London, England
February 1940

The roaring of the planes overhead as Maria rushed for the cover of her neighborhood's bomb shelter made her feel all the more grateful that, though she missed them horribly, her children were safely out of harm's way, far away from this, and farther still away from the threat of spreading attacks. The air raid sirens had become a permanent sound in her head in all these months in London, and sometimes she would hear them in her dreams and wake up in a cold sweat only to realize that it was not real, and perhaps that night, she would sleep until dawn without being pulled away from it for the danger of incendiary bombs being rained down from the skies.

Once she clattered down the stairs and pushed her way into the underground bomb shelter, Maria crammed herself into a corner and sat down to read the letters she had stowed away in her pocket by the light of a small torch she had in her nurse's bag.

She unfolded the thin paper, running her fingers over it, and smiled as she read Liesl's neat script and Brigitta's cramped script, the two girls informing her in turns of how things fared, the things that were happening on the farm where they stayed, the friends they had made, and the adventures they went on, "just like you taught us."

"Every day," Liesl wrote, "Gretl demands that we sing about our favourite things, and so we do just that, and before long we all are smiling again, and we hope and pray for your safe return, and Father's, too."

Maria frowned at the mention of her husband, her head bowed. Not a word had been heard from him since the Christmas and New Year's greetings he sent them, with small little tokens for the children, which Maria had given to them over the holidays at his request. For her, he had sent a long, hand-written letter, one which was thick and pierced through with holes, in order to redact identifying information that might give the enemy clues.

That letter sat from the time she received it stowed away in the top drawer of her writing desk. Every day, Maria thought of it, and every day, Maria could not bear the thought of taking on the burden of knowing. Somehow, the brokenness of their marriage had become easier to bear than the prospect of having hopes dashed and sown to even more bitterness.

Maria folded the letter her daughters had sent, tucking it into the deep pocket of her dress. She switched the torch off and put it back in her bag, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall behind her. She could finish the letter later. For now, she needed to rest, find some respite from the chaos.

Thinking of how Gretl persisted in her routine of the reminder of the good things in their lives, Maria began to recite her own list to herself: "Liesl. Friedrich. Louisa. Kurt. Brigitta. Marta. Gretl. Georg." She said it over, and over, and over again until the faint roar overhead ceased and the all-clear sounded. And then she climbed out of the bomb shelter and walked away toward her flat, wondering if she would have a flat to come to, and undressed, went to bed, and fell asleep with the same whispered refrain on her lips, a prayer: "Liesl. Friedrich. Louisa. Kurt. Brigitta. Marta. Gretl. Georg."

The morning dawned grey and cold, and Maria ached in every bone of her body. It was not possible to ache so badly when was so young, was it?

But her days were physical, so physical that her frame had become even thinner, her face long and gaunt, the skin under her eyes seemingly permanently darkened, and though she knew it should alarm her, the absence of her menstrual cycle did not inspire feeling either positive or negative. It was simply a relief to not suffer with it for all the other suffering that went on in her world day-to-day.

She had been recruited for her native fluency of German, but she spent more time with the British patients, already being sent home wounded and battered and in pieces, young or old, marred and no longer whole. She spent hours of her days lifting the weight of immobile, muscled men, helping them to perform exercises, calming violent outbursts, and listening to them talk.

It was difficult to look upon the young ones, but it was harder still to see the ones who were close in age to Georg. Her heart would clench and sadness would well in her, and she would be sure to spend extra time in their company. If they wanted to talk, she would listen. If they wanted to converse, she tried her very best to respond. If they simply wanted silence, she would go about her duties, and when time allowed—if time allowed—she would sit quietly in view of those poor souls, sometimes pouring over the rotations and notes, or otherwise she would bring a book to read, and if they asked her to read for them, this she would do.

"It is strange that an Austrian girl should love English, reading in English, so well," one commander commented to her late one night. He had lost sight in one eye, and his entire right side was paralyzed by casts and bandages, and all that Maria could make of him was a bit of his silvering hair on the left side of his head, free from bandaging, and the depth of his voice.

"My husband kept a fine library," Maria said from her corner, not looking up. "I enjoyed the language when I was learning it at school in Vienna. When I came to work for him, I was allowed to use the library. I miss it."

"You came to work for your husband…?"

Maria glanced up. "You are curious!" she said.

"I don't mean to pry… I am bored, and"—here, he gestured with his good arm to his bound right side—"what with this here, I can't do much."

