in.
“Let’s pray.” Mama moved to the couch and clamped her hand on Leah’s forearm. “Almighty God, we pray for our boys. Please keep them safe and hold them in your hand.”
Leah prayed along, but something about the prayer felt askew. What if Clay was correct and it was God’s will for him to die today? Was it right to pray only for his safety?
She sprang to her feet. “I think—today I’ll go to that Greek Orthodox church I wanted to visit.”
Sympathy flooded Mama’s brown eyes. “Maybe you should take a day off from your search.”
“I can pray there just as easily as I can pray here. And I need—I need to be busy.” She returned to the guest room, laid Helen in the bassinet, and packed baby supplies in her bag. “I’ll take Helen. I’ll come back at noon to feed her.”
“Are you sure?” Mama leaned against the doorjamb.
Leah tied on the baby’s bonnet. “I need to have her with me.”
Before long, Leah stepped off the bus on LaSalle Drive with the baby in her arms. The Annunciation Cathedral stood grand and golden brown with twin square towers framing the entrance.
Something tugged at Leah’s memory, but in a flimsy way.
She joined the stream of people flowing through the door to pray for the boys in France.
In the cross-shaped sanctuary, a riot of color met her eyes. Stained glass flung light in all directions. Paintings, overlaid with gold, sparkled in every hue. A screen blocked one branch of the cross, covered with more paintings of saints and the Holy Family.
“I’ve been here,” she whispered, and she sank into a pew.
All around, people chanted prayers. Leah had hoped to speak to a priest, to see if anyone remembered a family with three little girls with poetic names. There were only a few Greek Orthodox churches in Chicago, and this was closest to the university.
Now her search felt trivial with the man she loved fighting on Nazi-occupied shores.
Leah settled the baby on her lap and bowed her head. With everyone chanting around her, she felt no need to pray silently.
“Oh, Lord. You love Clay even more than I do. You know how much I want him to live. But more than that, I want him to do your will.”
Her breath clogged her throat, but she swallowed her fears and breathed in conviction. “Grant him courage, Lord. Grant him strength to do all he has to do. No matter the cost. No matter . . . the cost.”
It hurt. It hurt so much to say, but it needed to be said. She needed to release Clay. She needed to grasp the only hand that would always be there for her.
“Thank you. Thank you for giving him to me, for all he’s done for me and the baby, for all he’s meant to me. But he’s yours, Lord. He’s yours.”
Leah gathered her baby closer. “She’s yours too. And so am I. You’re my Father, my only true Father, now and forever. I know—I know you’ll never leave me. Even if you take Clay from me, Helen from me, Mama Paxton from me, you’ll never leave me.”
Helen cooed.
Leah kissed her bonneted head. “Please hold me together, come what may. Comfort me. Help me be strong for Helen, for Mama. You are my rock and my tower and my Father.”
All around her, frantic and desperate prayers sounded.
Leah lifted her face to a dome soaring above, to the image of the Father with his arms outstretched, surrounded by the soft blue of peace and the glittering gold of heaven, the promise of joy, of eternal belonging.
And she smiled.
37
OFF POINTE DU HOC, NORMANDY
A bullet pinged off the steel-plated hull of the LCA, and Clay hunkered low, his uniform drenched in frigid water. To reach Pointe du Hoc, the Rangers had to race parallel to the coast, only a few hundred yards offshore.
Except LCAs didn’t race. The Germans were taking plenty of potshots.
“What about Force C?” Gene clamped his helmet on his head.
Clay groaned. “Doesn’t look good.”
The 5th Ranger Battalion and two companies from the 2nd waited offshore. If they didn’t receive the signal from Force A by 0700, they would land on Omaha Beach instead of at Pointe du Hoc.
Clay’s watch read 0644. How could they possibly reach the point and climb those cliffs in only sixteen minutes? “Guess we’re on our own.”
“Good thing we only need the two of us to clear that point.” Gene winked at him.
A roar overhead. Naval shells!
Clay rose just enough to see over