Montpelier, Vermont
October 1945

Standing quietly beside Georg, Maria focused on breathing slowly in and slowly out, counting the steady kicks of her child that came in regular intervals. They were waiting at the foot of the courthouse to meet with Friedrich and his fiancée, and walk together to the church. Her body, meanwhile, seemed to be on its own clock, and was not only aching and contracting, but she was feeling far too stuffy in the coat she wore, feeling as though she had overdressed, with her stockings, new boots, woolen underthings, and the dress and cardigan she wore for today's event. She even had gloves on her hands, which she had realized too late had become, just like her shoes, too small.

Tilting her head down to her feet, Maria clasped her hands beneath her belly and focused on the thrum of the baby inside her, not for how much it contributed to her current aches and pains, but as a measure of his activity from day to day. It was her newest method of distracting herself, and she had taken to marking these things down in her notebooks, to which she was transposing music.

When Georg had looked over her shoulder one night and asked her what she was doing, she had explained briefly, and he had shaken his head. "I don't know how these things come to you," he commented. "That is inspired. Baby will have his own song at birth."

"Well, not quite," Maria said. "I plan to include baby's birth as the grand finale."

"I cannot wait to hear it," Georg said.

Maria said, "I had thought of writing the chords for a violin or piano, but…" she sighed, seeming to hesitate. "I want it to keep it, just for us."

This pronouncement gave Georg pause, for a moment. Usually, Maria was so eager to share music, song. It was reflexive, instinctual, for her. That she wanted to keep this between them, her and baby… Slowly, warmth and gladness spread through him, and Georg could not help but wrap his arms around his wife, rocking her gently. "But of course, my love."

"You aren't offended?" Maria worried, chewing her lip as she leaned into her husband's embrace and turned her head to look at him. "It's only that I don't want a spectacle… and I rather think of this as the last thing I'll have when the years have worn away the details, smoothed all the sharpness."

"I think it's marvelous," Georg reassured, "and if I know you—and I rather think I do—comings and goings in the next years will acquaint me with this love song, and it will mean all the more hear it because of the object of your affections."

"Oh," Maria sighed, leaning heavily back against her husband, "oh, you are a darling man." For a few long moments, she merely rested against him, breathing. Then, turning her head, she added, "The only thing I shall regret is not putting the many instruments between the children to good use for it."

"Speaking of instruments…" Georg said, taking the chance to change the subject, "I received a telegram from my father-in-law. He said the Guarnerius has been sent along, and that it should arrive in a few weeks' time."

"I shall look forward to the chance to see Brigitta if it comes before the Thanksgiving holiday," Maria said.

"And I as well," Georg agreed.

Maria said, "I think I would rather keep things simple this year. Small. Perhaps just us, Lilian, Max, Alexandra, and the girls."

"That sounds fine," Georg answered. "Especially as I don't think I'll be in any shape to help, and you know how hopeless I am with any food that isn't butter and bread."

Maria smiled at this, and turned back to her notebook, plucking a pencil from somewhere in the mess of bedclothes.

"You look so lovely, Baroness von Trapp!" Friedrich's fiancée, Hannah, exclaimed, yanking Maria back to the present day with her somewhat jarring cheerfulness. "Simply glowing!"

They were inside of a small church now, and Maria had discarded her overcoat in the vestibule with those of the others' while her son and his soon-to-be-wife consulted with the priest and organist. Standing straight as she stepped into the foyer, she dropped her shoulders and brushed lint from the skirt of her dress. Maria had chosen a simply-cut item of her own design, which was a deep navy blue, beautifully stitched up top with a shimmering floral pattern and cinched at the waist, with a sash tied behind, a row of buttons lining the front of the bodice, which was adorned with matching chiffon sleeves, and the skirt falling in a flare to just past Maria's knees. She had draped a cream cardigan over her shoulders and traded her boots for a pair of matching red pumps.

Georg came up to her and pressed a kiss to her temple, whispering, "You are glowing! Stunning, my love."