"I'm not offended," Maria said clearly. "Merely surprised. Most see my ring on my hand and don't ask questions."

"Well, I dared, and it seems there is a story. Not many married girls are nurses."

Maria, observing the man's face, watched as he gave a small smile. Thinking, and scrutinizing, and considering her best course of action, Maria leaned forward and said, "I will tell you, if you want to hear it, Commander…?"

"Commander Wilkeson," he completed. "Not that it means much, having got myself blown up."

"I'm sure you were doing what was necessary for the war effort," Maria said quietly.

"I have seen too much, now. War is no dream a sane man would have. I'm lucky to escape with as much as I have."

"Well, Commander Wilkeson, you're here, and I'm here. Would you like your curiosity sated?"

He gave a gesture with his good hand, a small flourish.

Pulling her chair closer to his bed so that he would not need to strain to hear her so much, Maria closed her book and straightened her back. "My husband was an esteemed naval captain in Austria, you see. He was awarded one of the highest honors by the Austro-Hungarian empire for his service in the Great War. They call it 'The War to End All Wars,' here," Maria mused. "Who ever thought of that silliness?"

"I surely don't know," the commander echoed. "As long as there are men and as long as there are governments, there will be war."

"I grew up in the shadow of the aftermath of the war," Maria continued. "Just as every man, woman, and child, I knew of his exploits. I could recite all the facts, the victories and the failures both. I could tell you what he commanded, and the number of men he commanded. I grew up. I obtained my teaching certificate, I tried working as a seamstress for a time. Eventually, I decided I would pursue the only thing that I felt truly was worthwhile: I entered the Benedictine convent that is in Salzburg."

"This is quite the tale already," the commander said, giving a small chuckle. It made him cough, however, and soon he was bent over, pounding his chest as he violently coughed, and Maria stood quickly to help him, pouring him a glass of water and helping him to drink it.

"I'll get you some lemon and honey water," Maria said. "Would you like it warm or cold?"

"Warm, if you please," the man rasped.

Maria disappeared to see to the errand, and when she returned a time later, it was to find the commander already drifting to sleep. She roused him gently, sat at the edge of the bed, and helped him to drink. "I added some ginger," Maria said. "And turmeric. It may taste strange, but it will help with the inflammation."

He simply nodded weakly at this, giving her a small smile and a pat on the hand. "I want to know… but alas…"

"Rest," Maria said firmly. "You need the rest. I will see you again, I am sure."

"If I do, you promise that you will finish the story soon? Before I'm sent off to a convalescent home?"

Looking at him, Maria hesitated. There was no way of knowing how long he would remain here. If it was necessary to send him elsewhere, regardless of whether he was healed enough, he would be. It could be another hospital, a smaller one in a village, or it could be a convalescent home.

"I can't promise—"

"Nurse, I am old, and now I am broken, and I know promises are for fools, but let me have this, please."

Breathing out slowly, Maria steeled herself, for her heart had cracked in two as he admitted this with such baldness, and nodded firmly. "I will finish the story, soon. Very soon."

"Very good," he nodded, eyes drifting closed.

Maria leaned forward to adjust his pillows, and when she made to pull away, he grasped her hand briefly and squeezed it. After a pause, she breathed out and squeezed back.

"You're going to go home," she breathed. "You will get well, I just know it."

Maria felt oddly hollow as she pulled the curtains around the commander's bed and slipped away. For all that it felt wonderful to feel like she had a friend in the world again, and not be overwhelmed with the job of distracting herself from loneliness and the bitter trappings of regret, she could not help but wonder if she had just spoke a lie to this man. She had felt it, truly and deeply in her gut, that he would be one of the ones that made it away from here to live a life beyond the war, but what if he was too old to recover well, or died of complications or infections? There was no room for promise, here, and no room for thought of the future, but it had felt defiant and it had felt right to say it.

Walking, trance-like, Maria went to the office where the schedules and rotation rosters were kept and sat down with a pencil and eraser. Slowly, she made her way through the entries, changing assignments where she could so that the vast majority of her workload was with the soldiers. She was second-in-command in her special unit, so this was no chore and nothing wayward.

Maria came to the small number of Germans on their roster and paused. She took the assignments to these men as needed, but did not go out of her way for it, as there were several others whose skills with the language were sufficient. The urgency with which the need had been filled had been overblown, for the moment, but Maria doubted it would remain so. It felt horrible to hope it would not remain so, but when she remembered that there was no winning in a war, only loss, she squared her shoulders and carried on, chin lifted, instead of shuffling about with her eyes on the ground like her fellow German-speaking colleagues.

