she could, but her age limited her. The children were well behaved, and he knew he was lucky in that regard. Paul was a tenderheart with an eternal smile that brightened up their dull lives and breathed hope back into them. He was so much like his mother, Marguerite. Both of them could fill a room with their joyful presence. For years, Bonnay and his wife had fostered big dreams in their hearts, but death was a rude awakening. The hopes of commoners are abruptly cut off when the current of history changes direction and drags them where they could never have dreamed of going.
Love had found them when they were still young enough to have one foot in the fairytale land of innocence. The children of manual laborers were never allowed to draw out the season of childhood, but when the young Bonnay would leave his father’s coal yard, he would dash to Marguerite’s school. They would run through the city to the cathedral and play in the yard around the huge building, chasing each other up and down the stairs before sharing an ice-cream cone in the park. When it rained, they would walk around inside the cathedral, stealing glances at each other as they studied the enchanting stained-glass windows that turned all the light into magic rainbows. Before they were eighteen, they got married in the chapel at Saint-Pierre. It was the only time in his life that Bonnay had put on a suit, and it was the last time he attended a service. He was an atheist and Marguerite, Catholic, but Bonnay respected that she wanted them to be married by the Church.
After Marcel arrived, they started saving. They wanted their son to become a doctor, or maybe an architect, but none of that mattered anymore.
Sometimes life shrinks and plans fall apart. Making it from one day to the next is hard enough, and feeding four mouths is a miracle.
The sun started to light up the yellowed fields around them. Spring had brought copious rains after a bitterly cold winter, and now the raging heat seemed intent on burning up the life that had worked so hard to be reborn.
Paul turned to his father and gifted him with Marguerite’s smile. Bonnay’s heart was pierced with the knowledge that he was carrying in his beat-up truck everything he loved. He felt like the richest man on earth. Everything he needed fit into two suitcases, because those two boys were his whole world. Being a father meant renouncing his own hopes and putting everything he had into the dreams of his children.
“Good morning, Paul.”
“Good morning, Father,” Paul said, rubbing his eyes.
“Are you hungry?” Bonnay dug with one hand into a bag behind his seat.
“I’m starving! I could eat a horse,” the boy answered with another smile.
Bonnay held out a chunk of bread and a piece of beef sausage, and Paul made short work of it. The smell of food woke the other boys, and they all had their breakfast. The collier enjoyed watching them eat, though he did not partake himself, not wanting their supplies to run out before they reached his brother-in-law’s home. Since Marguerite’s death, the families had not seen each other. Bonnay was not beloved by Marguerite’s family. They had always thought their daughter and sister deserved someone better. Bonnay himself felt the same; his wife had been much better than he. Still, Marguerite’s brother had always offered to help if they ever needed it. Bonnay did not like asking for favors, but the safety of his sons was more important than his pride.
“How much farther?” Moses asked. Though he had been on the road for many days now, he was still not used to long car trips.
“Not too far. We had to take a long detour, but we should be there by tonight. My brother-in-law has a lovely farm outside of Roanne. I don’t know how things have gone for him since the German invasion, but he’s always been a survivor.”
Just then the truck gave a great lurch. A piece of bread jumped out of Moses’s hand as if it were alive, and the boys howled with laughter. A big hole in the road threatened to stall them, but Bonnay regained control of the truck and they continued on.
Cropland surrounded them as far as they could see. This region was much more fertile than the fields they knew. The cities were brighter, and the people happier and more friendly the closer they traveled to