Page 102 of Across Eternity

But I refuse to wish these days of summer away. Because once they’re gone, it will be time for us to make a decision.

We’ve been avoiding that conversation of late, perhaps because we both feel time slipping away. I’m nowhere near ready to be separated from him or the children. If I were to go into labor today, I know I would not be able to leave, and three months from now, I’m sure I’ll feel the same.

I wake with the sun each day, my nightgown sticking to me. Toward the month’s end, it’s not even light out when I’m putting my head out the window, hoping to catch a bit of a breeze.

“My God, the heat is going to be unbearable today, isn’t it?” I whisper to Henri.

“Take off your nightgown and I’ll run a cool cloth over you.”

I raise a brow. “I know where taking off my nightgown will lead.”

He laughs. “If the children weren’t going to wake any moment now, you’d be right. But just this once, I promise you’re safe.”

I pull the nightgown off and sit, relishing the feel of air on my bare skin. “I would kill for a Coke Slurpee,” I tell Henri. I’ve explained Slurpees to him on many occasions. The name never fails to make him laugh, as it does now.

“Such a disgusting concept,” he says, dabbing a cloth into the pitcher of water on the nightstand and running it over my back and then my neck, “but I promise to find you one once the war ends.”

“I’m not sure you ever get 7-Elevens in France.”

His smile falters for half a second. Perhaps remembering, as I am, that our daughter said we live in Virginia. There’s rustling on the other side of the curtain—one restless child about to wake the others—but his hand goes to my hip and holds there for a moment. “Then I’ll make you one,” he says. “Because you’re staying here.”

I let my forehead fall to his chest, and that’s when we hear it—the distant rumble of a car on the road. I know it’s probably just food coming from Genevieve, or perhaps even the forged papers she’s promised—she’s already come through for Marta and her children, who left a week earlier for the south of France. But it never gets easier, this uncertainty. Henri meets my eye and I nod. We both know the drill by now.

We dress quickly, then I rush out with Cece in my arms, waking everyone, while he grabs a gun and climbs through the hedge to get to the front gate with Edouard right behind him. Marie, Rachel and I walk through the woods with the children between us until we reach the old church and hustle everyone inside. Then we wait, holding our breath to listen.

After a few minutes I hear someone coming through the woods and then Henri’s whistle, the sign that it’s safe. I throw the door open, but my smile fades. Edouard and Henri both look grim as they climb the steps.

“What is it?” Marie asks, rushing to Edouard.

He flinches. “The Germans are coming here today to repair the house. Genevieve couldn’t put them off. She’s got papers for Rachel and her two, plus a few of the others. She wants me to take them by foot to Versailles and catch a train to Limoges.”

Her hand slides into his. “You? Why?”

“Amelie and I are the only adults here who can be in the open safely,” he says, his head hanging. “But she’s nearly seven months pregnant. She can’t be asked to make that kind of journey on foot, and she could go into labor at any point—she can’t be left alone with five children.”

“And the rest of us?” I ask.

As Henri’s tongue darts out to tap his lip, I already know I’m going to dislike the answer. “She’s found another place for us. The driver is waiting. He’ll take you and Marie and the youngest of the children, then come back for the rest of us.”

I think of our daughter saying Henri was the one who fought all the Nazis. “I think we should stay together.”

He frowns, stepping closer to twine his fingers through mine. “It’s not possible. There’s not enough space. I promise you I’ll be there tonight.” He laughs, almost to himself. “That wasn’t the part I thought you’d object to.”

“What did you think I’d object to?”

“We’re staying in her home. In Paris.”

I freeze, searching his face for some sign this is a joke. It doesn’t appear to be. “She wants us to stay in the house next door to a German officer—a house where she entertains Nazis day and night?” I ask. “That’s insane.”

He sighs. “Perhaps. But her home is unlikely to be searched, if nothing else. Once the rest of us have papers, we’ll join Edouard in Limoges.”

It sounds farfetched, impossible. I worry I’ll look back one day and realize it was.

* * *

After an emotional goodbye, Marie and I set out for Paris, along with Charlotte, Lucien, Cecelia and Jacques, a near-silent five-year-old.

The journey is tense—only I can ride safely in the front of the truck while the others hide behind boxes in back—but our arrival is scarier. Though we pull into the alley behind the house—the servants’ entrance—I can see at least six German soldiers patrolling next door. I’m sent inside and up the back stairs to the attic with Cecelia in my arms. The room is full of old furniture and paintings and covered in a one-inch thick layer of dust.