The Nightingale(111)

“Tell Sophie I…” Sarah’s eyelids fluttered shut. She drew a last, shuddering breath and went still. Her lips parted, but no breath slipped past them.

Vianne knelt down beside Sarah. She felt for a pulse and found none. The silence turned sour, thick; all Vianne could think about was the sound of this child’s laughter and how empty the world would be without it. She knew about death, about the grief that ripped you apart and left you broken forever. She couldn’t imagine how Rachel was still breathing. If this was any other time, Vianne would sit down beside Rachel, take her hand, and let her cry. Or hold her. Or talk. Or say nothing. Whatever Rachel needed, Vianne would have moved Heaven and Earth to provide; but she couldn’t do that now. It was another terrible blow in all of this: They couldn’t even take time to grieve.

Vianne needed to be strong for Rachel. “We need to bury her,” Vianne said as gently as she could.

“She hates the dark.”

“My maman will be with her,” Vianne said. “And yours. You and Ari need to go into the cellar. Hide. I’ll take care of Sarah.”

“How?”

Vianne knew Rachel wasn’t asking how to hide in the barn; she was asking how to live after a loss like this, how to pick up one child and let the other go, how to keep breathing after you whisper “good-bye.” “I can’t leave her.”

“You have to. For Ari.” Vianne got slowly to her feet, waiting.

Rachel drew in a breath as clattery as broken glass and leaned forward to kiss Sarah’s cheek. “I will always love you,” she whispered.

At last, Rachel rose. She reached down for Ari, took him in her arms, held him so tightly he started to cry again.

Vianne reached for Rachel’s hand and led her friend into the barn and to the cellar. “I will come get you as soon as it’s safe.”

“Safe,” Rachel said dully, staring back through the open barn door.

Vianne moved the car and opened the trapdoor. “There’s a lantern down there. And food.”

Holding Ari, Rachel climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the darkness. Vianne shut the door on them and replaced the car and then went to the lilac bush her mother had planted thirty years ago. It had spread tall and wide along the wall. Beneath it, almost lost amid the summer greenery, were three small white crosses. Two for the miscarriages she’d suffered and one for the son who’d lived less than a week.

Rachel had stood here beside her as each of her boys was buried. Now Vianne was here to bury her best friend’s daughter. Her daughter’s best friend. What kind of benevolent God would allow such a thing?





TWENTY-THREE

In the last few moments before dawn, Vianne sat near the mound of fresh-turned earth. She wanted to pray, but her faith felt far away, the remnant of another woman’s life.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

As the sky turned lavender and pink—ironically beautiful—she went to her backyard, where the chickens clucked and flapped their wings at her unexpected arrival. She stripped off her bloody clothes, left them in a heap on the ground, and washed up at the pump. Then she took a linen nightdress from the clothesline, put it on, and went inside.

She was bone tired and soul weary, but there was no way she could rest. She lit an oil lamp and sat on the divan. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Antoine beside her. What would she say to him now? I don’t know the right thing to do anymore. I want to protect Sophie and keep her safe, but what good is safety if she has to grow up in a world where people disappear without a trace because they pray to a different God? If I am arrested …

The door to the guest room opened. She heard Beck coming toward her. He was dressed in his uniform and freshly shaved, and she knew instinctively that he’d been waiting for her to return. Worrying about her.

“You’re returned,” he said.

She was sure he saw some spatter of blood or dirt somewhere on her, at her temple or on the back of her hand. There was an almost imperceptible pause; she knew he was waiting for her to look at him, to communicate what had happened, but she just sat there. If she opened her mouth she might start screaming. Or if she looked at him she might cry, might demand to know how it was that children could be shot in the dark for nothing.

“Maman?” Sophie said, coming into the room. “You were not in bed when I woke up,” she said. “I got scared.”

She clasped her hands in her lap. “I am sorry, Sophie.”