“I can’t imagine how you must have felt, finding out that Lubya was alive.”
“First time, I didn’t find anything. I went back and tried again. The ground was so hard. It started to snow. I lay down. Thought maybe I would die. Then I felt like Krystyna came to me. She pointed to a tree. I started to dig—then I found the box. I shone a torch on the letter . . .” He closed his eyes as he let out a breath.
“That sounds like a miracle,” Martha said.
“It seemed like that to me. And when I went to P?ock, to the nuns, and they fetched her, and she knew who I was . . .” He broke off, staring at his hands. “When she showed me the photograph from the wedding, I had to turn away from her, so she wouldn’t see me cry.”
Martha felt tears prickle the backs of her eyes. The raw emotion in his voice tugged at her heart. It brought back what Delphine had said to her, months ago, before he’d boarded the train for Poland: His heart is split in two. That might have been true once, when he didn’t know what had happened to Krystyna. But now . . .
“Stefan,” she whispered, “I have to ask you, why did you come back here?”
He didn’t answer at first. She could hear him breathe in and out, as if he were weighing what to say. “I want to be with you.” He didn’t look at her when the words came out. He was staring at the trees beyond the porch, as if someone were hiding there, listening. “But when I heard Lubya ask if you were going to be her new mama, I thought I’d done wrong. It was like I was trying to replace Krystyna. I was putting what I want before what Lubya thinks and how she feels.” He turned his face to her. “And I don’t know how you feel. I shocked you when I came back. I asked myself, why would she want someone like you? I have nothing—and I brought two children with me.”
“You really think material possessions matter to me? Or the idea of looking after someone else’s children?” She bit her lip. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
His eyes searched her face. “But I think maybe you have somebody else. You don’t wear your ring anymore.”
“Oh, Stefan!” She shook her head. “I gave my ring to Kitty when she married Sergeant Lewis.” She took his hand in both of hers. “There is no one else.”
“What happened to your husband?” He held her gaze.
“I don’t know where he is. I should have told you—I’ve been trying to get a divorce. But he hasn’t answered my letters.”
He ran his finger along the scar on her cheek. “He is a bad man?”
“Not always. I think he was just . . . lost. He drank too much. It changed him.”
Stefan rubbed his chin. “You ran away from him? Came here?”
“Yes, I did run away. I was too afraid to face up to him. I never thought I’d . . .” She hesitated. “I didn’t do it with the intention of falling in love with someone else.” There. She had said it. The words hung in the air like smoke from an explosion.
“It is not possible to choose—who you love.” He slipped his hand from her grasp, lifting his arm to encircle her shoulders. When they kissed, it felt as if the forest had closed in around them, cocooning them, just for that moment, from the world outside.
“I don’t want to make things worse for you,” she murmured, as she broke away. “It’s too soon for you—I understand that.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “You waited all this time for me. You don’t mind waiting a little more?”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t mind.”
They stayed there, just holding each other, as the sun slowly sank behind the trees and, all around, twilight flowed like dark smoky water.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 29
Kitty had been married for more than six months when she finally received the documents that would allow her to join Charlie in America. Martha was in the office with her when she opened the envelope.
“It says I can travel on any army ship leaving Germany from the end of this month.” Kitty looked up. Her face was drained of color.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go?” Martha had the telephone receiver in her hand. She had been about to call the base, but she put the phone down. Kitty should have been dancing around the room. Was she having second thoughts now that the plan to go to the States had become a reality? Did she regret getting married in such a hurry?
“I’m desperate to see Charlie,” she said. “I miss him like mad. But I can’t leave, can I? Not yet. I couldn’t do that to you.”