So, with this in mind, Maria penciled in her name for the entire ward of Germans and resolved to show as much compassion as she could muster, though it was the German military that could cut her own husband down such that he would never return.

"Why have you done such a thing?" Friedrich asked her in disgust when Maria went to the farm where her children were safely sheltered for her day off.

"Because no one wins in a war," Maria said quietly, "and nothing is accomplished by maintaining perfunctory distance. These men have families that must be terrified for them, Friedrich, not knowing if they are alive or dead, or presuming them to be dead even if they are not. That is cruel and terrible."

"But they could kill Father!" Friedrich shouted. "They could kill you! I know you answered the call for help because you were asked, and you did not volunteer, but Mother, the planes fly over London so often! And you walk those streets!"

Maria sat down heavily on the chair across the table from Friedrich, gazed into his eyes, and searched his face. This face, the face of a boy when she met him, now looked more like that of a man. He had, despite the rationing, become broad in the shoulders, with an angled jaw, a shadow of a beard on his face, and under his skin rippled hard muscle.

"You have grown so fast," Maria murmured, reaching out to grasp his chin in her hand, "But you have yet so much still to learn."

"I just don't understand it!"

Maria winced when he jerked away from her touch, and sighed. "I'm not asking you to understand it, Friedrich. If nothing else, trust God."

"I don't think there is a god," Friedrich said stiffly. "If there was a god, Father would not be away, and you would not be in London, and we would not be here, and we would be home—back in Austria. If there was a god, my mother never would have died!"

Maria pulled back at this outburst, but it was Friedrich who, upon the end of this tirade, felt his eyes go wide, and suddenly his shoulders were shaking with sobs.

Maria got to her feet and rushed around the table to his side, and grasped her son in her arms and held him tight, rocking him as he buried his head on her shoulders and tears flowed freely.

"You have been so strong," Maria whispered in his ear. "You have borne in these past few years more than any of us has any right to ask of you, and you have done it with such grace and bravery, Friedrich. Please know that your father and I both appreciate that beyond what words can say. You are a light and a source of pride to us both. I am sorry that your father cannot be here, now, to help you. He is better equipped than I, but he believes he is doing something that needs to be done, something that only he can offer."

"I just want us all together," Friedrich mumbled, wiping his nose and eyes with a fist. "I feel like a scared little boy, and I am almost eighteen!"

"Friedrich," Maria said, "there is not a day that goes by where terror does not strike my heart, knowing the world that we live in now, and the things that I and your father have lived through before. We hoped for a better world for those who come after, but that is not to be. God only knows why, but the important thing is not to let fear paralyze us permanently. It is fine to stand still for a time, but not forever."

"What about Father?" Friedrich asked. "Doesn't he get scared?"

Thinking of the letter that was hidden away in the drawer of her desk in the flat back in London, Maria nodded. "I can only imagine he must, Friedrich, because he has so much to lose if he does not come home. Not his life—he is not that kind of man—but his family."

Leaning away from Maria to look her in the face, Friedrich muttered, "What you must think of me… Mother, I'm sorry—"

Here, Maria shook her head. "Of all the people in the world who owe me anything, you and your brother and sisters are not among them, Friedrich. Know that." Grasping his shoulders firmly, she said, "I love you. I love you fiercely, all of you. I loved you and your brother and sisters before I loved your father. Remember that, and remember your mother, and how she loved you all so much—I can only imagine, Friedrich, the pain in her very soul when she realized she would not become well."

"I did not mean to disrespect you," Friedrich said slowly, "I'm just so angry, and I feel so many things that I don't understand."

Looking at her son with only love and compassion, Maria said, "If you were to join the service, Friedrich, I would be terrified, but I would not begrudge you of it. Put yourself in the shoes of the men I have been asked to help, and imagine that you have met their fate. Would you not hope to receive proper care, and be understood and helped, despite being in a place where you should receive everything to the contrary?"

Slowly, Friedrich nodded. After a long moment he asked, "What happens to them, Mother? After they're well?"

"The military deals with them," Maria said softly. "According to the Geneva Conventions, they should meet no harm, but they are prisoners of war, and I do not forget this, ever. But I do my best to help them while I can, and I have resolved that I will do even better, because I can do better, and I can be better, and it is very important to not let the allegiances of war consume us."