And she was. It was no favourite phrase of Maria's to hear this, especially not on days where Georg realized she was quieter, like this, attempting to maintain a state of mind that did not motivate her to cry out in frustration for the struggle that she hurt more often than she did not, right now.

Just this morning, she had experienced a meltdown of sorts, realizing that her growing breasts were now not only uncomfortably swollen, but leaking colostrum as well, and had leaked through the lovely shift Georg had purchased for her some weeks back.

It was a simple thing, to clean the clothing, and draw a bath, pour some oils in, and deposit Maria in said bath, but she had been inconsolably upset by this all, sobbing to Georg about the mess of her shift, wanting to know if it would always be this way, finding that her body did things she had no say in, while her emotions danced always on the edge of one turn to another. Georg, not sure what to do, had gingerly taken her into his arms and rocked her, reciting poetry that usually calmed her, listing off her favourite things, and eventually, he left her—to which he received a loud wail—to put a record on the record player for her. He chose a piece from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and turned the sound up loud enough that she would be able to hear the warm, soothing notes of it above her sniffling.

This, finally, worked, and he was able to persuade her to carry on with the day, which was urgent, as she still needed to bathe and breakfast, and then they would drive to Montpelier for Friedrich's wedding.

The results of her harrowing morning did not show, for Maria was as pretty as a picture, and had made up her face with simple, but emphatic make-up: dramatic cat's-eye liner, an orange-red lipstick which matched her shoes, and she had curled her hair in such a way that it framed her face in soft petals and she looked every bit the beautiful woman that the years had turned her into.

Georg could not say this to her, for she would most likely not react well, but he enjoyed the glow that pregnancy had brought to her skin, and the return of some of the childish roundness to her face. It had been so long since he had seen her that way that he had forgotten it almost entirely, but when it began to return, it had made him glad, for even if it would not last, it was yet another mark that they were moving toward a future and a life where only prosperity had a place.

The preceding years that had drawn Maria's face, made her thin and bony, and a seeming waif despite her frame, had not been good ones, and Georg winced to recall that. The time, too, that had brought her the struggles that made her current state less than comfortable at all times still made his stomach clench with residual terror. There were few things that turned to nightmares in his sleep, but the memory of seeing his wife bruised and battered on a stretcher as an over-full hospital tried to find accommodations for her was among his worst. The only nightmares more disruptive were the odd terrors of his war days, which had returned with ferocity not long after leaving England and had required such patience and longsuffering on the part of his wife.

The years had not been kind to him, either, for he couldn't see much beyond the end of his nose, now, effectively requiring eye glasses, and there was significantly more gray to his hair, and he never had quite regained the weight that had fallen off of his own frame, and sometimes when he looked in the mirror he thought he looked rather too sharp and stern, his cheeks slightly hollowed. But he had spent the past years living a physical, active existence, no small thanks due in part to his wife, but also to his work, and though he had never felt precisely right in the time since the war, a sort of invigoration had come over him in time and it had become the same kind of drive to him that the dangers and trials of leading a ship in war had once been, and it had led him to a contentment he hadn't known he needed on the foot of such rocky years between him and Maria that had brought him to a place so low.

He found, however, that it was not low, for the prosperity that was wrought in the maple trees surrounding their home was a magic all unto itself, because although it was livelihood, it was also participating in the cycle of life and the meaning of being alive, and living, and not just simply walking about aimlessly, merely existing.

There was something in the crisp crumble of a maple leaf, the smell it gave, that sharpened in Georg's nose and made his heart leap, now. When it had all begun, it was something new, curious, intriguing… different. He had sought to make it his goal to master the craft, and that he had done—such that, now, Maria would design new candies, tally the books, greet the visitors, pour the sap from the boiling vat herself and watch with a careful eye as it cooled and darkened, and all that wanted a part in the proceedings had a part therein.

It made sense, to Georg, and it felt like a well-oiled machine that functioned just the way he liked when things were in order, and it ran on a seasonal cycle, which was also most familiar to him. And, in effect, given so much, he had learned what it was to be content with less.

