Page 94 of The Lost Husband

His thumb brushes over my knuckles.

Then my body sinks heavier into the cot, the sensation of metal against my leg disappears, and a heaviness pulls my mind into a restful sleep.

THIRTY-NINE

CURRENT DAY

Gliwice, Poland

Knuckles brushing against my stomach…

I gasp, a striking broken breath choking out of me as the cold surface beneath my arm pleads for more warmth.

When I was sick in the Auschwitz infirmary… Noah was there. I’d forgotten, thought it was just a figment of my feverish imagination. But he was really there.

Not in a German uniform. He was in stripes like me.

My pulse pelts through every vein as I push myself up on one elbow and look at him again. A closer look. The bruises distort his face, the dirt layered so thick it deceives the shape beneath. My body knows he’s here. My heart does too. It’s my mind that’s still trying to catch up—trying to piece together parts that don’t fit.

My hand moves to his cheek, tracing the familiar slope beneath the swelling. I blink for a long breath, remembering the precise fingertip distance between his cheekbone and eye when I sketched him—how I knew exactly where the light would catchand the shadow would fall. This isn’t what I remember. But it’s him.

His breath catches again, still slight, still uneven. His hand twitches—just a twitch, not a touch—as if his body knows I’m here even though he might not.

I slide my arm behind Noah’s neck, pulling him to me.

“Careful,” Elias says through a gasp. “We—you—we can’t move him too quickly. It—uh—” He clenches his eyes as if he’s forgotten how to speak. “His heart—we must be careful. He needs stillness.” How does he know all of this? He’s so young. How do I know so little? “I saw the effects of experiments at Auschwitz. The cold weather ones.”

The reminder of naked women standing out in the snow behind one of the barracks—turning blue, shivering so hard, they were groaning—it’s not something I want to see again.

I hold my breath as I hold him in place. Avi presses the blankets in as extra support. “Celina, where’s Christoph? It’s been hours since you left with him,” she presses after I didn’t answer Elias when he asked, and her question hangs above my head. Something I want to push away.

Elias appears out of the corner of my eye, his coat in hand. He places it over Noah, adding to the layers. “Does he know you found Noah?” he adds.

“Yes,” I say, not answering Avi’s question this time. Only Elias’s.

“The warmth has to come from the center—his heart,” Elias says.

I tangle my legs around his and hold him tightly to my chest.

“Cover my head to lock in the hot air,” I say.

“Use my coat to wrap around his head, just leave his mouth and nose free to get in as much air as he can,” Avi pipes in, her confidence louder than any thought I have. I don’t know how to save my husband. Is this why we’re here like this?

Her arm wraps around me, her head resting on the coat covering mine.

If I can just warm his heart.

My cheek is against his neck.

Please God, please. Please save him. Help me save him. Please. I’d give up my life for his. Take me instead. Please.

Flashes of memories reel through my mind—the moments I refuse to let go of—the look in his eyes when he realized he was going to become a father. The fierce glare of protection in his eyes whenever we passed someone looking at us for too long. It was as if I was his purpose in life—keeping me safe by shielding me from all that was evil.

The night he asked me to marry him. I swore I could see our future playing out in front of my eyes. All I could think about was that moment being the perfect definition of surrealism—our life, a masterpiece of art with a foretelling of a dream I carefully envisioned.

The first time he told me loved me… On a canal boat, drifting down the river on a spring day, flower petals snowing over us. Like a Monet painting, capturing every emotion in one still moment.

Our first kiss, sitting beneath a bridge. I was teasing him about the freckles on his nose, asking if Noah’s ark would save me from the great flood. It took him a minute to catch my joke, but then he laughed, and laughed, and then he stopped. Our stare became unbreakable, an unexplainable bond between us. His eyes glistened from reflections bouncing off the water, and my entire world shifted when he finally responded. “I’d save you from anything,” he said. His words were a whisper against my lips, laced with a soft chuckle. His lips touched mine, a sensation I couldn’t convey on canvas. Something sacred only our souls could experience. My heart pounded so hard I thought my chest might burst. Then his hand cupped my cheek, warmth came,and my pounding heart became flutters in my stomach. I silently pleaded for the moment to last a lifetime.