“Okay,” Jürgen murmured, without hesitation. “I’ll call in and let the team know I’m needed at home.”
That night, we went out and picked up hamburgers for dinner, and then all four of us cuddled up on the sofa to watch television—Felix at one end, then me, then Gisela, then Jürgen at the opposite end of the sofa, which was as close as Felix could allow him.
“Progress?” Jürgen mouthed, nodding toward Felix over Gisela’s head. He flashed me a lopsided smile.
“You’re clutching at straws if you think this is a win,” I whispered back, but I was teasing him. The last few days had been awful, but even in the midst of that, I found myself feeling grateful. It was some progress that Felix was finally sitting on the sofa with Jürgen.
Once the children were in bed, Jürgen checked every latch on every window, and then he checked the doors—making sure everything was locked, even though we’d already been through this exercise before we went to pick up dinner. I followed him around, double-double-checking, just for my own peace of mind. At the front windows, I scanned the street for signs of trouble.
“Come to bed, my love,” Jürgen said, taking my hand. “I’ll hold you until you fall asleep.”
As we climbed into bed, I turned automatically to the table beside me to look for the photos. When I remembered they were gone, my heart ached.
It was bad enough that our house had been violated—but the objects taken were so personal, and those images had no value to anyone other than me.
I wondered if whoever took them—be it Lizzie Miller’s brother or a stranger—had any idea what they’d really stolen in taking the simple stack of paper that represented my last mementos of Adele and Georg and even Laura, and of course, Mayim.
Jürgen and I destroyed every trace of her from our lives, just as the Gestapo told us to—but that one photo came back to me at the time I needed it most. Was it some kind of penance that even my photo of her kept slipping from my grasp?
41
Lizzie
El Paso, Texas
1943
“That’s it, Ava. Just tie the stalk to the stake there—good girl. And, Brianna—take just a little bit of that mulch and put it around the base of the plant.”
I knew my whole life that I was not cut out to be a mother, but I’d made a startling discovery—I was a fantastic “aunt” to Becca’s two girls, and quite a good gardening teacher. I’d ripped up the roses and the hedges from our yard and converted every square inch of our lot into a Victory Garden, just as the government was encouraging us all to do. Advertisements in magazines gave instructions for growing and preserving our own food to make rations go further, and for the first time in years, my fingernails were black with soil, and I was contributing something.
My garden was the pride of the street and I was coordinating the neighborhood home garden co-op too. The women I’d been so wary of in the early years of my marriage to Calvin were keen to heed the call to do the same, but not one of them had ever even dug out a weed. This moment called for hands-on participation and, suddenly, everyone wanted some of my time.
Calvin was supportive of my new projects—but I knew he didn’t like when they cut into my housekeeping time, and I’d long since come to terms with the fact that I needed to spend more time on my appearance than I preferred. But all that was fine. It turned out I was a woman who was happiest when she crammed a lot into each day.
“You’re a godsend, Lizzie,” Becca said, as she slid a tray of lemonade onto a table near the garden. “Truly. This garden has been just the distraction we needed. Girls, go wash up and come have a snack.”
I slipped my gloves off and took a seat opposite Becca, expressing my thanks as she passed me an icy glass of lemonade.
“Any news on your brother?” she asked, and the pleasure I’d been feeling dimmed.
“They’re staged somewhere east—that’s all I know. I just don’t know…” I sighed heavily and sipped the lemonade. “Henry hasn’t called in a long time, and he’s been sending me letters that don’t say much.” Henry’s division had been all over for training exercises—Arkansas and Louisiana and California and then New York State. I told myself that Henry was seeing the country, and that with his division training so extensively, he was going to be truly ready to serve if and when they were sent to Europe or the Pacific.
I kept myself busy with the gardens. I made sure of that. Every time I found myself bored, my panic about Henry and the war began to spiral.