"Father, it's time!"

Turning his head, Georg realized that Friedrich was entering the church sanctuary, and after a quick glance at Maria, who was now standing there waiting for Hannah, Georg followed.

It was strange to stand here, eight years later, but also wonderful, at the head of a church, to look down the aisle and see his wife standing there. This time, it was not she who was clad in white, but the new wife of his son. But when Hannah made her appearance, and Maria glanced to her with a small nod, taking her leave to walk up the aisle, Georg found that when Maria raised her chin and looked straight ahead, that familiar glint had lit again; her eyes locked with his, and the entire journey from door to pulpit, she kept her gaze on her husband, and she seemed to radiate contentment.

Georg felt a sort of tightness in his shoulders suddenly loosen as this contentment washed over him, and smiled to himself as Maria turned left at the end of the row and seated herself at the front of the church. Some friends of Hannah came behind with flowers, and Friedrich had asked Kurt for his ring bearer, who came down the aisle escorting Hannah's mother, groping nervously at his pocket as they went along.

Noticing this, Georg stole a glance for Maria and saw that she had turned and seen it too, and as if on cue, she turned her head to look at her husband briefly and smiled, shaking her head, the left side of her upper lip twitching with amusement.

At last, Hannah appeared on her father's arm, a pretty vision in her white lace dress with a simple veil that reached her waist. The entire ceremony altogether was finished within minutes, without the need for the show due to lack of an audience, and soon the happy couple was being waved off to their car, where they would drive off into the afternoon to begin their short honeymoon in Baltimore, at Liesl's suggestion.

"It was lovely," Maria said, sinking into the overstuffed armchair of the dining room where she and Georg had reserved lunch together with Hannah's parents. "I rather wish we had done the same."

"You know we couldn't have," Georg reminded, sitting down beside Maria and offering her the boots to replace her red heels with. She took them gratefully, rubbing her feet, and sighed.

"I know, of course I know. And I shall never forget how I felt to wear that dress. I had never felt so beautiful in all my life."

"I seem to remember you shaking like a leaf when you reached me," Georg smiled, "but a very pretty leaf. You were brave, to make that journey!"

"The fact that you agreed to the wedding in Mondsee eased my discomfiture considerably," Maria recalled. "I had always been enchanted with the place. As a child I imagined my wedding, there, and as a postulant, I envisioned saying my vows there."

"It was, I think," Georg said, "a worthwhile compromise, and it lessened my own unease at the idea of marrying in the abbey that you first suggested. Even though we had done nothing wrong, it just felt… wrong, somehow, like I had stolen something from it."

"You could also admit to being intimidated by Sister Berthe," Maria said cheekily.

"Hmmph," Georg sighed. "She really made you kiss the floor?"

"She really made me kiss the floor."

They both sat there, thinking their own thoughts about this—Maria, a memory, and Georg, a rumination—when at last, they remembered, and the countenance of them both sobered considerably. Looking at each other, they clasped hands between them and waited patiently to be assigned a table.

"I don't suppose there's any harm in saying it now," Maria said, "but Hannah confided to me this morning that she is expecting a baby. Her parents don't know, so don't say anything."

"I had wondered," Georg said quietly. "But nevertheless, I am glad for them, and Friedrich's face—and Hannah's, truthfully—shone with such joy. I am glad that they can have that together, and have it as it's meant to be. Unsullied."

Leaning against her husband, Maria said, "I'm glad for them, and I'm glad to know that kind of free, unfettered love can exist in this weary world despite what war has just concluded itself, but I'm glad for what we have, too. Grateful, blessed, overwhelmed, really. I wouldn't change a thing. I hope you know that."

Placing Maria's heels beside him, Georg drew an arm tight around her and pressed a kiss to her temple. "I wouldn't change a thing, either, except to always be the sort of man you deserve."

"Love isn't about what we deserve," Maria said softly. "It's about what we need, and what we can give."