Friedrich was very still at this, and was quiet for a time, pondering what his mother had said. Finally, he looked her in the eye and said, "I don't want to serve. I will go, if I am called, but if I am called… Mother, I want to be a medic. I want to become a doctor. I want to help people, like you do."

Here, Maria felt a warm, broad smile slowly break across her face. "That is a fine vocation, Friedrich! As soon as we come away from here, and settle someplace where it's possible, you should begin your studies."

"I already have," Friedrich said, a little sheepishly. "The neighbor girl a few miles down, her father is a doctor, and he's lent me his books to read. I stay up reading by candle light most nights."

Hearing this, Maria felt her heart swell with a pride and sense of satisfaction that she had never known was possible, and all at once it fell on her, the reminder of what a joy it was to be a mother to these children.

With quiet conviction, she said firmly, "My assignment in London is due to end in March. I will ask to be transferred back to York, and we will all be together again. It is better that way, I think. It is better if we are a family, and it is better that we are a family together without your father here… for the support and strength. You have done my heart such good, son."

Slowly, Friedrich nodded, and mother and son embraced again.

Arms drawn tight around him, Maria said, "We're going to be together, all of us. You have to believe it, Friedrich."

"I am trying," he answered. "I am."

Maria sat in the wicker chair in her room that evening, staring out the window late into the night, thoughts running round and round in circles. She had met so many prisoners-of-war, learned their names, learned their stories. Some had scoffed at her, refused to be compliant, but a sharp biting word was usually all it took to at least make doing her job possible. Others asked her to sing for them, songs of their youth and songs they loved. Inasmuch as she was able, Maria complied.

Some were hard, cold, stiff, while others would wake in the night torn from the inside by terrors in their minds, and it took a team of several nurses and a sedative from a doctor to restrain such fits.

"I haven't seen anything this bad since the last war," one doctor whispered to Maria while he scrubbed his hands and she finished her notes regarding the sedative just administered to one young German Luftwaffe pilot. "It's almost worse. I think it might be."

Maria had grimaced at this, but said nothing, instead looking up from her charts and sticking her pencil behind one ear. "Will that be all, Herr Doktor?"

The man smiled at this slip, shaking his head, seemingly musing as he dried his hands with a towel and threw it in a bin. "Yes, Nurse Trapp, you may go."

Maria made to leave, and just as she reached out a hand to push the door open and reenter the ward she was overseeing, he stopped her.

"Nurse Trapp… why do you do it? These men, any of them could cause your husband's death, their war machine displaced you from your home and your life."

Maria turned and looked steadily at the man who stood across the room from her, his shoulders sagging and his hands hidden in the pockets of his white overcoat. Searching his gaze, she opened her mouth and replied, "Why do you, Doctor? Why do any of us?"

He raised his head at this, and an eyebrow as well, but within a moment he seemed to understand, and nodded. "You may go, Nurse."

Maria hurried to file what she had been by now for hours carrying in her arms before it all had the chance to be set down and hopelessly confounded by a well-meaning orderly. When she had finished, she checked the rota and realized that everyone she was charged with had been seen to, and so she stepped away toward the ward where Allied soldiers were kept, and went to the bed of Commander Wilkeson.

He seemed to be drifting into sleep when she slipped between the curtains of his divider and came to stand before the foot of his bed, and she observed with some satisfaction that in the time since she had seen him last, his bandage had been removed from his head, and in its place he wore a simple gauze patch over his damaged eye. His plasters had been removed and replaced with specimens more suited to helping him gain mobility, and though he still lie there in his bed braced, it seemed that he might very well be on the road to recovery.

"I thought you would never come back," came his voice in the silence.

Maria gave a start, but said softly, "I did not want to disturb you."

He waved a hand. "It is no matter, Nurse Trapp. You have made quite a name for yourself in your absence in these parts, you know. Consorting with the enemy. Makes some of us wonder, some of us suspicious."

"But not you," Maria said shrewdly.

"No," he sighed. "No, not me."

"Your voice is much stronger," Maria said quietly. "This pleases me."

"Sit," he gestured to his beside. "They've taken away my chair, I'm afraid. But I promise to be a gentleman."

Maria sat down, as requested, instinctively reaching out to busy her hands and smooth out the bedclothes.

"And now," he said, "you promised me a story."

"Yes, a story."

Stowe, Vermont
October 1945

Bundled warmly against the cold in heavy woolen jackets and armed with scarves and leather gloves, Maria and Georg wandered arm-in-arm through their property, meandering and talking and falling silent at intervals.

