Tough Love
Part Two

Mary Kate brought the younger children back just before breakfast, all three with smiles on their faces. "We helped milk the cows!" Gretl informed her mother as she gave her a hug and kiss. Maria reached out to take her little boy from Mary Kate. "And how did you enjoy your night, my sweet?" she asked him and received a toothy grin in reply.

"He was an angel," Mary Kate replied. "Henry is just so amazing. If having the children over last night isn't the final push to get Sean to consider a family, I don't know what will be."

Maria noticed a wistful look on Mary Kate's face. "Georg and I…well we never discussed Henry, he just happened. Perhaps it is better to plan. If we had we'd have been settled here for certain. It was not easy being pregnant on that ship from England. Would you care for some tea or coffee? I'm about to get Georg's breakfast."

"No, thank you," Mary Kate replied. "I must fix Sean's meal as well. Perhaps though supper sometime soon, the entire family?"

Maria agreed with a smile. It seemed she was finally making a good friend.

When the Captain got to the table, Friedrich was already there eating the oatmeal Maria had put in front of him. Marta and Gretl had already finished and set off to do their chores before music lessons. The Captain was quiet, sipping his coffee and looking over the morning paper. Henry sat in his highchair watching his father with wide eyes. He loved to try to copy the Captain's movements. He watched everything intently like Brigitta did, but he only tried to mirror his father.

The Captain tickled the baby's tummy eliciting a laugh then turned his attention to his oldest son. "Friedrich, your Mother and I have been talking and…we were a little hasty last night. It was a shock you see, for us to encounter you…that is for us to see you engaged in such an adult activity. I lost my temper and I apologize."

Maria knew what that cost her husband. He was not one to apologize to his children often. After taking responsibility for three years of cold distance following their biological mother's death, he rarely said he was sorry for any disciplinary action, justified or not. "I am disappointed in the choice that you made, not in you."

The Captain looked at Maria. She sat down between the two of them and looked Friedrich in the eye. "We hope that your actions are coming from the right place, even if they aren't coming at the proper time. We'd like for you to ask this young lady…what is her name?"

"Lucinda," was the one-word reply.

"Lucinda," Maria echoed. "To supper one night soon. We can plan for the others to visit friends or to help Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien for a few hours and get to know her. We want to support you Friedrich even if we don't quite understand your choices."

Friedrich contemplated that, "I'll ask her when I see her tomorrow."

Maria felt the Captain bristle at that. He hadn't lifted his punishment; he still didn't want Friedrich to socialize but Maria laid a soft hand on the Captain's arm. He covered her hand with his own and bit back his retort, choosing instead to say nothing.

"We would prefer," Maria spoke up. "If you took the weekend to think about this. We've taught all of you that the action you were performing last night is something special."

"It's not really all the special," Friedrich replied. "It's just sex."

The Captain's grip on Maria's hand increased as he held back another sharp reply. She had made him promise to keep his head when speaking to their son. She had compared the conversation to battle, if he lost his cool there would be a lot more suffering than if he simply took his time.

Maria nodded, "Well, even so…Take the weekend to think on this please. On Monday, after school, you may speak to Lucinda and invite her to the house. I'll make arrangement for the other children and you can offer her a date and time. Now, finish your breakfast. I believe you have an essay to write before we go into town later this afternoon."

Friedrich looked up, "If I'm supposed to be thinking about what I did, why are we going into town?" His voice held a tone of smugness that the Captain ached to put an end too, but as he was feeling that his son's behavior was partially his fault, both genetically and emotionally, he had agreed to let Maria do the talking for the time being.

"To see Father Flannigan of course," Maria replied as she stood up and took Henry out of the highchair. "You can't very well receive the Eucharist tomorrow in church with this on your soul. You'll be spending a good while in penance I suppose but…Be ready by three."

Friedrich hadn't heard that tone in Maria's voice very often, it was reminiscent of when she was merely his governess and had gotten angry with them. She meant what she said and there would be no arguing with her. He was getting off easy and he knew it.

Maria was right. Father Flannigan had Friedrich on his knees for the better part of two hours saying his penance. While they took the bus to town both said very little to each other. Maria was angry, she realized the emotion the more time she spent near Friedrich, but it wasn't his careless coupling with a woman they didn't know that got her dander up. It was the black circles under her husband's eyes from yet another sleepless night.

The entire trip from Austria to Switzerland the Captain barely slept. He sat up, his old side arm in his lap, listening, watching…He was ready to protect his family. Even if he was only one man, he would give as good as he got, he wouldn't go down without a fight. He told her in the last moments at the villa he'd go to the Third Reicht over his own dead body and she knew he meant it.

When they were finally safe in Switzerland, she felt that he would finally be able to rest. Until she began to feel weak, tired, dizzy, and all sorts of other troubling symptoms. Georg had watched his first wife slowly die and given the fact that she had what she thought was her woman's time and was not sick to her stomach, pregnancy was the last diagnosis that entered either of their minds. Maria blamed stress, the Captain was terrified it was something more.

