away from the confinement of the hospital. Their conversations became more fluid, more intimate. As every day passed, Vivi found her attraction to him growing. His easy laugh and manner, the long lashes and his piercing blue eyes that with one look could twist her stomach into knots.
One bright spring day, she had wheeled him out and they sat in their favourite spot. It was chilly and she had covered him with a blanket, even though a weak winter’s sun was trying its best to warm up the cold earth.
‘I am so grateful to you, Vivi,’ he said, his gaze meeting hers. ‘Not only for your nursing, but for your companionship. This war has not given me many moments to pause, where I have just been able to live. There has been so much to do for as long as I can remember. I have either been preparing for a mission, on a mission, or recovering from one. It has been such a long time since I was just able to be myself with someone else.’ His eyes found hers with intensity as he added, ‘Someone I’m starting to fall in love with.’
He slipped his hand on top of hers. She felt a jolt of electricity through her body. She had wanted to hear those words from him and touch him for over a week but had been holding back, examining the feelings she had. Vivi had never been really in love before. She’d had a number of dalliances but nothing with the strength of feeling of this attraction. If this was anything like the beginning of it, she couldn’t believe the attraction she felt just looking at him, being with him, with him holding her hand. It felt like something was complete in her, created by whatever this was between them.
Vivi shook the tears from her eyes, experiencing a mixture of joy and the sadness that constantly loomed over her. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you really knew me,’ she stated flatly.
He looked at her, startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m woefully headstrong. I jump in with both feet before I think anything through, and I have a…’ She paused. ‘A past I’m not proud of.’
He lifted her hand gently to his lips and kissed it. ‘All of the qualities that I love so much about you. Many people would have been cautious with a foreigner. You have made me feel so welcome and cared for.’
‘I’ve done terrible things,’ she blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘People died,’ she said. ‘People died because of me, because of my lack of thought, and I have to live with that every single day. I’m not sure I want to burden anybody else with that pain.’
He gently took hold of her shoulders so she would be facing him and, placing a finger under her chin, he raised it so her eyes met his.
‘Vivi, we all have to do things we regret in this war.’ He swallowed. ‘Deceive people that we love, say things and be things that we never in our life imagined that we’d have to be. But you have to remember that we are doing it for a greater good. We are just small cogs spinning inside a huge wheel. But every one of us is important. Sometimes we make mistakes. Because we are human. That is all you did, Vivi. You made a mistake.’
‘People are dead,’ she sputtered out.
‘You don’t know that for sure. Your French family may still be alive.’
She shook her head. ‘I just have a terrible gut feeling. I think that Yvette would have written back if they were all right. I wrote to them a while back under a different name, and I’ve heard nothing from them. What I would do to go back and put these things right.’
She started to sob.
He pulled her into his arms then, and Vivi allowed him to hold her. As hard as it was to talk about these things, his empathy and the care that she saw in his eyes made it all right somehow. It was as though he understood.
‘I, too,’ he whispered into her ear, ‘have done terrible things that I regret. But if I just focus on that, I will never be of any use to anyone. I will never be able to put things right by making this war end. That is what drives me every day – the end of this war so we can go back to living our lives. Vivi, please, I