"It's so peaceful this way, and so beautiful," Maria commented.

Though it was unusually cold for the start of the month, the bite in the air had brought with it the smell of winter, as the trees around them turned overnight to a flurry of color, a cacophony of reds, yellows, oranges, and pinks.

"I like it best," Georg said. "The year and the season, drawing to a close."

"I have always enjoyed the renewal of spring," Maria mused, "but it is autumn that I have loved most through my life. The thick, heavy, warm clothes, crackling fires, holiday sweets, cider and Glühwein and the coziness of being bundled together before the hearth. My most cherished memories originate from the sweeping cold of autumn being pushed back by the molten warmth of a crackling fire."

Smiling down at her, Georg chuckled. "Unless I am very much mistaken, your mind has taken leave to Paris."

"It does that, sometimes," Maria joked. "When I'm not quite busy enough, there comes the days of yore to remind me that I once lived a fairytale and have seemed to reaped the just rewards of such. I am quite lucky!"

"Then we shall endeavor to make similar memories," Georg said, "in the future."

With the crunch of leaves beneath their feet, Maria asked, "Do you not mean to return to Austria?"

Georg was silent for a while, and he led her toward the edge of the woods, near where a stream was babbling merrily, icy water sloshing over stones and pebbles, the water black as the earth beneath it.

"I don't know if I could bear it. We faced the immediate fears, when we went to find out about the Sisters, but I don't know, Maria. I just don't think I could live there anymore, knowing what has changed. Knowing how I have changed."

"Things aren't what we remember, sometimes," Maria said softly, "and sometimes they are."

Georg realized that she was speaking of her beloved mountains, and turned to her abruptly. "Maria, do you want to return?"

The pause that followed this question seemed to stretch for an eternity. And then:

"No."

Georg nodded. "I think I know… I think we stand as one."

Maria looked up at her husband and said, "There is a part of me that mourns that this child I carry will never know and love Austria the way we do, but that's our responsibility, after all, isn't it? To impart that love despite the absence? And the brightness of a future here, in this country… and all of our friends whom I love, and they love us! Oh, Georg, I couldn't bear to leave them."

"And nor could I," Georg said honestly.

"These past few years, it's the first time in my life I've felt I had true friends," Maria said. "The women here, they have loved me and shaped me and moulded me, and they have accepted me for all of my oddities and peculiarities. What a treasure that has become to me—I did not know I had been missing it, and that perhaps the strength and fellowship of other women is what I truly sought to claim when I went to Nonnberg."

"That is quite a weighty claim," Georg acknowledged.

"It felt foreign, and I spent rather a lot of time in the confessional over it recently, to be truthful," Maria said, words tumbling out of her, "but I do not want to leave here. It is home, now, and I would miss it. I miss the mountains, but I do not miss life there. We have that, here, and so much more. The children have built futures, we are secure, we are happy, they are thriving, and everything we could hope to want is ours, right here, if we choose to claim it. And I choose to do that."

"That is rather a lot," Georg agreed, "and daunting. Very daunting. I am sorry that even today you still struggle with your situation regarding your vocation at the abbey, but I am and will remain the most grateful wretch that you decided to stay."

"I don't struggle with it so much as seek closure," Maria said. "And that has been the work of years. But the truly gratifying thing is that I have experienced the full power and promise of love as God has intended for it to be between us, both selfless and redeeming. That is… Georg, sometimes I have to sit down just to handle the thought."

At these words, Georg fortified his grip on his wife's arm, and she gave him a small smile.

"You are right," he said. "And there's no way other to have learned this than through trial and error and time, and you, the most impatient one I know, have been so very patient and steadfast in that."

Laughter bubbling in her throat, Maria asked, "Is it possible to be patient about something over which one is not aware?"

"That… well, you got me there," Georg chuckled.

Maria broke away from him and bent down, picking up a pebble. She walked to the edge of the stream, and, placing it strategically between her fingers, flicked her wrist with a tight, powerful motion. The stone skipped across the water, splashing as it smacked against the taut surface of the water before clattering to a stop against the rock across the way, and falling with a small dip into the rushing water to be carried along and settled somewhere new.

"In some ways, I feel like that pebble," Maria said. "I've been thrown around a bit, ricocheting in directions different than I intended, tossed into conflict and trial and being shaped and moulded by it until I have arrived at the person I am intended to be."