When the doctor confirmed a pregnancy, they had been happy, they had spoken of more children and now they were being blessed. Still, with the Nazis moving so swiftly across Europe, neither of them felt it was safe to stay in Switzerland. What if Hitler ignored the former treaty granting Switzerland neutrality like he ignored everything else? What then?

They planned the trip to England, with plans to sail for America. Georg worried that moving his funds, which were, by some miracle not entirely frozen, he would tip off the Germans before they made it to London and but for the grace of God, as Maria always said…More time awake.

Over those months, Maria watched her handsome, vital husband fade. He was grieving again, it was plain to see that, but this was a deeper pain, he didn't just lose his spouse this time around, this time he lost himself.

All throughout their journey, there was glimpses of her Georg. He would joke, tease her, sing with her and the children, but he never seemed to be able to relax. When she went into labor with Henry, she feared he'd need the doctor more than she did. Every contraction saw him jumping with nerves and by the end he was the one begging the physicians to administer a sedative the way they did it in America. He couldn't bear to see Maria in pain, even if she was bringing their child into the world.

Henry had been a large, healthy baby, and Maria had delivered him with no complications, though her labor had been long and demanding. She was up and around caring for the baby the very next day to her husband's chagrin. Then came the colic when none of them slept. The older children had taken to sleeping in the barn to avoid the crying. It seemed the only thing that would settle their son at all was being held high on Georg's shoulder as his father patted his tiny back and sang Edelweiss.

Maria was glad for the expert help but felt guilty as she watched Georg go off to look for work after consuming so much coffee his hands were shaking. When he finally did get a job with solid pay and a reasonable schedule Maria hoped things would settle down.

And they did, until last night. She had watched the Captain sleeping a few times glad that he was catching up on over a year's worth of sleep. Now, that look was back, and she couldn't help but hold Friedrich responsible for that.

For his part, Friedrich was glad he didn't have to discuss Lucinda with Maria. She wasn't that much older than Lucinda truth be told. She wasn't old enough to be his mother, in fact, his father was nearly old enough to have fathered Maria. It was Lucinda that pointed that out to him, that his so-called stepmother could in fact be his older sister. That made the marriage he had celebrated from the start seem odd and disgusting to him. He was angry, so angry…They would still be in Austria if it wasn't for Maria. If it wasn't for Maria, the Captain never would have cared enough to leave. Maria had come into their lives and turned them upside down, sometimes Friedrich wanted that cold unfeeling man to come back, at least then he could be as he wished without facing any blame.

When Maria and Friedrich got back to the house, he went to his room and she started to help Liesl and Louisa with the supper. Henry was sacked out on his little baby carpet near his toys, Gretl and Brigitta were both setting the table while Kurt and Marta tried to tune in the radio for the evening's entertainment.

"Where's your father?" Maria asked.

"I think he went out for a cigarette," Liesl replied. "I thought he'd given that up but he's been doing it a lot more since we moved here."

Maria nodded. She didn't care for the habit either, but most men did it. In Austria and in America among those of a high social station, cigars were the norm, though Georg had always indulged in any form of tobacco, though cigarettes were usually his implement of choice.

For some reason, Georg felt that smoking was all right for him, but didn't want to do it near Maria or his children. His need for nicotine then was usually satisfied alone on the back porch.

Maria stepped slowly towards the door, only marginally acknowledging Kurt and Marta in the parlor. She pushed open the door and found her husband, unlit cigarette in hand, staring at the sloping landscape of their own little piece of the American dream.

"How did it go?" he asked without looking at her.

"He was very quiet," Maria replied. "I'm sure it was as embarrassing for him as it was for us. Maybe moreso… Are you going to smoke that or stare at it?" She gestured to the cigarette in his hand.

"I really have no desire," he replied. "One way or the other. I just…I really don't want to talk about this, Maria."

The Captain was nearly pleading with her. He did not want to revisit Friedrich's actions from the previous night or the cavalier way he spoke this morning. He was still too angry and too hurt; rehashing it again and again trying to find a solution was overwhelming.

"All right," Maria agreed. "We don't have to talk about it. What's done is done after all and we can't change it.' She crossed the porch and stepped closer. The Captain turned and pulled her down onto his lap.

"I love you," he whispered. "More every day."

Maria touched her forehead to his, "To the moon and the stars…" she murmured.

"And all the way back," they said in unison. He started to rock gently, he only ever felt good and calm when Maria was in his arms. If he could carry her around all day long that would be satisfactory for him. He didn't quite understand it, he had loved Agathe with all his heart, but this need to just feel Maria all the time…it was deep, desperate, and different than any other emotion he ever felt in his heart.

He supposed it had to do with that changes she brought into his life. Music, laughter, love…he felt as if he could only have those things with her in his embrace and no other way. It was all so fragile, in a split second it could all be lost.

Maria felt the Captain relax as she settled again him. She pressed his head to her breast and stroked his cheek, they didn't have to speak, there was no reason for it. They knew what was in the silence of their hearts. Maria was reminded of something Sister Margaretta had told her when she confessed the sin of singing inside the abbey walls. "Sometimes the sweetest music is silence," the older nun had advised. That was holding true right now. She never felt more alive than when she was in Georg's arms. That was her home, it didn't matter the geography.