Never, Eve silently repeated. She walked out of the parlor and up the stairs. This was only the beginning of the war, not the end. She didn’t want to type memos while she waited to hear from Alfie. She wanted to fight back. On Monday, she would go to the War Office and apply for a job.
11
USA, 1950
Eve barely slept. It was more than just the discomfort of a restless night in the summer heat, sweating on the narrow bunk in Robbie’s room. What kept her awake was the unanswerable question of what to do about Audrey. She couldn’t send her former friend away with no place to go. Audrey had been part of Eve’s life, on and off, since they were children, sometimes growing very close, sometimes distant. Yet if Audrey stayed, then Eve and Robbie would have no place to go. And they couldn’t live together, two women and their sons sharing the same names. All of Eve’s lies would be exposed. Her life would unravel.
She lay in bed with her eyes open, watching the sky beyond Robbie’s cowboy curtains slowly grow light. The bunk reminded her of the one she’d slept on as an Auxiliary Fire Service volunteer. She peered at her watch. A few minutes after six. Eve tried to crawl down from the top bunk carefully but the movement awakened Robbie. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“Mommy?” He would never go back to sleep now. Eve opened her arms and he went into them for a hug. She loved his sticky warmth, his little-boy smell. “I’m hungry, Mommy,” he murmured into her shoulder.
Had they eaten supper last night? Eve vaguely recalled cooking beans and sausages—hot dogs, the Americans called them—but she couldn’t recall eating any. Her stomach felt the way it had aboard the Rosamunde during the evacuation of Dunkirk, as her mind swirled with thoughts of what to do about Audrey. She wished they would simply vanish. Poof!
Eve needed help with this dilemma, someone to confide in, and the first person who came to mind was Tom Vandenberg. Whenever Louis and Robert talked about the Famous Four, they called Tom their conscience. He’d become a trusted friend to Eve during the past four years, and if her life was about to disintegrate, perhaps he could tell her how to fight back or where she could go or what she should do next. Maybe he’d help her pick up the pieces—if he didn’t turn against her for lying to him all this time.
“We need to get dressed very quietly,” she whispered after releasing Robbie, “so we don’t wake up our guests. Then we’ll ride out to Uncle Tom’s farm and see his new baby lamb. Would you like that?”
“Yeah!” The wooden bed frame creaked as Robbie bounced up and down.
Eve held her finger to her lips. “Shh . . .”
“Shh . . .” He grinned, imitating her. Eve threw on the clothes she’d worn yesterday and helped Robbie into a clean pair of shorts and a striped T-shirt. She was dying for a cup of tea but couldn’t risk waking Audrey. After scribbling a quick note telling Audrey to help herself to breakfast and promising to return soon, Eve grabbed a banana for Robbie and hurried out the door, speeding away in her car like a bank robber fleeing the scene of the crime. She had to find a solution to this problem. For Robbie’s sake.
The twenty-minute drive through the rolling countryside calmed her, as did the sight of Tom’s sheep dotting the green hillside beyond the barn like tufts of cotton wool. Eve rolled down her window and inhaled the scents of hay and manure, the scents of her childhood. Tom’s farm had become a place of refuge for her, the only place where she felt free to be herself. Tom was coming out of his barn with his dog at his side as she pulled into the driveway.
“You’re up with the chickens this morning,” he said with a grin. Eve had never seen Tom without a smile. He reminded her of the film star Jimmy Stewart, with his tall, angular frame and thick hair. He walked with a noticeable limp from a shrapnel wound, but it didn’t keep him from running his family’s dairy farm. She looked away from him to quench the impossible attraction she felt as Robbie ran up to him for a hug. Mum and Granny Maud would have adored Tom. Mum had told Eve to never settle for less than courage, kindness, and laughter in a man—a description that fit Tom perfectly.
“I suppose we are rather early,” Eve said. “I wanted to apologize for being so short with you yesterday. My guests arrived unexpectedly and . . . and I guess they threw me a little off-balance.” She swatted at the ever-present flies that buzzed around the barnyard.
“No problem. You looked a little frazzled yesterday.”
“Are we too early to watch you feed the new lamb? I don’t want to interrupt anything.”