“Aunt Kathleen,” I say defensively. “Don’t say those things. They were madly in love.”
She peers at me thoughtfully, then lowers her cup to the table so she can reach across and squeeze my hand.
“Darling,” she says. “I loved Gerrie with every bit of my heart and I will miss her every waking hour. But surely you know—your dad is not perfect. Hell, your mum was not perfect.” I open my mouth to protest this, but Aunt Kathleen gives me a pointed look. “She was a jealous woman. Controlling. She could be downright mean. She was arrogant—God, I never heard that woman admit she was wrong, not once in fifty-three years! And you know what?” I stare at her, eyes narrowed, but her face softens as she finishes, “I adored her anyway. I don’t need to pretend she was someone she was not in order to honor her, Lottie. Frankly, if I pretend now that my sister was an angel I’d be doing myself a disservice.” She gives me a sad look, and reaches to brush my hair back from my face. “Sweetheart, we have to grieve who she really was, not who we wanted her to be. And she and your dad ultimately built a great life together, but that does not mean it was a healthy relationship, especially right at the beginning.”
“So this is why you never liked Dad? Because you’re convinced he did terrible things during the war?” I blurt. Aunt Kathleen sits back in her chair and sighs softly.
“All I know for sure is that he came back from France twice, and both times he’d been with that same woman. The first time he tried to convince your mother that their relationship was platonic, but Gerrie never really believed it. There was something about the way he described that other girl—even I could see the magic in his eyes. And then he went back to France for the SOE and this time he did admit he’d been madly in love with the other woman. And—”
“It wasn’t the same woman though,” I interrupt, frowning. “Was it?”
“Oh yes, my darling. It absolutely was the same woman. He walked the escape line with her and then by some mysterious coincidence she ended up with him on whatever mission he was sent into France to complete. That’s the woman he was heartbroken over in 1944. Now tell me that’s not suspicious as all hell.”
Dad was in love with Josie Miller? That’s shocking enough, but another thought hits even harder: Could Theo be my half brother? Oh God. My stomach churns violently at the thought and I decide I had better examine that reaction more closely later.
Aunt Kathleen squeezes my hand again. “Over the years, as I said, he endeared himself to me, and believe it or not, I do love your father now. I just never wanted my little sister to wind up with a man who would not choose her first and always.”
C H A P T E R 22
ELOISE
Karlsruhe Region, Germany
September, 1944
“Where do you think they’re taking us?”
I was shackled at the ankle to Romilly, a young French woman who was arrested for carrying resistance newsletters. We had been stuck for hours in a crowded boxcar as it crawled across Europe at a snail’s pace. At first, Romilly didn’t seem to want to speak to me, but as time passed and our dignity faded away, she was opening up. She was about my age but was not coping particularly well. I found myself trying to console her.
“I imagine we’ll end up in camp,” I told her gently. “Whatever happens though, we will hold our heads high. The end of the war can’t be too far away.”
Was I really so optimistic? I had been forcing myself to appear so for long enough that I was no longer sure how I really felt. In the months since my capture at Salon-La-Tour, I had been volleyed between Fresnes Prison near Paris and 84 Avenue Foch for interrogations. I’d been beaten so badly that my nose now sat at an angle. They had almost drowned me more times than I could count. I was threatened with rape and paraded around naked before the eyes of leering German soldiers. Sometimes, they would offer me special treatment in exchange for the simplest of facts about the SOE—day trips, fresh clothes, better accommodations. Other times, they would point out to me that they already knew almost everything anyway.
“Milton Maxwell has two cubes of sugar in his tea,” a smug interrogator told me one day. “And he prefers scones to cake. That’s the level of detail we hold about your organization. Why would you put yourself through this suffering for nothing? If you work with us, you’ll only be telling us what we already know and your life will be so much easier.”
They were toying with me but I knew it, and that made it easier to keep my mouth shut. They might have known what Colonel Maxwell had for morning tea, but that didn’t mean they knew anything of consequence. The Germans sometimes seemed panicked, and many of the questions they pushed me on were things I had no idea about anyway. Things like the advance of the Allies across France, and their terror at that prospect was music to my ears. I just had to hold on, and liberation might still come.
And then all of a sudden, a group of us prisoners from Fresnes were crammed into boxcars. I suspected we were presently en route to Germany and I took that as another good sign. If the Germans were moving political prisoners back into secure territory, the Allies were likely in or at least nearing Paris.
“At least we are far away from Avenue Foch now,” I said to Romilly, who mumbled something in agreement, but still sat drooping and despondent. At least I’d been prepared for the torture during my training. Perhaps part of Romilly’s problem was that she was just a civilian who had been trying to do her part to help and was unlucky enough to be caught.
A distant explosion rang out, and the train suddenly braked, throwing Romilly and me into the prisoners beside us. The sound of buzzing overhead brought another explosion—much closer this time—and then boots on the ground as guards ran past our carriage, fleeing the train to hide. The rapid thumping of bullets hitting the ground rang out as the planes buzzed again.
“They’re just going to leave us here to die, aren’t they?” Romilly said miserably.
“It must be the Allies,” I reminded her. “They might destroy the railway tracks but they won’t hit the train intentionally. If the guards had any sense at all, they’d stay onboard.”
But she seemed unconvinced as we heard still more boots on the ground, and panicked cries from the Germans as they fled the train. Romilly cowered beside me, crying softly, but I stiffened, my ears tuning in to another sound.
“Help! Is anyone there? Can someone help us?”
An American man was shouting out for help in the next carriage. No one said anything in reply at first but when he called again, his voice breaking with desperation, I called back, “Sir! Are you on the train?”
“Yes! Do you have water? We haven’t had water for many days,” he shouted, and I detected now in his voice a level of utter desperation.
“I’m so sorry. We don’t have any water either.”
The man fell silent for a moment, and I collapsed back against the wall of the carriage, deeply regretful that I could not help him. I was thirsty too—but I’d only been on the train for a few hours, and I’d had ready access to water at the prison. This man was suffering in a whole other way.
“There’s nothing we can do,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. “We are trapped, just as he is.”