TWENTY-FIVE
Ava
Ava consulted Peggy for more of her tactics and found they had grit. Between Ava’s persistence, plus a few miracles coming into play, she managed to secure an extension on Sarah’s and Noah’s visas. The envelope containing the updated visas was waiting for her when she arrived at the embassy early that morning when she should have been out gathering newspapers. It was a worthy sacrifice. While there still wasn’t enough time to make the USS Siboney, unfortunately, she could secure new tickets.
Once more, Ava appreciated the elevated position her employment at the embassy allowed her in aiding her friends. A benefit to which other refugees did not have access.
Amid the victory of those updated visas, however, she could not help but feel a nip of disappointment after the mail had been distributed. Yet another delivery without a letter from Daniel.
A knot twisted in her stomach. One she’d felt only once before—when her parents failed to return from France.
“What are you doing here?”
Ava looked up from the stack of mail to see Mr. Sims looming over her desk. A shudder threatened to shiver down her spine, but she squelched the reaction. “I had something urgent to tend to.”
His gaze fixed on the visas. The telltale flush of color spread over his neck, and he squared his shoulders. “Miss Harper, your job is not—”
The crackle of a radio filled the office.
“Listen to this.” Peggy waved them over.
The announcer’s voice filled the open office. “A bulletin has just been received from the London office of the Associated Press that quotes the German Trans-Ocean News Agency and asserting that the invasion of Western Europe has begun.” The speaker proceeded to declare that German news stations were reporting of an Allied invasion on the shores of the Normandy peninsula.
“It’s happening.” There was an intuition in Peggy’s tone that indicated she had known of this for some time—classified information Ava was not privy to. And now she found out at 8:00 a.m. in Lisbon with every other American who was awake at 3:00 a.m. in Washington.
Ava covered her mouth with her hand as she listened to the tinny voice coming through the speakers drone on, citing no reports had been given from Paris. This came as little surprise with Parisian broadcasts being owned and operated by Germany. They would not give the French hope. Not when they were already struggling to maintain their control after the Resistance uprisings following Corsica’s liberation.
But it was not the French Ava was considering as that horrible familiar sensation chewed at her insides. Her thoughts were on Daniel.
Based on what he’d told her of his battalion, they were where the action was. He’d said it often and with great pride in his flashing green eyes.
“Is C Company there?” Ava asked.
Peggy looked away.
Ava rushed up to her desk. “You know and soon everyone else will too. It doesn’t matter now if you say it or not.” Her eyes caught Peggy’s. “Is C Company of the Second Battalion there from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment? The 101st Airborne Division. Peggy,” she pleaded.
Peggy stared up at her, heavily mascaraed eyes wide and unblinking.
“Please,” Ava whispered. “Is C Company there?”
Peggy nodded, and Ava clung to the desk to keep from slipping to the floor.
Daniel was on the beaches of Normandy. Her brother who had given up his youth to raise a kid sister he didn’t even know when their parents died. Her brother who sacrificed all his dreams of college so she could be the one to attend. She was the reason he joined the military, why he never went to college with the money he worked so hard to save.
If he didn’t come home, it was all her fault.