"I wish it was easier, sometimes," Georg sighed, "for so many lessons come at such a terrible price."

"Yes," Maria said softly, "but we would not be asked to pay them if there was no purpose for it."

Looking over at his wife, Georg simply shook his head and then peered down, searching in the dimming light for a flat rock to skip across the water. He did so, feeling its sharp edges against the pad of his thumb, stepped closer to the water's edge, judged the distance, and spun the rock out hard, watching as it skipped in big leaps across the water and came to land on the opposite bank in the grass beyond.

"And sometimes," Maria smiled, "we manage to face a task and come away unscathed, and that is important too."

"The gratefulness," Georg said, voice low. "That is the most important part of a clean break. Never stop being thankful, never take it for granted, never become blissfully unaware of what it can cost others that have not fallen to the same lot in the same situation."

"That has been my first thought in trying to live with the impact of what this war has done to the world," Maria said, her voice nearly a whisper as her husband reached out a hand to her and she linked hers with his. They began the walk back to their chalet, and stopped to admire the view of the mountains beyond that was their backdrop. "I know we did not do what the Nazis did, and are not responsible, but the horrors… and what happened to Sister Berthe… that has been a heavy burden to bear, these past months."

"I feel nothing but abject horror when I snap at Max, realizing I've forgotten again," Georg said. "It makes me angrier, but not at him. Of course, he thinks that, and he runs away with it, but I'm truly mad at myself."

Maria nodded. "I know… I worry for him, but he seems to be the dreadfully familiar Max Detweiler, charming sponge for ever and always, and I think Alexandra would say something if she thought he was in a bad way. I hope so."

Georg nodded firmly. "I wouldn't know the first thing in how to help with learning how to live with… such demons. But I think she would see it, and together, we would see that he's looked after."

"Certainly his persistence has been encouraging, at any rate." Maria said this almost flatly, no hint of amusement in her voice. "Georg, I think he means to have his way about the chalet, making it into a lodge. I don't know how, but something in my gut…"

"Yes," Georg replied. "I have had a very similar feeling, like I'm fighting against something that I'm supposed to just go along with. It is utterly infuriating."

Here, Georg's face had set in a hard line, and this is where Maria let out a laugh. Patting his hand as they continued to walk, nearing their chalet and the warmth within, she said, "I think, if we just wait, we might find ourselves mightily surprised, don't you think?"

"That's what I'm afraid of," Georg groaned.

It was difficult not to have the future, and Max's suggestions, in mind, though, because within a matter of mere days, the maple harvest season would be upon them, and Georg, his sons, and some hired help would be out in the forest for all hours, drilling holes and placing spouts, draining sap, collecting buckets, hauling them to the boiling house, and beginning the process of boiling it all down to make it into the sweet, irresistible concoction.

The cold snap, if it lasted, would mean the time had come to begin.

"Do you think I should have some new moulds made, for the candies?" Maria asked once they were safely ensconced inside their kitchen. Georg had sat down with a box of old moulds, and was sorting through them, checking that they weren't rusting or damaged, and choosing designs that he liked best for the process of making maple hard candies.

Holding one up to the light, he peered at it, nodding in satisfaction, and asked Maria, "What did you have in mind?"

"I can fetch my sketchbook," Maria said, "but I was thinking perhaps an Edelweiss flower for Austria, and perhaps the red clover, for Vermont."

Glancing over at his wife as he picked through more mould prototypes from years past, he watched as she busied herself with pulling the frozen cake she had fetched from the freezer box in the basement from the oven, poured coffee for them both, and turned around with hands full of plates and forks.

Gesturing, she asked, "Want some?"

Georg nodded, getting up to bring the full cups of coffee to the table for Maria, who set the cake down with napkins and forks in their places that the scrubbed wood table that sat near the potbellied stove that burned for bread making and warmth.

"Did you have anything more complicated in mind?" Georg teased when Maria had taken her first bite of cake and closed her eyes in contented bliss. "For new moulds?"

Maria's eyes opened slowly, for she would not be deterred from her enjoyment, but she simply smirked at her husband and shook her head. After swallowing her cake, she took a sip of coffee, heavily laden with cream and sugar, and replied, "No, that was all."

"If we're to do it, we need to do it next week," Georg said, "So that we can have enough for packaged production."

"My sketchbook is in the library, then," Maria said. "Fetch it if you wish."

Lifting a forkful of cake into his mouth, Georg pushed himself from the table and went to find Maria's sketchbook. He located it under a pile of books she had apparently been reading, some about flowers native to the area, and others about birds, and one novel—about Arthurian legends. He smiled.

