Dressed in their funeral clothes, they hardly recognized each other. Kim found an old lipstick in the bottom of her pack, and she self-consciously applied some at the bathroom mirror, two little girls her rapt audience. "You smell cleaner than usual," she commented to David. He just looked at her, one eyebrow giving a twitch.

Over breakfast, Drächen, Indali and Kim told David about their goodbye party at the orphanage.

"We have one more person to say goodbye to," David said to Drächen. "When we lose someone, the way we lost Mama, we say goodbye with a funeral."

"Mama's love goes on forever," said Drächen.

He nodded, looking at his child's face. So beautiful: tipped up toward his, guileless and trusting. Relying on him to do this right. "Her love never ends," he agreed. "We're not saying goodbye to her love. We're saying that now she lives in our hearts."

"Blumen?" Drächen asked, her blues eyes flashing.

"Yes, we can get some."

So, after breakfast, they made inquiries and went to a florist, not the closest one, but the largest one in Hanover. Drächen chose, and the designer created a florid arrangement of hot-colored tropical flowers, greenery, even tiny pineapples still on the branch. David actually beamed at the end result. Marie would have loved it. Drächen puffed up with pride, and Kim took digital pictures of her posing with it, alone and with Indali. It was taller than either little girl. No way would it fit in a cab. They left instructions for a rush delivery, and grabbed a taxi. They just had time to get to the church. David wanted to be there before Martin arrived.

Martin Kreutz climbed slowly out of his taxicab. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, weary with bereavement. When he stepped into the church narthex, he saw David immediately and halted. The silence was immense.

"There's someone here you should meet," David said finally, indicating a doorway.

Eyeing him, uncertain, Martin slowly moved toward the door and through. They were in a small meeting room where a nun sat visiting with a young woman and two small children. Martin looked at David, wondering what this was all about.

"That's our daughter, Marie's and mine," David said, indicating Drächen. As carefully as he had said, Why don't you sit down? to Martin just a short time ago.

"She's two. Her name is Marie Helena. Marie called her Drächen."

The floor had grown unsteady under Martin's feet. Except for her eyes, the little girl looked just like Marie's baby pictures. He gasped, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. "Drächen… Sounds like a name Marie would give a baby." A brief laugh escaped him.

Drächen ran to Kim, squealing with delight, and Kim scooped her up, kissed her.

"Who is that?" Martin asked, guarded again.

"Kim. She was taking care of Drächen in India when I went to find her after the Tsunami. She was stationed there with a relief group. That other little girl is Kim's daughter, Indali." David gave the information slowly, understanding that it could never adequately answer Martin's questions.

Martin nodded, as if it all made sense. Trying to maintain decorum, when there was no reason to it at all. Not to Marie's connection to this man, a man of secrets, of violence. Not to the existence of a two-year-old child, his sister's daughter, that he had never seen or heard of. Not to the presence of another woman, holding that child instead of Marie. Not to Marie dying, in the place of this terrorist. There was a roaring in his ears.

"What?" he asked David.

"Do you want to meet her?" David led Martin over to Drächen, said, "Drächen, dies ist Ihr Onkel Martin." The child looked up at the man's frozen face and smiled. She offered him a vanilla biscuit, one of many that the nun had been pressing on her and Indali, and he accepted.

David indicated a chair, and Martin sat. A priest opened the door and looked in, and David went to speak with him.

Martin started eating the biscuit, delicately holding it between finger and thumb with pinky extended. He showed with elaborate rolling of eyes and patting of stomach just how delicious it was to him, and Drächen smiled in delight, came to lean on his knee. He spoke to her in German and she was even more delighted. Indali hung back, sank into Kim's lap.

Martin reached and lifted his niece to his knee, and her smile faded. He was hugging her. She didn't know him, his arms were too tight. Kim reached out a hand, and then Martin was crying, loud and uncontrollable sobs tearing their way out of him as he gripped the small child tightly. Drächen reached out for Kim, panicked. Indali added her voice to the fray, clinging on to Kim and starting to cry.

Kim got to her feet, one hand in Drächen's hands, saying calmly to Martin, "She doesn't know you. You're frightening her. Here, I'll take her." He was not letting go, the sobs still issuing forth. The nun was murmuring in German, alarmed.

Drächen was truly terrified now, struggling, eyes wild, crying, "Papa! Kim!" David strode away from the door, leaving the priest in mid-sentence.

"Let her go, now!" Kim said, heading into the lower and more insistent territory of her vocal range.

David ended it by putting his hand on the other man's arm, and jabbing his thumb assertively into the bundle of nerves terminating under his armpit. To the nun, it appeared that he was simply putting a steadying hand on the aggrieved brother's shoulder. Martin's grip loosened instantly and involuntarily, and Kim took the child out of his arms.

"Let's go out, Sweetcakes," Kim said, carrying the wailing child towards the door, Indali stumbling along behind, clinging to the skirt of her dress. Looking into Drächen's face, she whispered in the child's ear, "You didn't like that. His arms were too tight. It's going to be okay, Drächen." They exited, the priest closing the door behind them.

Martin was still sobbing, David stood nearby, stone-faced, ready to intervene again, as the nun murmured in Martin's ear. A second nun cracked the door, looked in from the hallway. "Das Begräbnis fängt jetzt an."

Besides the nuns, Martin, and Cronin, they were the only mourners. The flowers added a unique touch to the sanctuary, befitting Marie's memory, David thought. Drächen grew restless mid-way through the liturgy, and Kim took her outside with Indali to eat more biscuits and chase pigeons. When the service ended, David looked around for Martin, saw his back receding up the aisle. He let him go.

Drächen was shrieking with delight as pigeons pecked cookie crumbs from her hands outside. Indali, laughing and breaking up biscuits to fuel the game. Martin paused next to Kim to watch.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Kim told him.

Martin turned toward her, eyes watering. "You are going to go with him now? You want to be her mother?"

Kim broadcast nothing about her wants. "Marie was her mother."

Martin nodded. Of course she would say that. "I hope you have some good life insurance," he said, and went to hail a taxi.

David appeared on the sidewalk in front of the church about ten minutes after Martin departed. He watched, attentive, as Drächen showed him how she fed the pigeons, and then turned to Kim. "I need to ask you a favor."

She just looked at him.

"I want to stay with Marie until the cremation is complete."

Kim's took a step back. Nodded, looking up at the clouds, the church spire standing out in relief against them. She managed to keep her face composed. General Order 5, she reminded herself, on both their accounts.

David took a breath, as if to say more, then glanced at Cronin—always lurking—and said nothing. He kissed and hugged both children. "Bye, Ladybug. Bye, Honeybee," he said, and went back into the church.

(1) The funeral is starting now.