Eva squeezed Ruby’s hands tightly. “Ruby, you can make sure of that yourself. Now relax. Breathe with me. The baby is coming.”
The last thing Ruby was aware of before drifting off into a dreamless sleep was the feeling of a great weight slipping from her body, followed by the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard: a baby’s piercing wail. Ruby began to sob, and as she looked up, Eva entered her blurry field of vision cradling a tiny, squirming bundle.
“It’s a girl,” Eva said, smiling. “A beautiful baby girl.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
August 1944
“Do you think Ruby knows?” Charlotte asked as she and Lucien pushed through a crowd of people singing “La Marseillaise” on the Champs-élysées on the last Tuesday in August. The world had changed once again, and after a week of fighting, of tanks rolling through the streets, of gunfire ringing out in the night, Paris was free. The Allies had arrived, and now, a victory parade was moving toward the Place de la Concorde. The French flag flew from the Arc de Triomphe, and American flags snapped in the breeze as U.S. servicemen grinned and blew kisses to French girls from their procession of military trucks. Parisians rushed forward with bottles of wine for the soldiers, who swigged from them, laughing.
“About the liberation?” Lucien kept his eyes on the parade, as if he couldn’t quite believe it, as if he expected something terrible to happen at any moment now. After all, just a few days earlier, the day after de Gaulle had moved into the war ministry, German snipers had fired on a celebrating crowd just like this. Lucien’s shoulders were tense, his jaw set. “I hope so. Any little piece of faith will help sustain her.”
“It won’t be long until the camps are liberated too, right? Ruby will be home soon.”
Lucien squeezed her hand. “I don’t know. There is still a lot of fighting to be done, Charlotte. It will take the Allies a while to move farther into Germany, I think. And if we’re right about her being sent to Ravensbrück, she’s very far east.”
Charlotte didn’t reply. He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know, of course. It was just that she needed words of hope and inspiration today. “I would know if she was dead, wouldn’t I?”
Lucien looked down at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I believe it of my parents. I feel it in a way I can’t explain. But I don’t believe it of Ruby. She’s still alive. She must be. I just know.”
“Then we will believe in that. She is strong and brave, and I believe she would do anything in the world to get home to you.”
“And the baby?”
Lucien shook his head. “My love, I can’t imagine the baby has survived. It’s better for Ruby, in fact, if it hasn’t.”
Charlotte nodded. They had talked of this before. And while she knew Ruby’s chances of survival would be much higher if the pregnancy had ended, she also knew that losing a second child might just destroy her.
“But chin up,” Lucien said after a moment, giving Charlotte a sad smile. “This is the beginning of the war’s end. Can’t you see? If the Germans have surrendered Paris, it’s only a matter of time until we take Berlin too.”
Looking around at the jubilant crowd, and at the weary, smiling soldiers, Charlotte knew he was speaking the truth.
“This is a big day for us, for France, for the war.” Lucien leaned down and gave her a kiss. “It’s not a day for sadness, my love.”
“I know.” Of course he was right. But the sun looked brightest when it was emerging from the darkest clouds. And today, Charlotte feared, the storm wasn’t quite over.
“I love you,” Lucien said.
“I love you too, Lucien.”
And together, with all the voices of Paris, they joined in the singing of the national anthem.
Arise, children of the homeland.
The day of glory has arrived!
THE NEXT MORNING, CHARLOTTE AWOKE shortly after dawn to a beautiful sunrise just outside the window of the apartment she shared now with Lucien. She had been living with him since the day the police picked Ruby up in April, and although Lucien had been back to the old building a handful of times to check on things and to meet with Monsieur Savatier, Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to go. This was her life now—until Ruby returned, at least—and looking forward was easier than looking back. It was just that the past had a strange way of haunting you, even when you didn’t want to think about it.
If someone had told Charlotte three years ago that she’d be living with a boy she loved, she would have laughed out loud and then turned bright red. It simply wasn’t what proper young ladies did. But things were different in wartime, and although Charlotte was only fifteen, she might as well have been twenty-five. She and Lucien had seen too much, done too much to ever go back to childhood. Even after Ruby had been arrested, they had continued to work for the Resistance, and that was the kind of thing that changed a person forever. Now that Paris was liberated, that work was done, and there was nothing left to do but wait.
Lucien rolled over and wrapped his arms around Charlotte, pulling her closer and burrowing his face into the warm space between her neck and shoulder. He was most affectionate when he was sleeping, when his guard wasn’t up, when he wasn’t worrying about the things that could go wrong. She loved these moments before the world was awake, when she could pretend for a short while that she was nothing more than a girl in love with a boy.
As she gazed out at the coming morning, she wondered whether Ruby could see the same sky. Were the colors of dawn—pinks, oranges, blues—as brilliant where she was as they were in Paris? Or was the sky here celebrating the liberation along with the rest of the city while the sky to the east remained stubbornly gray?
Beside her, Lucien stirred, murmuring her name as he often did upon waking. She turned and kissed his cheek and then looked out the window again.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly, burying his face in her hair.
“Just that maybe somewhere out there, Ruby can see the same sky,” Charlotte said, closing her eyes. “Maybe one of these days, the sun will rise, and as it makes its way west, she will follow it home.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
August 1944
On the same morning, some twelve hundred miles farther south, Thomas was watching the sunrise too. He was in the cockpit of a Spitfire, his heart pounding as he waited for takeoff.
He was heading back to France. To the land where Ruby lived. To the country the Allies were in the midst of reclaiming. Now that the good guys were in control again, it no longer mattered to his superiors if he returned to France; there was no escape line to betray, no danger of being shot from the sky.
His job was simply to deliver the Spit to an airfield near Ramatuelle that had, until a month ago, been an olive grove. When the Allies had arrived, the U.S. Army had bulldozed the area to create a makeshift landing strip for deliveries. This was to be a staging spot from which to wage the remainder of the war to the east.