August 26, 1943

My father is gone.

Day after day, Edwin has gone to the police. Finally, today, they told him that my Papa has been transported. I don't know where. There are rumors about camps, terrible places where terrible things happen. I can't think about it, but I can't help thinking about it.

They say that my father is just a number now. I sometimes think maybe we're all numbers, meaningless symbols in this wide, ugly universe where people live and die and kill.

But my husband comes home to me every night, as solid and warm and good as ever. He holds me when I cry, and he does not get angry when my grief erupts into rage.

Abba once told me, when he was showing me pictures of my mother, that love is not really the thing you see between people when they're smiling and well-dressed and happy. That's only the shadow of the real thing.

Love, he said, is what you see when clothes are ripped and tears are shed and voices are raised but no one leaves or threatens to give up. Love is the choice that keeps people together when everything is tearing them apart.

"Why are you still here?" I asked my husband tonight. I was in my nightgown; I never got dressed today or did my hair or face. I have bags under my red-rimmed eyes. I've been crying almost as much as I've been breathing. Truth be told, I can't remember the last day I fixed myself up or did anything useful.

I'd gone to bed, and Edwin had left me long enough to get a glass of water. I followed him and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, suddenly wondering why he was still with me. He could have married anyone—a nice English girl, or an American. He'd never have had to take on my private pain. It's not as if I'd given him much in return, not in the precious few days we'd had before the agony.

"Why are you still here?" He looked up from pouring my water, and he smiled. I won't forget that smile as long as I live. There was so much affection in it.

"You're my wife," he said. "I'll be with you forever."

"You met me twenty-three days and eleven hours ago," I answered. "You married me eleven days later. Don't—don't you regret it?" I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd said yes.

But he didn't. Of course he didn't.

He put down the glass and came and stood in front of me, not touching me. "Do you regret it?"

I shook my head quickly. "Of course not. But—"

He put his finger over my lips. "No more of that. Just answer me one thing. What is your legal name?"

"Anna Jarvis."

"Do you think you stole my name? Do you think I didn't want to give it to you? I'm not a child. I wasn't tricked into it. I chose to marry you, regardless of what happened after. I married you because I love you, and that isn't a light thing. I chose to love you, because you are the only woman I've ever known that I wanted to love."

"I can't give you anything right now," I answered quickly, feeling my all-too-ready tears coming back to the surface.

He cupped my chin. "You're so blind. When I met you, I saw that you were strong and stubborn and self-sufficient, but all I wanted was to take care of you. I'd never, in a million years, have wished for what has happened, but I am—happy to be yours, my Anna, happy to take care of you. I don't ask for more than that."

I kissed him. I hadn't kissed him in days. Somehow, anything that felt as good as that had seemed like a betrayal of my father, as if it was wrong of me to feel any pleasure when he was suffering.

But now I understood what he'd tried to tell me for so long. Edwin and I had felt the shadow of love cross our faces when we'd embraced in a hotel courtyard, and it had followed us to the synagogue, where we'd held hands and spoken our vows. The days of sunshine had brought us the shadow of love.

As I stood in the kitchen and looked into sleep-deprived face of my husband, with tears running down my cheeks, I knew that the days of shadow had brought us to the sunshine of love, to the real thing.

"I love you," I said. I'd said it before, but I'd never meant it as much as I did tonight. "Will you—dance with me?"

I took Edwin into the front room, and I turned on Mrs. Feher's record player; she'd given it to my father when she and her husband had fled Budapest, just a week after my twenty-eighth birthday. I only had one record, the one I'd danced to with Mr. Bokori at my party.

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood

I know I could, always be good

To one who'll watch over me

Won't you tell him please to put on some speed

Follow my lead, oh, how I need

Someone to watch over me

Romance is nothing like they show in films, kisses in smoky nightclubs with beautiful people and glamorous lives. We swayed to the music in a robe and a nightgown, our movements sluggish and tired. My husband held me close, and I leaned my head on his chest and let the song wash over me, remembering my father but feeling the furthest thing from alone that I'd ever felt.

The furthest thing from alone. That's what love is when the shadow is gone.