"You have to accept that he's gone," I told Olga. "He couldn't live with...the shock of what happened to your family, and then the loss of his child on top of that. He just wasn't strong enough to deal with it all, but you are. Olga. You're a strong woman, and you can make it through this."

"How can you say that?" she cried. "I'm the one who lost my family, and now my husband and baby are gone as well...everyone I've ever loved is dead...I have nothing left to live for..."

"But you do, Olga, you do!" I urged her. "There are still people who care about you and want you to be happy. You can make a new start in a new place where you can put the past behind you and start over afresh. There's a whole new life in store for you, Olga, a new home where you can learn to be happy again."

Sitting at our kitchen table later, I composed a letter to Olga's maternal uncle, Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse.

Your Royal Highness,

I am writing to you concerning a most urgent matter involving your niece, Olga. As you know, she is the only surviving member of the Imperial family, and as the daughter of the former Tsar, her life is in grave danger. Besides her immediate family, her aunt, uncle, and several of her cousins have been executed as well, and I fear that she is no longer safe here in Russia. If you could provide a place for her to stay in your country, George and I would be deeply grateful.

Yours most sincerely,

Bonnie Blue Romanova

With Vova sent to Paris to join Mathilde and his stepfather, Andrei Vladimirovich, who was also his first cousin, once removed, and Olga safely ensconced in Darmstadt with her uncle and his family, George and I felt reasonably confident that the two of them would never see one another again. However, it was imperative that we leave Russia as well. George's younger brother, Michael, had been sent to Perm and executed there by the Bolsheviks, and his sister Xenia and sister-in-law Natalia had fled to England. George, Katya, Liza and I went there as well.

"Just think," George said to me as soon as we stepped foot on English soil. "After more than twenty years, you've finally arrived at your original intended destination."

The day we arrived was drizzly and gloomy. Dark, swollen clouds in the sky released their burden upon the land, rain drops pelting the leaves and grass.

Within days of our arrival, I learned that there was indeed reason for gloom in our new home, as the country was in the throes of an overwhelming epidemic of Spanish influenza. Wanting to help as much as we could, Katya, Liza and I entered training to become nurses in London's largest hospital.

As George and I had always spoken English around our daughters, Katya and Liza were both fluent in the language. George spoke English with the Scottish lilt of his childhood nannies, and I, of course, still spoke the American Southern dialect of my own childhood. Katya and Liza had picked up the French intonations of their former schoolmates; however, in this time of desperation, none of us had a problem making a place for ourselves in the medical field.

I found the work to be physically exhausting and emotionally draining. Day after day, I pulled sheets over young faces that should have been flushed with youth, bursting with life, now forever still and silent.

One night I lay in bed weeping because I simply couldn't keep it bottled up inside anymore.

"Darling!" George exclaimed as he pulled me close. "What is it? Are you in pain?"

"I saw a young girl die today," I told him in between sobs. "She was barely in her teens. She asked me for a drink of water, and by the time I had fetched it, she was gone."

He knew that there were no words to say that would comfort me, so he held me and silently stroked my hair until I drifted off to sleep.

It was in the midst of all this pain and loss that our Katya, who now preferred to be called Katie, found love.

His name was Henry Jamison, and he had light brown hair that he wore parted on one side and friendly blue eyes in a kind face. Katie had gotten off the bus and accidentally left her umbrella where she'd been sitting. Henry had seen her get off the bus but hadn't noticed the umbrella until the bus had already resumed its route. Henry got off the bus at the next stop and walked all the way to our home to return the umbrella to her.

"My umbrella!" Katie exclaimed. "I'd been wondering what had happened to it! Thank you so much!"

"You're quite welcome," Henry replied with a friendly smile.

By that time the rain had started again, and with neither umbrella nor raincoat, poor Henry would have been drenched if we hadn't invited him to stay with us until the rain abated.

Unfortunately, it lasted until after dark, and our unanticipated guest ended up spending the night on our sofa.