Several minutes later, they were led to their table, and several minutes after that, the parents of the bride arrived, all smiles and good cheer. It was a bit too much for Georg, who, even after almost five years in the States, found effusive American cheerfulness a bit difficult to stomach, but his wife rose to the occasion gracefully as she ever could, and all smiles, was warm and funny and charming and allowed her current state to be a conversation centerpiece despite her dislike of it in other circumstances.

Georg contributed where he was required by etiquette to what was happening around him, but mostly, he nudged Maria's heels firmly beneath his seat, leaned back, and watched Maria wring the effect she always wrought on people and had no idea of. Eight years he had the privilege of watching this, and still he was no closer to unraveling the mystery of it. But he enjoyed it all the same, and it gave him a taste of what could have been, when his mind wandered far enough toward that to dare to wonder at all. Maria did not like it, but he could not help it.

"I'm afraid my husband fell ill for a few days," Maria was saying, "so we have yet to completely assemble and arrange the nursery, but it is falling into place, isn't it, my love?"

"Yes," Georg said absently, reaching for her hand beneath the table. He squeezed it, and she gave him a small smile as she turned her head toward him.

"Well, we are glad you were well enough to be here for the big day!" Hannah's mother bubbled. "I confess, I was alarmed when they said they wanted to change the date—thought the worst, I admit—but it seems they are perfectly in love and informed in their choice!"

"It is nice to see such innocence after a long, terrible war," Maria said mildly. "And the purity of young love."

This was met with raised glasses, calls for a toast, and a round for all, with Maria raising her water glass good-spiritedly.

"You could have just a sip of champagne," Hannah's father had coaxed, but Maria firmly shook her head negatively.

"My response to it is not altogether guaranteed. It comes and goes in turns, and right now, the time is not good."

"You must be anxious to have the baby," Hannah's mother said over her salad. "With Liesl marrying and the maple harvesting about to begin!"

"Baby can stay well enough where he is, for now," Maria said, "and I'll be glad for him to come when the madness dies down in January, right on schedule."

"Do you think it's to be a boy, then?" the woman asked, wide-eyed.

Maria shrugged, looking to her husband. "I have a feeling, but Georg is not convinced."

"Too many girls so far to be convinced I've broken the cycle," Georg said blandly, raising his wineglass, which earned a chuckle and another round of toasts.

"Aren't you nervous, having a baby after your other children are all but grown?" Hannah's mother queried.

Obligingly, Maria replied, "It was never a question of if, rather when. There's never truly a good time, so the way I feel about it is not based around the others, but it could be my husband feels rather differently."

Georg shook his head. "Of course, the first days will be a long reminder, but I am only glad. My children and my wife are my highest treasures on God's green earth."

"Oh, how nice," Hannah's mother sighed.

Soon, Maria could feel herself fading, and so she took the lead to finish lunch, making her excuses for a need for a lie-down, and the new in-laws happily obliged, wishing them a lovely visit and safe return to Stowe the next day.

"We must make plans for Christmas!" they cried, and Maria and Georg nodded in agreement, taking their things to check in to their room for the night.

"Georg," Maria said as she sat down on their bed, "I must confess: I had fantasized great and romantic things about these brief hours we have here, but all I want to do is sleep. Will you join me?"

"Maria," Georg answered, "I would like nothing better."

And so, after some rummaging around in their travel suitcases, Georg had removed some pajamas for him and a shift and his wife's favourite blue silk dressing gown for her, and helping her undress, proffered her change of clothing through arm holes and helped pull it over her head and her belly, and helped her into bed. After stripping down to his shorts, Georg decided against his pajamas, having spent too much time in the past days wearing sweat-soaked night clothes, and instead went to open a window for Maria, drew the curtains mostly closed, and then slipped beneath the covers, spooning up against her warm, soft form. She was snoring ever so lightly, having drifted off within seconds, and this was the closest thing he could think of to pure bliss.

Smile on his face, Georg soon drifted off, himself, pleased that the day had been such a wonderful one.

"I have another confession," Maria said later, over a cup of tea and some toast, "which is to say that Hannah's parents are exhausting. Well, her mother particularly. Her father was very quiet all things considered."

