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“Have a good day. I know I’m going to. I love you.”

As the front door closes behind Josie, silence hangs in the apartment. Finally, Andrée speaks.

“She’s so happy. Please tell me it will continue. That we will give Ruth and Léon back a happy, well-adjusted, brilliant young teenager.”

“I meant to tell Josie we’re not opening the shop today. Hopefully she will come straight home and not go there looking for us,” Andrée says.

“She will work it out. The three of us have got plenty to do between now and the others coming this afternoon. Some of the documents I must pass on are extremely compromising. We need to decide who is getting what, and who is doing what. Let’s clean up and get into it,” Louis says.

An hour later there are documents and a wad of French banknotes scattered over the table. Louis, Tina, and Andrée are sorting, discussing, and planning for the afternoon meeting.

It is during these discussions that a loud hammering on the door makes them all freeze.

They glance at one another, uncertainty and fear on all their faces. The evidence of their Resistance work lies exposed, damning and utterly undeniable.

“I’ll get it,” Andrée says, her voice steadier than she feels.

Louis and Tina frantically start gathering up the documents in front of them. Papers slide, flutter. Their hands shake. The knocking continues, louder, more insistent.

“I’m coming,” Andrée calls out, taking her time, scrabbling with the lock and latches. She’s buying seconds for her parents to hide the evidence.

As she opens the door, it is shoved violently inward, catching her shoulder, sending her stumbling back.

“Militia. Let us in.”

Louis and Tina quickly place the piles of documents on the kitchen bench, throwing a towel over them. The money Louis stuffs into his pocket, his hands fumbling in their urgency.

“What do you want?” they hear Andrée say. Her voice is strong and clear. No sign of fear.

“This is the Levallois apartment?” A brute of a man in his mid-forties, overweight in his uniform, storms up to Andrée. Six other similarly dressed men, hands on their holsters, advance into the room like prowling wolves.

“Yes, this is the Levallois apartment. What do you want?”

“We want you. You and everyone else living here. Now tell me, who else is in the apartment?”

Louis and Tina appear in the doorway. “Just the two of us,” Louis says.

“No one else?”

“You’re welcome to look around, but you won’t find anyone else. What is this all about?” Louis asks.

“We believe the three of you have been actively involved in seditious and traitorous behavior against the occupying forces of Germany.”

“Says who?” Tina is defiant.

“We have our informant. We now have you. What I need from you are the names of other traitors you have been conspiring with.”

“We have nothing to say to you, other than it is you who are the traitors to France and the French people,” Andrée says with defiance.

The slap comes without warning. The crack of his palm against her face echoes in the room. Andrée’s head snaps to the side. She staggers backward into her father’s arms.

“Sit down, all of you. I’ll give you a chance to tell me names and addresses here, in the comfort of your own home. Or we can do it at headquarters.”

Tina fusses over the red mark blooming on Andrée’s face as Louis guides them to the sofa, where the three of them sit holding hands. A united front. A family refusing to break.

The leader turns to his men. “Search the place. There will be evidence somewhere of their treason.”

The Militia head to the bedrooms. The sound of drawers being pulled out, violently emptied. Small ornaments and perfume bottles crash to the floor, shatter. Glass breaking and wood splintering; this is the sound of the systematic destruction of a home.