firmly. ‘But next time you must bring your husbands, and in years to come, your children, too.’
‘Then it’s a deal,’ Hazel said.
‘We’ll be here. Absolutely, we’ll make it every year, no matter where we are,’ Sophia agreed.
They all sat in silence for a moment, before Hazel cleared her throat. ‘To us,’ she said, holding her glass high.
‘To us,’ the others said in unison.
This was right; being together, celebrating their highs and mourning their losses. Hazel was certain they’d be friends for ever, until they were old ladies sitting in their rocking chairs, laughing and whispering about the things they’d done when they’d been young enough to risk it all. She laughed and smiled through her tears at her friends. After everything they’d been through, nothing could be more perfect than tonight.Nothing.
