“Stefan…” His name catches on a gasp for air.
A choked cry quakes in his throat as he stumbles backward, his hair falling to the side of his face—the way he wore it back—before.
The measure of an eternity passes before his eyes meet mine, wide with shock, disbelief, and plea.
“Rosalie,” he cries out my name through a raw rasp. “Rosalie!” He screams this time and launches himself toward me. He wraps me in his arms so tightly, I can hardly breathe. I don’t need to breathe. I don’t need to hold my breath and wonder if he’s alive. Because he’s here. He’s here.
Tears spill down my cheeks, and I choke back a sob that feels stuck between anguish and reprieve.I lift my shaking hand to his jaw, marveling at the warmth beneath my fingertips. “Yo-you’re rea-lly here,” I whisper in broken syllables.
He cradles my shoulders, his touch suddenly so delicate it’s as if he fears I’ll shatter into dust. He stares at me with astonishment—an emotion I share after fearing he had died somewhere between that hell and here too.
“Somehow…I barely—made it.” His arms shake as he pulls me into his chest.
“How?” my voice breaks.
He exhales, as though forcing a breath into his lungs. “I—I dashed away from the forced march…collapsed in a snowdrift so deep I thought it would bury me before I— But a hunter found me. He dragged me out of the snow when I thought…I felt it might have been…the end. He and his wife kept me alive. Those first few days are a blur now. Some of it still seems impossible. I was freezing and my mind wasn’t working. I remember thinking to myself that you must have somehow sent that hunter to me.”
I wasn’t born to the Jewish faith, but Stefan and his family are the ones who taught me what it means to believe in something bigger than myself.
I curl my arm around my stomach, pressing against the pain. “And after that?”
His lips brush the loose strands of hair dangling over my neck. “When I left, I had a hard time believing the war was truly over. Every road felt like a trap. I hid in the shadows of trees when I could. I read headlines—Germans defeated, some captured, some dead. Still, I didn’t trust any of it. At one point, I stumbled into a Red Cross station for displaced persons. They promised me food and papers, a way to help me get home. I didn’t even know what county I was in, or how far away from Sanok I was. I debated the pain of sitting and waiting among so many others, but I wasn’t sure I could make it much farther on my own.”
My chin trembles as I try to find my voice. “The endless march you were on haunted me every day.”
Stefan lets out a small chuckle. “Me too. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget…The Red Cross transferred me to other displacement centers, repeatedly, promising me they’d get me home as soon as possible. The weeks bled into each other until one last seat opened on a train heading south. I stared out the window at the world passing me by, telling myself I made it this far for a reason. Rosalie, I never gave up hope that I’d find you.”
“All this time—you’ve been living on hope…for me?” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, tears seeping between us. “My heart knew where to find you. Even when I doubted the possibility that both of us could somehow make it through and back home…if you were somewhere, it would be here.”
“I came back for the very same reason,” I confess, my voice cracking.
He exhales hard, his arms trembling around me. “I promised I would find you, when the time was right.” His tears streak down my neck.
“Time found us,” I whisper. “Just like you said.”
Stefan pinches the fabric of my dress between his fingers. “Everything you did…every risk, every choice—kept me alive. The thought of you kept me moving because I knew if I stopped—it would all be over. You saved my life.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know what I was doing, except following my heart. And I thought it failed me when I needed it most. I didn’t save you.”
He pulls back just enough to peer down into my eyes. “You won’t win this argument. Every step you took in the last six years brought us here.”
“Life doesn’t work like that,” I cry. “Philosophers say it’s predetermined, and that we’re powerless.”
“Says who?”
“Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Papa’s clocks?”
“Maybe they’re all right. Maybe our love is eternal. Maybe we are the key to time—the promise to keep life moving forward. Without us, together, there would be no more time. Just like?—”
I press my palm against the key at my neck and draw it into the space between us. “The winding key.”
Stefan brushes his fingertip over it, then frames my face in his hands. His gaze burns through me, lines deepening between his brows as if he suddenly finds all the answers he’s ever wanted. He leans in, his lips claiming mine, the key trembling between our pounding hearts.
When missing breaths break us apart, he strokes my cheek and smiles.
As if, somehow everything is all right.