"You handled them with such grace," Georg consoled. "It reminded me of… before."

"Yes, I suppose it rather has been like that, today," Maria mused. Then, straightening up as she broke a shortbread cookie and dunked it in her tea, she said, "Tell me, Georg, are you truly not upset about this grandchild?"

Georg shrugged. "I could get angry, I suppose, but to what end? It wouldn't change anything. And truthfully, Maria, I oft dreamed of doing such things to you that would have led to the same outcome."

"For shame," Maria teased. "All the grief you gave me for being the saucy one, pretending you were immovable, while all the while you're dreaming of me enough to aggravate the maids about the washing up!"

Georg groaned. "You know about that?"

"I do," Maria said, eyes twinkling. "And I have done, for some time. I just hadn't figured out what precisely it meant, yet."

"My humiliation has come to claim me," Georg said.

"Don't be so dramatic," Maria said with a roll of her eyes. "I understand, Georg, that you most easily express your affection and devotion with physicality. I do."

"That was hardly affection or devotion," Georg moaned, "pure lust, rather!"

"All the more for me," Maria grinned. "All for me! I think I see why Paris was such the adventure it was!"

"I don't suppose you'd be interested in that book, as you so aptly phrased it," Georg asked.

"No, I think not," Maria said. "You don't need it, I am sure of it. I haven't changed my mind on that score."

"Well, I am glad you've done on others," Georg said, gesturing with a small smile at his wife's burgeoning belly.

"As am I," Maria said softly.


York, England
May 1940

With a grunt and a shove, Maria managed to push her way into the bedroom she and Georg shared once again, and then kicked the door shut again behind her. Her arms were full with a basket of linens and white undergarments, and Georg looked up, startled, from his place near the window where he was watching Louisa teach Kurt how to drive the chauffeur's car in the front drive.

"Do you need a hand, love?" he asked, twitching the curtain closed and stepping toward Maria.

"I've got it," Maria gasped, heaving everything to the bed. Breathing heavily, she bent over and clutched the stitch in her side, shaking her head. "I wouldn't mind a hand with the folding, in any case."

"Of course," Georg said easily, plucking some items from the top and shaking them out with small snaps.

The pair worked together in silence for a while, then Georg finally posed the question that had come to mind the second he realized his wife had laundry in her arms.

"Why haven't the help done this? The maids, or even a footman?"

"The maids are stretched thin," Maria said, her expression pinched. "The able-bodied men have all been called to the front. I offered to take care of our own things to lessen the burden."

"You are rather stretched thin yourself," Georg said quietly.

When they had reunited the week prior, awareness of each other had missed nothing, but the relief, the consolation, the desperation of being together again had dulled the shock to him. Now recovering from his own traumas, Georg saw it more clearly day by day, and frankly put, Maria's physique was alarming to him—he could count her ribs, he could see the knobs of her spine down her back even through her dress, every flex of her muscles, and her long face had taken on an angular sharpness. Her eyes seemed larger than ever, and when she did sleep, she did not sleep well. Not that he was much better off, but she ran herself so hard that the advantage they had over many, being in the care of the Whiteheads, was lost on her for how hard she worked. The toll of the daytime sharpened his focus on all the things he had learned for truth that night in Liverpool, and left worry in its wake.

"I can't sit still too long," Maria said, glancing at her husband, askance. "I—I feel like there's a target on my back. I have to keep going."

She had dropped the towels that she'd been straightening and folding and was instead twisting her ring nervously around her finger. "I—I just can't—"

Here, Maria's voice caught in her throat, and instantly, Georg drew himself to her, enveloping her with his arms and rocking her slowly. "Shhh," he whispered. "Don't fear, my sweet. It's not worth the grief."

"Every day," Maria said, voice muffled against her husband's shoulder, "every day, I fear that Friedrich will be called next. He's nearly old enough, now! And if this war carries on long enough, then Kurt will be enlisted, too."