Flipping toward the back of the book as he returned to the kitchen, Georg happened upon a drawing whose page corner had been turned over; on it was the likeness of a newborn baby. Smiling to himself, Georg admired it for a moment, then continued to search for Maria's flower sketches, choosing to say nothing. He loved discovering little things like this about her, the private small things she kept for herself. There might be men who would be jealous and upset by it, but in Georg's experience, Maria's private musings would be shared with him at some time or another, and he was sure that this would be the very same, just as he had discovered her daily ritual of watching her figure in the mirror every morning as she prepared to dress.

He had been glad of the clandestine nature of it, before the mirror shattered, for it allowed Maria to come to terms with her reality without him intruding on it, innocuous as it might have been, but he was certain now, as the days wore on and turned to months, that had she not had that, he wouldn't have the blessing of watching her excitement grow and blossom morning by morning as he had now.

Thinking back to the day several weeks before where Maria had all but leapt over the bed trying to get him up to come see how the baby was sitting just above her navel, a deep satisfaction rumbled in Georg's chest, and he knew that, though it had been difficult to reach this place and it had come in fits and s tarts, the journey had been worth the trouble, even though they hadn't precisely known at the time that they had embarked upon it.

Suddenly, acting on an impulse, Georg asked, "Do you think it was that night? Victory Day?"

Maria, who had finished her cake and was waiting for him to hand her the sketchbook with an anticipatory smile, went very still and lowered the cup of coffee she held until it made a slight thud, indicating that it had met the table.

"I… I don't know, to be honest," Maria said. "Who can explain how these things work? There were times before then, when it could have… you know, after we talked."

Georg took this in, nodding, and said, "Right. But what does your gut tell you?"

"My gut," Maria said slowly, "says that… what we accomplished together that night was the start to a new future." When she saw that Georg still appeared sufficiently agitated, she finished, "Yes, if it is so important to you. I think that's when it happened."

"I do, too," Georg said. "Even if it's not true, that's what I believe."

"Well, Dr. Stiles says the calculations line up within a two-week span no matter which way it happened," Maria shrugged, "but the only real important thing is that it happened at all."

"Ach, Schatzi, let me have it," Georg sighed.

Shaking her head as she smiled, Maria said, "Alright, alright, you great, sentimental baby! Victory Day it was, that's when we made this baby."

"I… I find comfort in the intentionality of it," Georg admitted, "even though the only thing we were intentional about was…"

"Solace," Maria said pensively. "And release."

When Georg raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, she shrugged. "I think about it often."

"I don't," her husband replied. "It… it scares me, thinking of how we were, how I was. I was an animal, beyond myself."

Reaching out a hand, Maria grasped it and said, "I think that's fitting, to be honest. We were both beyond ourselves. Georg, it still bends my mind, to think how fluidly we moved, like we were one being… I will strive my entire life to find that place again, if I must. It was more than just rapture, pleasure, completion… it was as though we had become everything we were ever supposed to be, and that we were heading for only good things as a result."

"I am glad you have the words for what I do not," Georg said quietly, his voice almost a whisper. "It seems too sacred, sometimes, to try to put words to what it is we share, Maria."

"And now," Maria said, a smile of satisfaction crossing her face as her eyes glinted with mirth, "you can understand my dislike of your preoccupation with attaching numbers to our intimacies."

"I've stopped!" Georg exclaimed, but upon seeing Maria's disbelieving expression, he amended, "Mostly."

"I'll give you that," she chuckled, leaning back in her chair now and placing a forearm over her belly. "I regret that coffee and cake, now, for baby is doing what feels like somersaults, now!"

"You, regret sweets?" Georg laughed.

"You'd begin to as well if it meant lying awake half the night," Maria grumbled. "In any case, give me my sketchbook. I'll show you what I've come up with."

Resisting the urge to tease his wife further about how she had so creatively filled her sleepless hours of the night, Georg bit his tongue and handed over the book, watching as Maria thumbed through it, then opened it somewhere two-thirds of the way through and laid it out flat before him.

By the end of the evening they had agreed to try the Edelweiss design, and had discussed improvisations for the Vermont red clover design.

"Perhaps next year, for the clover, then," Maria nodded, "And we and we can see how well something with more detail turns out." Closing her sketchbook, Maria stretched her arms above her head and yawned.

"Seems like you might sleep after all," Georg said hopefully.

