Chuck worried at the damp cloth with her fingers. “When we got home from the park this afternoon, there was smoke and we could see flames. There were fire trucks everywhere—and ambulances. Gawkers and reporters with cameras. There was such a crowd, I couldn’t see what happened at first. Then I realized—there was nothing to see. Our building is gone, just—gone. As in—poof.
“I never trusted our building’s owner,” Chuck muttered. “Always having problems with the gas. There were always inspections, and then his son, or whoever it was, would go down into the basement and ‘fix things.’ We knew something was a bit off. But with housing so dear nowadays—”
“What happened, Chuck?” Maggie demanded.
“Gone!” her friend repeated. “Aren’t you bloody well listening? I keep telling you—everything’s gone. We would be ‘gone,’ too, except”—her hands trembled as they twisted the cloth—“we were at the park this afternoon. Griffin wasn’t going down for his nap, so I thought I’d take him outside for some fresh air and push him in the pram until he dropped off—”
“Oh, God.” Maggie put her arms around her friend, realizing how close she’d been to death. And little Griffin, too. “You’re safe. You’re both safe now.”
David arrived with a glass of whiskey, and Chuck gulped it. “We don’t even have a change of clothes!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Everything we own, you see. Oh, I left the pram outside—but if someone pinches it, at this point, does it even matter?” She looked to Maggie. “How are we supposed to get letters from Nigel? If he writes us—the address doesn’t even exist anymore!”
“We’ll write to Nigel tonight and tell him you’re staying here. With me.”
“Griffin’s baby pictures,” Chuck moaned. “My engagement ring…”
Gently, Maggie said, “Chuck, you’re alive. Griffin’s alive. And you’re here, safe, and with us. Everything else can be replaced. Now, sip your drink.”
Chuck did as she was told.
“Good girl. Now, you can borrow my clothes and things, and tomorrow we’ll pool all of our coupons and go shopping. We’ll be flatmates, just like old times.”
“And Griffin?”
“And Griffin will be a flatmate, too. Small in body, but large in spirit.”
“Large in lungs. He cries at night, you know. Sometimes all bloody night.”
“I cry all night myself once in a while, dearest girl. Not to worry.”
“I think there are some baby things in the cellar,” David interjected.
Chuck laid her head on Maggie’s shoulder. “I don’t think we have a choice. But only for tonight—”
“Nonsense,” Maggie interrupted firmly. “Do you know how grateful I am to have some company in this big old manse? You’ll be doing me the favor—stay for as long as you’d like. Yes, and you, too, young sir,” she told Griffin, still in Aunt Sarah’s lap. He waved a chubby pink fist holding his Judy doll in reply. K had emerged from underneath the armchair and was up on his hind legs, sniffing delicately at the baby’s tiny feet.
“Surely there must be paperwork to file…” Chuck thought out loud, trying to put the pieces together. “And our bank account—that’s still untouched—”
“We can worry about it tomorrow,” Maggie declared.
Freddie nodded. “I’ll ring my solicitor first thing. He’s a predatory hyena of a man, and I loathe him with all my heart and soul—but he’ll get you what you deserve.”
David returned, his arms full of antique toys. “Look, Master Griffin,” he said, setting them down. There was an old-fashioned rocking horse, a puppet stage, and the board game Snakes and Ladders.
“He’s not old enough yet,” Chuck told them.
“Well, they’ll be standing by for when he is. In the meantime, let’s get you both upstairs. Is everything ready?” Maggie asked David.
“Absolutely.”
As Maggie, Chuck, and Sarah made their way up the heavy oak staircase, Sarah chimed in, “Just like old times.”
Maggie had Chuck hold on to her arm for support. “But you know what really gets my goat?” Chuck said. “After all we’ve been through—after everything we’ve been through—it wasn’t the Nazis who took us out. It was one of our bloody own. Some devil of an Englishman.”
“Not on purpose, surely,” Maggie said.
“Oh, the owner of our building would skin a flea for a halfpenny, that one,” Chuck muttered, “and his young minion, as well. Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire de cnámh do dhroma ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn, as my sainted grandmother used to say—‘May the Devil make a ladder of your backbones while picking apples in the garden of hell!’?”
They reached Chuck’s old room. It was lovely—plain but clean, repainted in pale green. “Here you go,” Maggie said, leading Chuck to the bed. “Just like old times. I’ll run you a bath, and you can take your drink and sip it in the tub. Like Joan Crawford.”
As Maggie went into the bathroom, Chuck lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. “It’s gone,” she repeated absently. “Our home—it was there this morning—and now it’s…”
There was the sound of the tap running and then Chuck gave a whoop of hysterical laughter. “Be careful! You’ll fill it past the five-inch line!”
“Sod the silly five-inch line,” Sarah said, hugging Griffin close and kissing the top of his fuzzy head. “You deserve a decent soak.”
Maggie returned holding a nightgown, a dressing gown, and a hairbrush. “We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow,” she decided. “But, for now, I think a bath and a good night’s sleep are in order.”
Sarah turned to Maggie. “I know this is terrible timing, kitten,” she said. “But may I stay here too? Just for the night….I have the meeting tomorrow. I was going to stay at some women’s residence hotel nearby—I put the card somewhere—but—”
“No! No—you must stay here, of course!” Maggie agreed. “See, Chuck, Sarah will be here as well. Just like old times. And then when Elise arrives, she can have the fourth bedroom.” Maggie turned wistful. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
“That one was Paige’s room, wasn’t it?”
Maggie nodded, eyes melancholy. “Time moves on, I guess. Everything changes.”
Sarah handed Griffin back to Chuck. The baby’s eyes drooped shut. “Well, I have no doubt Elise will love it,” she whispered. “She’s lucky to have you. And David and Freddie, of course.”
Chuck began to sing in an alto voice that was tender and true:
“I’ll tell me ma, when I get home.
The boys won’t leave the girls alone.
Pulled me hair, stolen me comb.
But that’s all right till I get home.
Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high.
And the snow come travelin’ through the sky.
She’s as sweet as apple pie.
She’ll get her own right by and by…”
Griffin had fallen fast asleep, snoring lightly. As Chuck held him and continued to rock and hum, Maggie murmured to Sarah, “My half sister Elise and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time—and space—to become reacquainted when she arrives.”
Chuck looked up, distracted, and whispered, “Who the bloody hell’s Elise?”
“Elise Hess—Maggie’s German half sister. Keep up!”
Chapter Three
Elise Hess was being hanged from a tree.
At least, that’s what the guards at the all-female Ravensbrück camp named the tall wooden cross they’d built to punish prisoners—the Tree. Mock crucifixion was one of the most common camp punishments for the religious political prisoners, Resistance fighters like Elise.
The guards would tie the prisoner’s hands behind her back, palms facing out. Then they’d turn her hands in, tie a chain around her wrists, and raise her up onto the cross.