Slowly, Georg closed his eyes, feeling his heart clench as Maria said these things. He understood why she did this, why she did it all. It was not for her own safety and security, it had never been for her own ego or peace of mind, but all for the children. Running his hands up her arms, Georg cupped his hands around her face, tracing his thumbs across her cheekbones, smiling at the freckles that he could see so plainly on her bare face.

"Maria, we can't control any of this," he said, staring into her eyes. "We were both trying, in our own ways, and it isn't working. It almost broke us."

Maria was gazing earnestly back, and with a shuddering sigh, she nodded. "I know, and I am sorry."

"You are proud of your vocation, though," Georg said, touching a hand lightly to the belt Maria wore as a nurse.

She shrugged. "I can wear many hats. This is one of them."

"Tell me a story," Georg said, leading her to sit on the loveseat that was before the fireplace. "About your work." As he said this, he remembered how she had refused this request once already, the night they found each other—themselves—again, but perhaps the different context, a more immediate event, would prompt her to speak.

Maria was quiet for a moment, and with a shuddering sigh, stared into the empty grate and said, "I helped deliver a baby just yesterday, whose mother was the same age as Liesl, and whose father had been drafted. He died last week in a Navy exercise. He hadn't even been out to war, yet. Gone. The birth was difficult. Baby wasn't turned quite right, and attempts to manipulate him failed. This made it excruciating for the mother, Georg. I have delivered my share of babies, but never have I heard shrieks like this. It was terrible. But in the end, baby came, and though the mother was worse for wear, she had enough wits about her to grasp the child in her arms, and she refused to let him go longer than to be cleaned and weighed, and before long, she was asking for help to nurse him and had named him after his father. Said she had a reason to keep on going."

"Oh, my love," Georg sighed. "War makes fools of all of us, it seems."

"That's just it, though," Maria said. "That's the thing that has been impressed on me through all these months, these years—life goes on, Georg. In its strange and cruel and insistent way, it continues on. And beautiful things come from it."

"Will she be alright, the mother?" Georg asked, squeezing one of Maria's hands.

"She'll be fine in a few weeks' time," Maria said. "Nothing that patience and time can't heal. That baby will be her world. I looked at her and thought to myself, that must be what Agathe felt every time a child was born and you were away at sea. That she had added to her number yet another fierce reason to live."

"Yes," Georg said, very still. "She was extraordinary in that way."

"In any case," Maria sighed, "I've been thinking a lot over the past days about what brought us to such a terrible place to begin with. I know I am not faultless, and that I am stubborn. I know that I hurt you by not giving the support you needed, and I am sorry for that. But a part of me is still… well, I feel quite cynical when I look at you. I don't like it. You took a piece of innocence from me, something which I trusted you would never do."

Georg winced at this, knowing that if they did not address the events of the past year-and-a-half now, that it would never resolve completely. He couldn't find it in him to even be bristled and angered by his wife's words, for she had chosen her words with care, accepting her part in their falling out, but also being honest in its effects on her.

"I assumed some things about you," Georg said slowly, "when the opportunity to be a seaman came to me. I assumed that the ranking would make you proud of me, even though to you rank means nothing more than who commands who. I assumed that you would fall in line behind the scheme because it seemed such a logical way to ensure the family's continued safety. I assumed that you would accept the prospect of the commission without question. You did none of those things. I was rankled, I felt disrespected, and I felt like you did not care. It made me harden against you, for that is the sort of man I am. I wish I could be a better man, but I am not."

Maria was looking at Georg with a calculating gaze, and he found himself wondering if he had inadvertently ignited her fury. The longer she was silent, the greater his dread grew.

"I recall once asking you not to behave like you owned me," Maria said. "When you tried to bend me into seeing things your way despite every cause for alarm I felt was present, I thought it was my duty to display the truth for how I saw it, and you refused to even hear me."

Spreading his hands, Georg muttered, "I have no excuses for that, only pigheaded pride, because that is who I am."

"You are brave and you are loyal," Maria said. "We promised each other after the trials of arriving to Switzerland that we would not separate the family again. You left not just to another city, but to go to war. I had to do more than be a waiting, watchful girl at the harbor, Georg. I had seven children and the pressure of your in-laws to consider."

