was low and bitter. “Because she was a little troublemaker with no morals. No morals at all.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. “W-what?”
Tante Jeanne shrugged.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t just say that and then shrug.”
“That girl went wild. Nazis all over Paris, and she wouldn’t keep her head down. First it was sneaking out to listen to God knows what kind of speeches, those clubs where fools talk violence, coming home at all hours of the night. The rows she used to have with her father—the Germans wanted lists of all the socialists and Jews working for his company; what was he supposed to do, refuse? The things Rose shouted at him . . .”
I stared at my aunt, blood thundering in my ears.
She continued in her flat voice. “First she was putting pamphlets on cars, then it was breaking windows. She’d probably have gone on to blowing things up and getting herself shot if it hadn’t been for the boy.”
I remembered Rose’s last letter to me. She was giddy about a boy she was seeing on the sly . . . “What boy?”
“Étienne something. Just nineteen, a bookshop clerk. A nobody. She brought him to meet us once. They glowed when they looked at each other, you could tell they were—” A disapproving huff. “Well, that was another row.”
I shook my head, numb to my fingertips. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this? When my father was making inquiries?”
“I did tell him. I suppose he thought it wasn’t suitable for your ears.”
I swallowed. “What happened then?”
“Rose’s boy got caught with the Resistance. They shipped him off, who knows where. Half of Paris was disappearing overnight. Rose probably would have too—she’d already nearly been arrested for kicking a Brownshirt on the Rue de Rivoli, so we brought her back here to Rouen. But . . .”
“What?” I nearly screamed. “What?”
“What do you think?” My aunt’s lips pursed like she’d bitten a lemon. “Rose was pregnant.”
I don’t remember how I got to the beech tree outside the house. I just found myself leaning up against the rough bark, breath coming in hitching gasps. I was terrified to look up at the tree branch above my head, fearing I’d imagine two little girls side by side. This had been our tree, our refuge from our bullying brothers back in the days before James grew older and kinder. Rose and me, sitting on that branch now over my head, feet swinging, like we’d sat in that Provençal café. Never alone, as long as we had each other.
Rose. Oh, Rose . . .
“I want to do something different.” And she’d had it in her—of course she’d be striding through the Paris nights breaking windows and kicking Brownshirts. I should have known Rose would get involved with the Resistance. But she’d gotten caught in the oldest trap there is, just like me. Rose wasn’t going to write a book or swim the Channel or do anything different—because once you’re pregnant, you’re finished.
I’d wanted to save my cousin, but no one could save her from this. I was stuck in the same trap. Helpless.
I let out a single harsh sob, so loud it startled me. Had she sat out here all alone on our tree branch the night she told her parents? After her mother advised her to take a hot bath and have a stiff gin and then see if she could dance it loose? After her father shouted and shouted, saying she’d brought shame on the family forever? Tante Jeanne had told me all of that as I sat staring.
My father didn’t shout at me when I told him. My mother did all the shouting; he just sat there gazing at me. When I left the room he turned his head away and just said disbelievingly, “Whore.”
I’d forgotten that.
I wondered if they’d called Rose a whore too.
I slammed my fists into the beech tree, wishing I could cry, wishing I could wrap myself in my old insulating numbness. But the tears were tied up tight inside me in a huge ugly knot, and stabs of fury and pain cut me too deep for numbness. So I just hit the tree until my knuckles were stinging through my gloves.
My eyes were hot and burning when I finally turned away. My aunt stood watching from the back door, frail and hunched. “Tell me the rest,” I said, and she did, her voice flat. My uncle had sent Rose to a little