"Perhaps," Maria ventured. "But before we go—what do you want for dinner tomorrow?"

"I liked the sound of that dish Laverne suggested at church, to be honest," Georg answered. "Chicken Florentine?"

Maria wrinkled her nose. "Blegh, spinach!" she shuddered. "I've eaten so much baby will turn green!"

"Perhaps its hair, anyway," Georg joked, standing to his feet. "We could go out for it, if you like, instead of you cooking it yourself."

"I associate eating out with eating things I want to eat that I don't make," Maria replied.

"It's good for you, dear heart," Georg reminded. "And good for baby, which is important."

Maria sighed and nodded. The quest to improve her iron levels had continued, and was only now seeing permanent, encouraging results.

"It is probably in part to do with malnourishment some years back, perhaps during childhood or even during the past war," Dr. Stiles had speculated. "If you don't have a good baseline of iron levels by adolescence, and have moderate or heavy cycles as you do, then it never really has a chance to correct itself without intervention," he explained upon Maria's querying.

"My cycle disappeared for a long while during the war," she said quietly. "I wasn't eating enough, wasn't sleeping enough, and lost so much weight."

"I remember how thin you were," Dr. Stiles nodded, "when your family first came here. I thought it was alarming, considering that the children seemed to be no worse for wear, and your husband, while also a bit lighter than a person of his frame should be, was not too far off. It would explain largely why you've not conceived up to now, even though your cycles returned with time and became regular again. Your body was not sufficiently prepared to take it on."

"But I'm otherwise fine, now?" Maria asked, "Save for my iron and my neck?" she added with a gesture.

"Yes," Dr. Stiles said. "There's no reason to believe otherwise, and all your bloodwork comes back otherwise healthy. We should not delay having your neck operated on, especially if you intend to have more children, so keep that in mind after baby is born."

"I will be sure to do that," Maria agreed, "as it would be most unpleasant to exacerbate old damage unnecessarily, when it can be helped."

"If that is all," Dr. Stiles said, closing Maria's file, "I'll see you in a month or so. Schedule it with Laverne, of course, and I'd like to ask you to begin considering whether you want to give birth at home or in hospital. It will be necessary to make arrangements for the birth, soon, as next I see you here, you will be in your third trimester."

Maria blinked at this, and it gave her pause. She said slowly, "It… it has arrived so fast."

"It often does, once the more unpleasant days have passed," the doctor smiled gently.

Maria nodded, gathering her things to go. She was still elated at having heard the baby's heartbeat thudding alongside hers, but this conversational side to the regular appointments had given her pause. She turned back to look at the doctor, saying slowly, "If I were to stay home… could my husband be with me?"

Dr. Stiles glanced up at Maria. He pulled his glasses off with one hand, considering her question. "It would be unusual," he ventured, "but certainly not the first time I have seen it happen, whether by accident or intentionally, and I have found I am not one to presume I may tell women what they can or cannot do in their own homes."

Maria digested this, nodding her head, and straightened her back. "Thank you, Doctor. I shall see you Sunday, then. Good day!"

Maria had been avoiding the conversation since that day, and had not yet broached the subject with her husband, but as they changed and readied for bed, bundling warmly beneath their covers, she posed a question:

"Were you ever there, when the children were being born?"

Drawing his arms around her and burrowing down into his pillows, Georg's answer was a bit muffled as he said, "Agathe was not keen on it, but I was, once. One of the miscarriages."

"I'm sorry," Maria said sadly.

"No, don't be," Georg assured. "I don't regret it."

"I know it isn't done," Maria said, leaning herself into Georg, who lie behind her. She focused on a point on the wall in front of her, saying, "but I would like you to consider being nearby, perhaps with me, for a time. Don't answer me now, just think about it first. Let's talk again in a week about it."

"Alright," Georg agreed. "I take it you would prefer to be home for the birth."

"I would," Maria said, "but if you decide against it, I think I would like to book a bed in the maternity home, and it might be better, then, for all of us. We will have been so busy."

"Yes," Georg agreed. "I will consider it."

"Dr. Stiles wants to know what I plan to do the next time I visit," Maria said, "and he has no strong objection, just finds it a bit unconventional."

"Well, since when have you ever been conventional?" her husband asked.

Smiling, Maria burrowed deeper into the bedclothes and closed her eyes. "I could ask the same of you, but nevertheless I try to keep it interesting. Sleep well, love."

"Sleep well, Schatz."