"Why did you allow them to be sent to the country, and to take on the commission at the London?" Georg asked, taking the opening as was presented.

"I was furious with you for it, but I let the children go for their own safety," Maria said. "I knew that even though we had not agreed on it together, that they would be safer there than they were here. I took the assignment to the London for many reasons: because I was asked, and because I would be one less mouth to feed for the kind country folk that were taking in England's children so readily, I needed a different perspective, and quite truthfully, I wished to spite you."

"I am grateful nothing ill came of it," Georg said, feeling like chalk had been coated down his throat.

"As am I," Maria whispered. "It was a great risk, a stupid risk."

"You did your job well, though," Georg offered.

Maria shrugged. "I tried, in any case. I don't know how much I really helped. For the longest time, I hated the Germans. For what they had done to us, for what they could do to you, and what they were now doing to the rest of the world. But someone showed me something kinder, something braver, and far nobler than self-pitying hatred while I was there."

"Who was this person?" Georg queried.

"A British officer," Maria said. "He'd been bombed and torn apart. He was preoccupied with stories, rather the same way you have been recently, and he returned the favour unsolicited with many wise and bitter things about the reality of war. A part of me had wondered if you'd gone running off for the fun of it, thought you were getting the best of Hitler, but he helped me see that you were doing this out of your need to serve and the ability to do so. It wasn't easy."

Georg blinked. "He…"

Maria smiled ruefully. "I can't always be with the mothers and babies, you jealous wretch. In any case, he was closer to your father-in-law in age. He never was inappropriate. I promise."

"I trust you," Georg said, a bit hurt by the implication to the contrary. "But surely… even while you were there… I came to see you and you turned me away. What changed your mind?"

"The letters," Maria said. "Well, really, the one you addressed just before Heiligabend. The apologies. The sincerity. The worse part of me wanted to believe you were just saying what you thought I wanted to hear, but there was something in the other letters you sent me that made me believe you."

"What?" Georg asked, almost breathless.

"Despair," Maria said. "If your letters had been full of cock-sure bravado, I would have burned the lot, but you were more honest in those letters than I have felt since we were in Paris together. If it weren't for the accompaniment, I would not have believed you."

"You are a strange bedfellow," Georg croaked.

"I just wanted honesty," Maria said softly, her voice breaking. "That was all I asked. I felt your eagerness, your excitement, but I also had this dreadful sense you were lying to yourself about it all!"

"I was," Georg said bluntly. "They didn't bother to instate my promotion. Seemed rather like they were hoping I would die on the mission and then they wouldn't have to be bothered. And now I've quit, I'll never get it."

"Captain is enough for me," Maria replied quietly. "It always has been, Georg, and I would love you even if you were a peasant farmer who lived next to me in the mountains."

At this, Georg snorted, but Maria shook her head and offered this: "Did Agathe only love you once you had begun to achieve rank?"

"No… it was from first sight," Georg said cautiously.

"Why do you think I am any different? To be sure, you irritated me from the first day, but Georg… I did not love you for the medals and accolades—I hardly know that man. I love you for who you are simply as Georg, man, father, my husband. Trust yourself with that much. You are more than your military career. I believe that. I wish you would, too."

These words fell on Georg as a crashing avalanche, and he was rendered speechless.

"I will admit," Maria sighed, "that for long stretches in these past months that I did not think I liked you, let alone loved you. But I have also learned, as you have come back to me, that love grows and changes… and though I love you more than my own life, I cannot always be wholeheartedly in love with a flawed person, as a flawed person myself. So I ask you for grace and understanding on that count, and I ask your forgiveness."

"Maria…" Georg trailed, "I don't think there's anything I need to forgive."

"But there is," Maria said, shaking her head. "Unless I read your words wrong, and you were in truth spinning lies to me, never once in your letters did you fail to write 'I love you.' Had I been doing the same, I would not have accomplished that with such faithfulness, certainly not day-by-day."

