“That was fine when you had plenty of petrol, but not on bicycle. I’ve divided the island into five sectors and designed five routes. Each day you’ll take one route.”
Ivy shook her head. “Some patients need to be seen more than once a week.”
“If you follow the route, you’ll finish in late afternoon and have an hour or two to visit patients on other routes. But to do so, you must be disciplined. No more than twenty minutes per patient, and no dawdling to sketch on the way.”
A breeze swept through, and Charlie grasped the brim of his homburg, formerly Dad’s homburg. “Ivy’s watch is broken. How can she keep time?”
Fern frowned. “It’s obvious when twenty minutes have passed.”
Obvious to Fern, but not Ivy. And though parts of Fern’s plan made sense, others didn’t. However, a pleased look brightened Fern’s face, so Ivy smiled at her. “I’ll do my best.”
“You will.” Fern looped her arm through Ivy’s. “And now that you’ll no longer sketch on your rounds, I know you can keep this schedule.”
With effort, Ivy held her smile aloft. The day before, Fern had plucked Ivy’s sketch pad out of her medical bag and declared it unnecessary equipment.
They passed through the wrought iron gate surrounding the red granite Parish Church of St. Helier. Inside the church, organ music and colorful stained glass windows enlivened the whitewashed interior.
Thelma Galais sat on the left near the front, wearing a gray hat above her low silver chignon.
Ivy slid into the pew beside her, with Fern and Charlie following. Sitting with a family friend eased some of the pain of notsitting with her own parents. “Good morning, Mrs. Galais. How are you?”
Mrs. Galais had good color in her round cheeks and a light in her hazel eyes. “You precious girl. Don’t you look pretty?”
“You look pretty too. Any word from...” No, it was far too early.
The light faded. “Edna and Frank? No.”
Ivy murmured in sympathy. Over the past few days, over six hundred people had been shipped from Jersey to Germany, and several hundred more still awaited deportation. Rumors said the deportees would be subject to forced labor, but the Germans said they were being sent to internment camps, just as German subjects had been interned in England.
“The Lord is good.” Mrs. Galais smiled and restored some of the light. “He will sustain Edna and Frank, and he will sustain me.”
If the Lord was good, why did he allow innocents to be ripped from their homes? Ivy winced. A horrible thought to have, especially in church.
Many of the deportees had lived in St. Helier, and holes darkened the pews. The Carters, who always sat in the second row on the left. The Yorks, who always sat in the same row as the Picots on the right.
Behind the Yorks’ customary pew, Doris des Forges Mollet met Ivy’s gaze, gave her a polite nod, and turned to her husband and children.
Ivy’s chest sank in. Doris and Dulcie des Forges had been Ivy’s best friends—until diphtheria struck. Ivy and Dulcie had been quarantined together, both deathly ill. But Ivy alone had survived.
A sense of being watched, and Ivy glanced back to find the source.
Three rows behind her sat a young man with golden-blond hair, his face framed between the hats of the ladies in the row before him.
Not quite a handsome face, but his gaze held hers, full of gentlestrength, of kindly intelligence, and her gaze entwined with his, knit with his, and she saw ... she knew ... knew she was meant to spend her life with him.
Ivy sucked in a breath and spun to face the altar, severing the cord of connection.
She struggled to breathe. She’d never met the man, never seen him before.
The rector of the church, the Very Reverend Matthew Le Marinel, stood at the pulpit, and Ivy rose with the congregation. She fumbled to help Mrs. Galais hold the hymnal, forced herself to sing.
She’d heard of love at first sight, but this was different. Not love. Just knowing. What was she to do with it?
Dizziness swept through her, and she gripped the pew in front of her with her free hand.
Finally, the rector began his message, and Ivy pulled her little notepad from her purse to sketch as she always did, a quirk the congregation had come to accept from her. But this time she sketched the golden-haired man.
Who was he? Was this simply a silly longing from her lonely heart? And what on earth should she do after the service?
