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Andrée looks at Louis. He nods. “We’ll all go.”

They climb together, slowly, Josie’s hand never leaving the banister. The hallway is narrow, the walls green, the paint peeling. Three doors. Josie walks to the middle one.

“This one.”

She stands in front of it, not touching, just looking. The door is painted brown, chipped at the bottom where something, luggage, furniture being moved in and out, scraped against it repeatedly. There’s a small brass knocker, tarnished now. And beneath it, a number: 7.

“Seven. Léon’s lucky number. He said it was a good sign, living at number seven.”

She reaches out, touches the door with her fingertips. Just touching. Not knocking. Not opening. Just touching this threshold between the life she once had and the life she has now.

“Happy birthday, Léon,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I forgot yesterday. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m sorry for everything.” The tears come again, silent this time, streaming down her face.

Andrée kneels beside her, pulls her close. “He knows, Josie. Wherever he is, he knows you love him. He knows you didn’t forget him. You just forgot the date. That’s not the same thing.”

“Do you think he forgives me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. But yes. I think he does. I think he understands. And I think he’s proud of you for being so brave, for surviving, for living when everything told you not to.”

Josie nods against Andrée’s shoulder. They stay like that for a long moment, kneeling on the landing, the door of number seven behind them, the stairwell echoing with memories of races and laughter and a family that was.

Finally, Josie pulls back. Wipes her eyes. “I’m ready to go home now.”

“Home?” Tina asks gently.

“Yes. Home. To rue Blomet. That’s home now.” She takes one last look at the door, at the number seven, at the place where her old life ended. Then she turns away. “Can we go?”

They descend the stairs together. At the bottom, in the foyer, Josie pauses. Looks back up one more time. Then she takes Andrée’s hand, and they walk out into the sunlight.

“Thank you,” Josie says as they walk back toward rue Blomet. “For bringing me. For letting me see it one more time.”

“Any time you need to go back, you tell us,” Louis says. “We’ll go with you. Always.”

“I don’t think I need to go back again. I think . . . I think I’ve said goodbye now. To that life. To that apartment. Not to Léon or Maman or Papa. Never to them. Just to the place.”

And somehow, walking through the June sunshine, surrounded by the three people who’ve become her family, Josie stands a little straighter. Walks a little easier. The weight she’s been carrying, the guilt of forgetting, the grief of remembering, hasn’t disappeared. But it’s shifted. Changed. Become something she can bear.

July arrives, hot and airless. The streets of Paris shimmer in the heat, yet the city moves cautiously, as though the warmth itself is not to be trusted. Parisians have long since learned to speak softly, to keep their eyes down. Rationing bites harder than ever—lines form before dawn outside shops that may have nothing left by the time most reach the front. German staff cars still cruise the boulevards with casual arrogance. There are soldiers on every corner, a constant reminder of who holds the city. And yet life insists on continuing—children play, thinner than they should be, neighbors exchange whispered news, and the smells of what little food can be coaxed from empty shops drift from open windows into the heavy summer air.

It is simply life now, this lesser version of living—endured day by day, held together by habit, by love, and by the stubborn refusal to give up hope.

The school term is winding down, just days left before the summer holiday begins. Josie and Monique walk together through the schoolyard at morning break, discussing plans for the summer.

“Maman says we might go to her sisters in the countryside for a week,” Monique says. “If we can get the travel permits.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. But we’ll write letters. Every day.”

They’re laughing about this when it happens. A girl, older, walks past them. She’s tall, well-dressed, her hair in perfect plaits. Josie recognizes her as Céline Charbonnier in the form above.

The girl’s shoulder connects with Josie’s, hard, deliberate. Josie stumbles, catches herself.

“Watch where you’re going,” Josie says, more surprised than angry.

The girl turns, looks down at her. “You watch where you’re going. Bloody Jew.”

The words hang in the air. Around them, other students stop talking. Stop moving. Jew hangs in the air.