Page 102 of The Lost Husband

“No one should have to know that truth,” I tell him.

He lifts his head up for a moment, searching for my eyes. “After I was transported from Westerbork to Auschwitz, I learned what happens to pregnant women, and mothers with young babies. There was no hope for them. None. I knew if you ended up there too, you wouldn’t have survived either?—”

“I know,” I utter.

“She did give us life.”

“So now…” I try to get the words out, but it hurts too much.

“We live for her.” The words float between us, not as a promise, or statement of grief, but as a way of life.

“Sometimes, I press my hand where she was and swear, I feel her.” I don’t know if it’s a memory, or something broken inside of me. I don’t care.

“She will always be a part of us,” Noah says quietly.

The fire crackles outside the window, and Noah’s breaths fall into a steady rhythm against my collarbone.

His hand never moves from my stomach.

FORTY-THREE

CURRENT DAY – MAY 1945

Gliwice, Poland

The radio static has become the white noise of this infirmary room from the moment we wake until we go to sleep. It hums low and constant, like the memory of fallout from explosions that refuse to leave the air.

The snow has melted outside, revealing a thick brown sludge of thaw and ruin beyond the schoolhouse. But along the tree line, small blossoms are pushing through in slow growth before committing to opening their petals. If we don’t look down when at the window, we can almost convince ourselves this is a true spring.

Not a single person has come through this village in weeks. No soldiers, civilians, carts or trucks transporting bodies. Before the Soviets arrived with prisoners, this village must have been billeted by German soldiers who pushed people out of their homes as they had done in far too many locations. Former villagers must be afraid to return still. If not for the radio, I might believe the four of us are the last people left in this country.

Broadcasts speak often of displaced-person camps and emergency shelters, but warnings of overcrowding and a lack of supplies follows each announcement. Trains are unreliable. Roads are still dangerous. Fighting continues east of here, while clearing a path northwest toward Berlin. The continent seems like a chessboard for a game with no rules.

Any move we make away from this schoolhouse is a risk. Yet we all know staying here forever isn’t possible.

“Did I miss anything?” Elias says, breathless after running up the corridor stairs. He carries in a rush of outside air mixed with coal and mud.

“Static,” Noah and I echo at the same time.

We glance at one another and for a moment something more than familiar silently passes between us—something I recognize—an old feeling, one I stored away for safekeeping. A glint in Noah’s eyes sparks through me, the way one simple look used to ignite every bit of my desire for him. I’ve been so busy looking at him as a patient, making sure he’s all right, rather than focusing on the fragments of my heart that are slowly finding their way back to one piece.

“You two rehearse that while I was gone?” Elias asks with a chuckle.

We’ve always been in sync on some level. Though we think differently, I always thought of us as a unit rather than two individuals.

“The radio silence is deafening, but I believe there’s always a long moment of silence before the announcer reveals something big. Like the calm before a storm,” Noah says.

“In any case, I suppose we can only stick to the facts we have,” Elias says with a sigh. “And so far, nothing seems definitive.”

“Facts,” Noah huffs with a small smile. “You can’t trust this box of aluminum more than a pattern, trust me.”

“What do you mean?” Elias asks. “Because we need to hear from reputable authorities?”

“Actually, no,” Noah says. “Put it this way…when have authorities been accurate or remotely correct in the last six years?”

Elias takes one of the cups of soup and heads to his favorite corner of the room. Next to Avi. “The Führer is confirmed dead,” he says quietly. “We can believe that, can’t we?”

“That part is no longer a rumor. Even the broadcasts have confirmed,” Avi follows.