Jesus had told His followers, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” It was a hard, hard truth, put to the test by the fires of war.
Lena felt a tug on her skirt. Little Bep looked up at her with a worried expression. She was Lena’s child by love if not by blood, and had come to them two years after the invasion. “Is Papa going to come home now?” she asked.
“And Wim and Ans, too?” Maaike added.
Lena didn’t reply. She didn’t know. A tendril of fear sprouted and curled through her, and she knew if she allowed it to grow, it would strangle her faith. She used to believe that the enemy of faith was doubt, but she’d learned during the war that faith’s destroyer was fear. “Let your fear drive you into the arms of God,” her father had said.
“Well, we will hope and pray that they do come home,” Lena replied.
“I miss Opa,” Maaike said. She had pulled the photograph down to her level to look at it, pointing to her grandfather. Lena stroked her daughter’s fair hair and thick braid.
“I miss him, too.”
“Are you crying, Mama?” Bep asked. Lena quickly brushed away her tears.
“Sometimes we cry because we’re happy.”
“I’m happy, too.” Bep wrapped her thin arms around Lena’s legs and hugged her tightly. This child was so dear to Lena’s heart. She couldn’t love Bep more if she had come from her own womb.
But she hadn’t.
And now, with the liberation, the truth would also come out of hiding, like the shadow people. Lena needed to prepare Bep for it. And to prepare herself. She needed to start now, before her courage failed. She set the photograph back in its place. “How would you girls like to help me dig for buried treasure?” she asked.
“Real treasure? Like in the book we read?” Maaike asked. Lena had read Treasure Island out loud to the girls to help pass the time after the village school was closed.
“Yes, but it isn’t pirate treasure. Come with me.” She fetched shovels and a pitchfork from the barn and carried them into the vegetable garden behind the kitchen. Lena had watched Pieter bury the cache late one night, digging the hole beside the corner fencepost so they could find it again. She went to the spot and shoved the pitchfork into the ground to loosen the soil. After a few turns of the spade, she heard the clunk of metal against metal. “Here it is! Help me dig!” The girls bent down beside her, using their hands and a garden trowel to uncover two buried sacks.
Bep wiggled with excitement. “What is it, Mama? What’s inside them?”
She tugged on the larger canvas sack and heaved it out of the hole, the metal rattling inside. “These are all of our pots and things made of copper and brass. The soldiers wanted to take them, so your papa buried them out here.” She untied the bag and let the girls peek inside at the various buckets and pots and a brass tray, the copper tarnished a dull green color. Then she pulled out the smaller sack and brushed away the dirt. Inside was a wooden box.
“What’s in the box, Mama?” Bep asked.
Lena looked at her daughter’s beautiful face and dark eyes, and her heart squeezed. It had been hard for Lena to lie to Bep these past three years, but telling her the truth was going to be harder still—harder than Lena had ever imagined it would be on the day when Ans had first placed the little girl in her arms.
“You know that you came to live with us when you were a baby . . . ,” Lena began. She brushed Bep’s hair from her face, smoothing it back. She still wore the bow in it. “We’ve talked about what the word adopted means, remember?”
Bep nodded. “I had another mama before I came to live with you. And another papa.”
“That’s right. Well, they asked me to keep this box for you. They loved you very, very much. Every bit as much as Papa and I love you.” Lena’s throat tightened.
“But they weren’t able to take care of me anymore,” Bep said, repeating the story she’d been told. It was the first lie that would need to be replaced with the truth. Lena swallowed, remembering the grisly stories from the underground newspapers that revealed the horrifying truth about the Nazi atrocities. The truth about where the trains traveling east from Westerbork had carried Holland’s Jews. Lena didn’t know if Bep’s parents had been among them.
“Let’s take this into the house and wash our hands, and then we’ll look inside the box together.” Lena used their precious sliver of soap to scrub the dirt from Bep’s hands, wondering how to explain to this child the evil that had forced her to hide and lie and pretend. How could Lena explain that while there was a chance her parents might be coming soon to take her home, there was also a chance that they might never come back? The nature of this war and the Nazi occupation had meant living a life of countless lies and deceptions. It meant asking few questions, accepting few answers, knowing it was better to know very little in case you were arrested and tortured. Should she shield Bep from the truth a little longer before telling her why her identity had to be buried inside this box for the past three years? How could Lena explain to this four-year-old why the Nazis had wanted to kill her when Lena didn’t understand it herself?
But little Bep needed to be ready, whether her family came back or whether they didn’t. She would need to mourn if they were dead, just as Lena would mourn if her loved ones in the portrait never returned. Mourning couldn’t begin until she faced the truth. And her life couldn’t move forward until she mourned. Lena glanced up at the photograph again. Even after she’d mourned, she would never leave these precious ones behind. They would always be part of her, carried in her heart as she moved forward from the place of grief.
With Maaike beside her on the sofa and little Bep on her lap, Lena opened the wooden box. Inside was a photograph album and a pair of silver candlesticks, tarnished black. “Your mama and papa gave you these pictures so you would remember who they are, and who you are.” There was also a letter Bep’s mother had written to Lena on ivory stationery. Lena remembered reading it on the night Bep came to her, three years ago, before Pieter buried it along with the box. She unfolded it and silently read it again:
Dear Mrs. DeVries,
In giving you my daughter, I’m giving you part of my heart. For however long this war lasts, you’ll be the one who will watch her grow and teach her to skip and run and sing. You’ll brush her hair in the morning and hug her good night and dry her tears. I pray that you will love her as if she is your own, and that she’ll know comfort and security in your arms. If God wills it, we will meet one day, and I will be able to thank you for protecting my little girl. If He wills otherwise, I ask that you tell her about her father and me, Avraham and Miriam Leopold, through these photographs. Tell her that her Hebrew name is Elisheva, and that it means “God’s promise.” Tell her how much we loved her. And how very hard it was to let her go.
Lena refolded the letter, knowing how this mother must ache to hold her daughter in her arms. How many months had it been, now, since Lena had seen her own daughter Ans and son Wim? Lena understood the pain of loving a child so deeply and having to let her go. Ans and Wim had left Lena in a different way and for different reasons, but releasing a loved one to God’s care, not knowing what that child’s future would be, was an impossible choice for any mother to face.