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“Was his home out of the way? Could Ethel have missed him?” asked Kate.

“If so,” said Emmie, “she missed nearly everyone.”

Emmie didn’t understand how Ethel could have visited, week after week, and seen only medieval ruins and quaint stories and never noticed that there were children shivering in rags. In Courcelles, which had been so terribly devastated, they had provided beds for all the children, small stoves to cook on, pots and pans and plates and blankets. Emmie had finished delivering the basic necessities before Christmas and had long since moved on to the second part of their plans: wrangling government barracks to house people living in shacks and shanties, a properly equipped schoolhouse, books, athletic equipment, and, of course, livestock and planting.

If Emmie had ever doubted that what they were doing made a difference, she had seen it then, when she had visited Douilly.

“I gave him the fork and spoon and bowl out of my haversack, and you would have thought I’d given him something marvelous and rare, he was so delighted. It made me sick, Kate.” Emmie looked at her roommate, trying to impress upon her the seriousness of it all. “I’m not exaggerating, really, I’m not. There are people there living like our people were back in September. All of the children have lice, and not a washtub among them. I don’t care what I have to do to get them, I’m going back with scissors and washtubs and fine-toothed combs. And a pump! They hadn’t even a village pump yet, Kate!”

Kate straightened. Emmie could practically see her brain ticking away, listing tasks. “We’ll need to put in a request with the Red Cross—”

“I put in a request while you were away in Paris.” It was part of her job, making requests for materials, part of the job Ethel hadn’t been doing. There was no reason for Kate to think Emmie was as slapdash as Ethel.

“Of course you did,” said Kate quickly. “I’m sure you have it all in hand. It’s a good thing the people of Douilly have you to look after them now.”

Emmie frowned at Kate. “I am perfectly capable, you know.”

Kate paused in putting clothes away in the trunk that doubled as nightstand and armoire. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t have to say it,” said Emmie. “When you say it, it sounds like you don’t mean it.”

Kate looked at her with genuine confusion. “Do you mean you don’t want me to tell you when you’re doing something well?”

She should just leave it, Emmie knew. She hardly knew what she meant herself. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “When you keep telling me what a good job I’m doing, it makes me feel like someone’s golden retriever. As if you’re patting me on the head for fetching a stick.” As if Kate were looking down at her from on high and judging. “You don’t keep telling Alice what a marvelous job she’s doing with the machines or Anne how special she is for teaching woodworking.”

“They don’t need to be told,” said Kate worriedly. “You were so low this winter. . . .”

There was a reason she’d been so low. Because Kate had made her feel useless. “I’m not a child, Kate! You don’t need to hand out treats to me for good behavior. I’ve spent years doing social work. You and my mother may not think much of it, but I did learn something from it. Not much, but something.”

“I never said I thought nothing of it!” protested Kate.

“No, but you thought it.” The way Kate went still told Emmie all she needed to know. “It’s not just that. You never made a fuss about any of the others going off on their own. Ethel tramped all around the countryside without a by-your-leave. Anne walks by herself to Offoy all the time—”

“That’s because I can trust them to find their way back by supper,” said Kate, bright spots of color showing on her cheeks. “And not send me out looking for them after dark in a snowstorm!”

“You didn’t have to come get me.” Emmie had been thinking it for weeks now, without daring to say it. “If you hadn’t come after me, I would have stayed the night in Courcelles. It was only because you came running after me that we wound up lost in a snowstorm with those dreadful men.”

“Was I supposed to leave you unaccounted for overnight?”

“Yes!” Emmie was close to tears. “Yes! You should have trusted that I had the sense to stay in place! I’d told you where I was going—you knew where I was going. If you’d asked Red Cross Dave, he could have told you he’d left me there safely. There was no reason for coming after me as though I were a child who’d wandered off into the woods!”

“Bread crumbs and witches?” said Kate sarcastically. Kate always got sarcastic when she was upset. Emmie had always known that about her; she had always accepted it meekly before. “Pardon me for looking after the welfare of the Unit. Some of us have more to do than gadding about with plausible Englishmen.”

Emmie wasn’t sure which infuriated her more, the plausible or the gadding. “Englishman, Kate. One Englishman. And I’m hardly gadding! I’ve been working like a mule while you’ve been lounging in Paris.”

Kate flinched as if she’d been struck. Nothing hurt Kate more than being accused of idleness. “You know I didn’t want to go.”

“But you did. And it was probably a good thing too—it showed us we could all get on without you.” Emmie knew it was cruel, knew it even before she saw Kate’s fine-boned face go white. That was the worst of it; they knew too well how to hurt each other. “As for that Englishman you so despise, at least he treats me like a person—not a golden retriever!”

“I never treated you like a golden retriever!” Kate veered back to the attack. “What do you know about him, really? Only what he tells you.”

Emmie ached all over. But she couldn’t seem to stop; neither of them could. The only way to end the fight was to give in, and she was sick of being the one giving in. “Because my judgment isn’t to be trusted? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“You’ve known him for such a little time and in such strange circumstances. He might have half a dozen wives in an attic in England, Emmie. Or a fiancée waiting for him. Or gambling debts or some other noxious behavior we know nothing about.” Kate’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “You know I only want what’s best for you. . . .”

“Do you? Did you, all those years when you didn’t write back?” Emmie could taste bile in the back of her throat. The old hurts pushed up from the very bottom of her gut, pushed up from where she’d hidden them all these years. “One minute you were my best friend in the world and the next you were just . . . gone.”

“I took a teaching position,” said Kate hoarsely. “You knew that.”