In the summer sun, Ivy descended the gangplank of the mail boat with her husband, her parents, and her brother. The German forces in the Channel Islands had held out to the end, not surrendering until May 9, the day after Victory in Europe had been celebrated in England. At least the surrender had come without bloodshed.
The damage to her beautiful island struck her fresh. The windblown oaks around St. Aubin’s Bay chopped down for firewood. The concrete bunkers studding the beaches. The railway lines slashing through the hills.
“We’ll rebuild,” Gerrit said from behind her, carrying their suitcase. “And restore.”
With her medical bag in hand, she smiled over her shoulder at him, so handsome in his dark blue suit and homburg. After helping repair bomb damage in England, now he’d work for the States of Jersey to undo what Organisation Todt had done.
The medical practice would also be rebuilt. Charlie had completed a year with the evacuated version of Victoria College inEngland, and he would now complete his final year in Jersey, in the hope of studying medicine at Oxford.
At the Weighbridge, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Opal stood waving and crying with Uncle Leo and Aunt Ruby, and much kissing and embracing and laughing ensued.
Aunt Opal gave Gerrit a particularly long hug. “You dear boy. Now you’re family.”
Aunt Ruby lifted her nose as if offended. “Leo and I are rather hurt to have been left out of all the excitement.”
Ivy squeezed Aunt Ruby’s arm. “You did deliver a clandestine message, remember?”
“Yes.” Aunt Ruby turned a mock glare at Charlie. “Because of you, you cheeky lad.”
Charlie laughed and marched away with his suitcase in hand. “Come on. I want to go home. Look! The Pomme d’Or—the Union Jack is back. And over Fort Regent. Glorious.”
“It is indeed.” Uncle Arthur fell in beside Gerrit as they walked up Mulcaster Street. “Any news on Bernardus? And your family?”
“Bernardus went home a few weeks ago, and I’ve been able to write my family. Ivy and I plan to visit next month. My family all survived but are much thinner. There was a severe famine in the Netherlands, theHongerwinter, they call it. Many thousands died of starvation.”
Uncle Arthur grumbled. “We had a similar winter here. Almost nothing to eat, no heat, no electricity, no gas. If the Red Cross ship hadn’t brought supplies, we would have starved too.”
“The SSVega,” Aunt Opal said. “The Red Cross parcels saved our lives.”
Ivy passed a shopfront. “We have goods in the shops again.”
“Yes.” Aunt Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Still rationed, but we can actually buy tea and sugar and salt and soap and clothing.”
“And we have electricity and gas,” Uncle Leo said. “And we’ll have coal this winter.”
“How lovely.” Ivy slipped her hand inside Gerrit’s as they passedSt. Helier Parish Church, where they’d met. If only they could have married there, but it had been a blessing to marry at her grandparents’ church.
“Ruby?” Mum asked from behind Ivy in a quiet tone. “Did you tell Fern we were coming home?”
“I did. She rarely goes out, not since Liberation Day.”
Ivy winced, and Gerrit squeezed her hand. Fern’s denunciation of Ivy had indeed won back Helmut’s heart. But on Liberation Day, mobs had attacked women who had consorted with Germans—including Fern.
Uncle Leo and Aunt Ruby had taken Fern into their home to protect her, and Helmut and the rest of the German forces had been deported to prison camps in England.
“I think we’ve convinced her to go to England,” Aunt Ruby said. “Have a fresh start.”
“That would be best. Bill and the boys will come home soon.” Mum let out a little sob. “I want to see her.”
“Give her time,” Aunt Ruby said. “She may want to see you someday, but not...”
Not Ivy. But she drew herself taller. She’d done everything in her power to allow reconciliation, but reconciliation would require contrition and remorse on Fern’s part.
Gerrit slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her cheek. “Even if.”
“Even if,” she said. Even if she never saw her sister again, she’d praise God for his goodness and praise him for revealing glimpses of his goodness in clouds and flowers and rabbits, and in people like Gerrit and Charlie and Thelma.
And in her home. La Bliue Brise looked tired, the blue paint on the door and on the window trim faded and chipped. But paint could be replaced, and Ivy stroked the door as she passed through.
