chapter
1
St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands
Thursday, June 20, 1940
Words failed Dr. Ivy Picot, so she sketched her father with gray-flecked hair, packing to go to war.
In his office, Dad buckled his medical bag. “Have no fear.”
“Perhaps I should fear the Germans, but I don’t.” Ivy drew her father’s rounded cheeks and chin, so much like hers. With the fall of France certain and the Channel Islands too distant for Britain to defend, the British troops and Jersey Militia were evacuating. “I’m proud of you. The militia needs their medical officer.”
Dad engaged Ivy with a gaze as soft as the black leather of his bag. “I meant you mustn’t fear for the medical practice.”
Ivy stifled a wince. Since she was a woman and only one year out of university, patients often asked for the “real doctor.” Would they trust her without Dad’s experience behind her?
“You come from a long line of Doctors Picot, and you may be the finest yet.” Dad’s brown-eyed gaze drilled into her. “Come along.”
Ivy set her sketch pad on Dad’s desk—her desk for now. How long until he returned?
Would the Germans invade the Channel Islands or ignore them as inconsequential? Could Hitler resist planting his flag on British soil? What would happen if they came? The horrifying stories from Poland and the Netherlands and Belgium...
Ivy shuddered and followed her father into the waiting room of the surgery. Since the Nazis loved to provoke panic and despair, staying calm seemed an appealing act of defiance.
Dad slipped on his overcoat. “Fern will be a good help to you.”
“She will.” Ivy pinned on her hat. In April, her older sister had taken their mother’s place as receptionist when Mum went to England to care for her ill father.
“You’re each strong where the other is weak. Don’t forget that.”
Ivy’s only strength lay in medicine. Even then, she relied on her father’s wisdom. A fluttery sensation filled her stomach. How could she run the practice without him?
“You’re ready, Dad?” Charlie clomped down the hall, his face alight. “I wish I could fight too.”
Ivy pulled her twelve-year-old brother to her side, resisting the urge to brush back the shank of black hair hanging over his brow. “Let’s finish school first, shall we?”
Charlie screwed up his handsome face. “The war will be over by then.”
Ivy certainly hoped so. “Are you sure you don’t want to evacuate?”
“I’m not afraid of the Nazis.” He pulled himself tall but barely cleared Ivy’s shoulder. “Besides, you need a man around the house.”
Charlie’s voice had yet to change, but Ivy gave his narrow shoulders a squeeze.
“If you evacuated, Ivy...” Dad said.
If she evacuated, Charlie would too. “And who would care for our patients?”
“Indeed.” A sad wisp of a smile rose. “War makes for difficult choices.”
How unfair that Dad should have to make those difficult choices twice in one lifetime. “I know—now I know.”
Dad’s gaze swept the walls of the ground floor of the family home, La Bliue Brise, where he’d been raised, where he’d raised his own family, and where he practiced. “In times of peace, we choose amongst many good and pleasant paths, but in times of war...”
Ivy’s throat tightened. “No path is good or pleasant.”
“Not pleasant, no.” He aimed one finger at Ivy. “But you can still choose the good. You must.”
