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It will arrive home before he does. Their luggage contains nothing incriminating. And that’s the best they can do. Everything else is down to fate.

René shakes hands with the sister, holding it for a moment or two longer than would be considered polite.

The train pulls away. Louis watches the fortified port disappear, but everything they saw is tucked safely away in his mind. Troop numbers. Defensive positions. The reconstructed dry dock. The expanded submarine pens. Intelligence that might save lives.

At Nantes, German soldiers board the train and move through the carriages, checking papers. As usual, they’re looking for young men, for obvious Resistance fighters, rather than elderly men. But they question Louis and René nonetheless.

“Purpose of visit to Saint-Nazaire?”

“Structural assessment. Architectural consultation. Medical consultation. All authorized by Commandant Weber.”

Louis hands over the paperwork, complete with Weber’s stamp and signature.

The soldier studies it, hands it back. “Carry on.”

At Le Mans, the same process. At Chartres, again. Each time, Louis’s heart pounds. Each time, the papers hold. Each time, they’re waved through.

Paris appears in the late afternoon. Gare Montparnasse. Home.

They part ways at the station. “Well done, Louis,” René says. “We did it. Now go home. Your family is waiting.”

Louis walks through Paris, savoring every familiar street. He made a promise to Tina. He’s keeping it. He’s coming home.

At rue Blomet, he climbs the stairs slowly, savoring the anticipation.

“Grand-Père!” Josie yells as he comes through the front door.

She charges into him, almost knocking him off his feet. Tina is there seconds later, and then Andrée, and they’re all talking at once, hugging him, touching him, confirming he’s real, he’s here, he’s home.

“I told you he’d come back,” Tina says to Josie, tears streaming down her face.

“You did. You were right. He came home.”

Louis holds them all, breathes in the smell of home—chicory and piano polish and safety. The mission has exhausted him, not least because of the destruction he saw in Saint-Nazaire, and he knows full well that the information he gathered will lead to more bombing, more death.

But right now, in this moment, he’s home. With his family. And that’s all that matters.

“Play for me, Josie,” he says. “Play something happy. I need to hear something happy.”

Josie runs to the piano, sits, begins to play. Mozart. The same sonata she’s been playing all week. But this time, she plays it perfectly. Every note clear. Every phrase precise. Because Grand-Père is home. Because promises were kept. Because sometimes, miraculously, people do come back.

Tina whispers, “A package came for you yesterday evening.”

Louis smiles. Sends a silent thank-you to the one and only Sister Benny.

He sits with Tina and Andrée, listening. The music fills the apartment.

Outside, Paris continues its dangerous dance. The war grinds on. The occupation persists.

But so does the Resistance.

So does the music.

Chapter Twenty

“And you’re sure she has a piano?” an anxious Josie asks Andrée.

“Yes, Josie, she has a piano. I’ve played it many, many times over many years.”