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“Your family needs you alive, my dear. If those feet don’t get proper treatment, you’ll lose them. Maybe your legs. Maybe your life. Come to Sweden. Get well. And then go home.”

Andrée closes her eyes. Sweden. Further from home. More time away. But she’s alive. She must stay alive.

The train to Sweden is nothing like the train to Ravensbrück. This one has seats, windows, heat, and food. Medical personnel move through the cars checking on passengers, offering water, adjusting their blankets.

Andrée sits by the window, watching Germany slide past. She can’t wait to escape this country that imprisoned and tortured her. That nearly killed her. She’s leaving it behind. Finally.

Beside her, Claire, who was also selected for evacuation, holds her hand.

“We made it,” Claire whispers. “We actually made it.”

“Almost,” Andrée says. “We’re not home yet.”

“But we will be. Soon.”

The train crosses into Denmark, heading for Copenhagen, from where a ferry will cross to the Swedish town of Malmö. The landscape changes; it’s greener, cleaner, untouched by war. Andrée presses her face to the glass and lets herself cry. For the first time in as long as she can remember, her body heaves with sobs.

They’re leaving the Hôtel Lutetia, another day, another fruitless search, when Josie hears her name.

“Joséphine? Joséphine!”

She turns. A man stands there. He’s skeletal, barely recognizable, but there is something about his eyes that is familiar.

“Doctor Tessier?” Her voice cracks. “Is that you?”

Their old family doctor. The one who used to visit when she had fevers, who gave her sweets and told her to be brave. He was arrested the same night as Maman and Léon.

“Joséphine! My God, you’re alive. You’re here.” He embraces her, this emaciated man who was once so jolly and robust. “I heard you got away. Léon told me you were going to your piano teacher’s family, who have obviously taken good care of you. Thank God. Thank God!”

“Doctor, you have seen Léon? What about my mother? Are they . . . ?”

His face changes. Shuts down. And Josie knows before he says another word. She knows.

“I’m so sorry, Joséphine. Your mother . . . she was killed immediately. At Auschwitz. The moment we arrived. She didn’t suffer, I promise you. It was quick.”

The world tilts. Maman is dead. She has been dead for years. All this time she has spent hoping and waiting, and she’s been gone since the beginning.

“And Léon?” Tina asks gently, her arm around Josie’s shoulders.

Doctor Tessier’s eyes fill with tears. “Léon survived Auschwitz. He was strong, that boy, so strong. They transferred us both to Dachau when they knew the Russians were coming. We were liberated together. It was the twenty-ninth of April. Léon was alive when the Americans came. He knew the war was ending. He knew liberation had come.”

“But?” Josie whispers.

“He had developed typhus in the camp. The Americans brought doctors, medicine, they did everything they could. But he was so weak, Joséphine. His body couldn’t fight anymore. He died two days after liberation. He held on long enough to know he was free. And then . . . then he let go.”

Josie can’t breathe; she can barely stand. Tina holds her up while the world shatters around her.

Her Maman has been dead for years, and Léon, poor Léon, survived everything, only to die days after liberation.

“I’m sorry,” Doctor Tessier says again. “I wish I had better news. But I thought you should know. Léon spoke of you often. He wanted to come home to you. He tried so hard to stay alive for you.”

“Thank you,” Tina says quietly. “Thank you for telling us and for being with them.”

Doctor Tessier nods and squeezes Josie’s hand one more time. Then he’s gone, back into the crowd, another skeleton searching for his own family.

Josie and Tina stand in the foyer of the Hôtel Lutetia surrounded by reunions and grief, and they hold each other.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” Tina whispers. “I’m so sorry.”