It was early June when Brigitte left. She’d been sick when she arrived. Starved, and nursing a sprained ankle. But she’d made contact with her sister and as soon as the doctor said she was fit to leave, there was a train ticket in her hand.
“Write to me,” she said, hugging me close. “And take care of this sweet girl of ours.” She bent to kiss Willa’s head.
“I will.”
“Get home soon, Lena. Find a way. Even if you never hear from your aunt. Or go straight to Seattle. Get to your William.”
I nodded and hugged her again.
On a stormy spring night, I’d finally told her the truth. Who I was. Where I’d come from. My childhood and how my aunt and uncle had saved me. The work I’d done to become Kate, the degree in nursing and subsequent service, first in the Pacific, then in England and France. Meeting William.
Catrin.
“It was stupid,” I’d whispered. “Had I not gone...” I pictured my sister. As a girl. As a woman. Tears welled in my eyes.
“Erase those thoughts from your mind. What’s done is done. You are alive. You have Willa. And soon you will have William again too. Things are looking up for us, my friend. Just keep looking forward. Keep looking toward the sun.”
It was something she’d begun to say a lot. A sentiment found on a painting in her hospital room. “Look for the light. Seek the sun. Feel its warmth on your face.”
I smiled and hugged her now again. I thought of the friends who had gotten me through so much. Tilly, Char, and Paulette in the Pacific. Hazel in England. Brigitte, Agata, and Jelena here. And another. The first. The one who had been with me at the beginning.
Ruthie.
But Brigitte was the only one I thought I’d keep in touch with. The others I felt so far from already. Time and distance and circumstance now separating us. I was excited to hear about Brigitte’s life. Where she’d end up living, what job she would find, what man she would love.
“Travel safe,” I said.
“Get home, Kate,” she whispered.
The next few days were lonely without my friend. We’d grown close during our time at the hospital and I felt adrift without her. There were others I could visit with, and sometimes did. But I mostly kept to myself. Just me and Willa, walking in the sunshine, playing on a sheet in the grass that one of the nurses provided, singing German lullabies Nanny Paulina used to sing to me.
It was a late June evening when I gathered the sheet we’d spent the past two hours lying on, me reading a book one of the nurses had loaned me, Willa gurgling happily beside me, kicking her tiny limbs at the sky.
“Time to go in, little one,” I said, pulling her to me and sighing as her downy-soft head tucked beneath my chin. I kissed her, breathing in the scent of her, and walked slowly back to our strange home, smiling as we passed other patients yet to leave as well.
I turned down a corridor, then another, waving to the familiar faces as I walked past the many rooms.
“Someone needs a bath tonight,” I whispered to Willa as I turned into our room and then stopped, not understanding for a moment what I was seeing.
“Kate.”
I stood, my mouth open but no sound coming out as I stared at my aunt Victoria, her eyes filling with tears as she rushed toward us, taking both me and Willa into her arms.
I couldn’t move at first, staring over her shoulder at Uncle Frank who was standing beside Willa’s bed, his own eyes red with emotion.
And then the shock was gone and I was holding on to my aunt for dear life.
46
The goodbyes happenedin a flurry, my one small bag, provided by the hospital, packed in minutes. Everyone wanted to say goodbye to Willa. To kiss what they called the “miracle baby,” her birth and survival under such extreme and terrible circumstances inspiration for so many.
“Be well,” they all called as I climbed into the car, Aunt Victoria beside me, Willa in my lap.
I waved from the window and then turned to face forward, not once looking back as we drove out of the hospital grounds. I never wanted to look back again. To wonder. To have regrets. I only wanted to look ahead.
We spent a week in a nearby hotel, Aunt Victoria procuring a pram and taking Willa and me shopping the day after we arrived. There wasn’t much, so many of the shops closed, but there was enough to get us to our next destination, including a pair of men’s pajamas.
And while we were there, Aunt Vic presented me with a small box tied with a white ribbon.