"Oh," Georg muttered. "Well, if it means so much to you… it is forgiven."

"Thank you, Georg," Maria said, grasping his hands in hers and looking into his eyes with earnest. "Aside from discounting what you value, what you place your pride in, I have been convicted that this was my greatest sin."

"I don't see how," Georg croaked, "for when we come to the end of the line, it is you who has the perspective that helps me understand things. Not just you, but the world. Maria… it is a gift!"

"I vowed to love you and stand by you, and I have failed in that," Maria said, turning her gaze downward. "I deserve the damage we have wrecked well enough. Please don't think me faultless."

"I don't," Georg answered. "As you said, we are flawed. We both hurt each other, broke promises, made choices that caused pain and strife."

"Do you know what really sent me flying into your arms, Georg?" Maria asked suddenly, looking up.

"What?"

"I missed you. I longed for you. I wanted you in my life again, no matter what it took. Even though I did not deserve it, I wanted you back with me for all I am worth."

"That certainly explains the… reception," Georg chuckled.

"I'm sorry I was so harsh with you the last time we were together," Maria said. "It was too much, too strong, and my only wish was to hurt you. You always have your place beside me, if you want me."

"I'll always want you," Georg said, "but certainly, I won't take you for my own when you do not want it. I won't suffer too much, you so rarely turn me away, Maria. I am a blessed man."

"And I am equally blessed," Maria said, leaning forward to touch her forehead to his.

A while later, the pair were sitting quietly beside the crackling fire with the wireless on in the background, and it was with news of another grim attack upon London that they looked at each other and seemed to think the same thing.

"We need to leave," Georg said.

"America," Maria said, with conviction. "We have to go there. Who else would accept us? Even if they join the war—it's such a big country!"

Georg nodded, understanding. "They will stay out as long as they can, I think," he said. "A day will come when they must join, I fear, but it might just be long enough to land on our feet and make a good life."

"I would like nothing more," Maria confessed. "Perhaps a farm, with a horse and a milk cow, a dog, some cats, and a garden out back."

"There is no one I'd rather do it with," Georg smiled. "I have the advantage in you."

Maria smiled at this, but quickly sobered again a moment later. "When do we tell the children?" she asked. "And their grandparents?"

"Let's make the arrangements, without anyone knowing, first," Georg said. "I've a nasty feeling Robert isn't pleased with me at the moment. Then, we'll tell them."

"I would like it very much if we did not have to sneak away in the dead of night," Maria said nervously.

"No," Georg replied. "It won't come to that, if Robert knows what's good for him."

"In that case," Maria said, "I have to go to London tomorrow for training. I'll go to hand in my resignation, instead, and be home in time for dinner. Will you have had enough time to organize it all?"

"I think so," Georg said. "I'll use my own accounts here to book our ship passage and make sure the children's passports are in order. I have some friends in New York that might be able to help us find lodgings before we set sail."

"Right," Maria said, "then let's wash up for dinner."

The dinner gong had just sounded, and Georg nodded, releasing his wife so that she could go freshen up and change into a dinner dress.

The next morning, Georg rose before dawn to breakfast with Maria, then stood at the foot of the manor steps, waving her off with a smile, satisfied that today would be one of success. He would make the arrangements, she would turn in her uniform and resignation, and they would inform the children and the Whiteheads, to begin preparing for the long journey ahead.

It was long past time to leave this place behind. They had come here seeking immediate shelter, and they had tried to scrabble a piecemeal existence together, but Georg recognized now that they had not come with the future in mind, and now it was time to turn to that if there was to be a future at all. It was with surprise that Georg noted the weight of his conviction about it, so different from the unease of the fabricated conviction that had pushed him to send for help from English relations, knowing it could very well be a dangerous toss of the dice.

This was a future they were making for themselves, and once again the world felt light and what was before inconceivable seemed all at once possible again. Perhaps he was a fool to think this, but Georg could hardly find it in himself to care. His wife was on his side, and he was on hers, and they were a team once more.

Georg felt like whooping for joy.