Eve struggled to smile and act nonchalant while they ate, flinching inside each time someone called her Audrey. After breakfast, she helped wash the dishes while Tom and Robbie fixed a bottle for the lamb. Then the three of them walked out to the barn, Robbie skipping ahead with the bottle, the dog at his heels. Eve gazed up at the blue sky and white clouds and knew, deep down, that her secret would be found out. Audrey was here in America and she wasn’t going away. And Eve also knew that it was more noble to confess than to be caught in the act. But she simply couldn’t bring herself to confess—not to Tom or anyone else. Not yet. Not until she exhausted every other possible way out of this mess. And she would find a way out. She had to.
“Come on, Mommy,” Robbie called from the barn. “Hurry! The lamb is hungry!”
“We’re coming.” Tom led them to a little pen he’d made inside the barn, opening the gate for Robbie to step inside. Tom crouched down, wincing slightly as if his leg felt stiff. He showed Robbie how to hold the bottle. The lamb dropped to its front knees to suck, its white tail whirling like a flag in the wind.
Don’t cry, Eve told herself as she watched them. Whatever you do, don’t let Tom see your tears. He would ask about them and she would have to pour out her story. “What happened to the lamb’s mother?” Eve asked instead.
“The ewe had twins and rejected the smaller one,” he replied. Robbie giggled as the lamb pushed against the bottle, guzzling greedily. Her son needed this, needed Tom’s strong arms around him, teaching him things only a father could. She wouldn’t let Audrey take this from him.
“Hey! He drank it all!” Robbie said a few minutes later. “Can we give him another bottle, Uncle Tom?”
“No more until lunchtime, I’m afraid.” Tom ruffled Robbie’s hair as they both stood. “And the lamb is a girl, not a boy. What do you think we should call her?”
“Um . . .”
“You don’t have to decide right now. Think it over and let me know.”
“Okay.” He handed the empty bottle to Tom and ran out into the sunlight with Tom’s dog.
“We need to go home,” Eve said. “Thanks so much for letting him do this.”
“What’s your hurry?”
“My visitors are still here. But I wanted to apologize again for yesterday.”
“There’s really no need . . . Are you all right, Audrey? You seem—”
“I’m fine.” She felt tears burning and fought them back. “Just tired. We got up much earlier than we usually do.”
“Cloudy!” Robbie suddenly shouted. “The lamb’s name is Cloudy because she looks like a cloud.”
“Cloudy it is,” Tom said with a grin.
Eve used the twenty-minute drive home to rehearse what she would say to Audrey, barely listening to Robbie chatter on and on about Uncle Tom’s dog and the new lamb. Audrey was sitting in the living room, her son asleep on her lap, when Eve arrived. She looked rumpled and bleary-eyed, as if she hadn’t slept well either.
“I fed Uncle Tom’s lamb,” Robbie announced in a loud voice. “He said I could name her anything I wanted, so I called her Cloudy ’cause that’s what she looks like. Wanna come out to the farm and see her?” he asked Audrey’s son, who had awakened. He shook his head.
“Have you eaten?” Eve asked. “Would you like breakfast? I can fix some toast or eggs . . .”
“Neither of us are hungry,” Audrey replied.
“Maybe some tea, then?”
“We need to talk, Eve.”
She couldn’t stall any longer. Eve sat down on the sofa, perched on the very edge, and drew a deep breath. “Listen, Audrey. If you need money, you can have all of Robert’s life insurance money and the trust fund his parents set up. All of it, if you’ll just—”
“If I just what?”
“Go back home. Please, I’m begging you!”
“I told you, I don’t have a home.”
“Then I’ll sell this house and give you the money to buy one. And I’ll send you more money every month, as much as you need—”
“I don’t care about the money, Eve. I didn’t come here for the money. My son is Robert’s child, and he deserves to know his grandparents and to have a real family. I don’t have any family left and—”
“Neither do I! All I have are the people I’ve grown to know and love here. Please, let Robbie and me get on with our lives. He loves all these people, too.”
“I know what happened to your family back home, Eve, and I’m so sorry for you. But this is my son’s family, not yours. I want Bobby to grow up surrounded by them, celebrating his birthdays with them, Christmastimes.”
“And I want the same thing for my son!” And for herself. How many times had Eve started all over, forging a new life when the old one ended? She couldn’t do it again. The loss would undo her. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to talk quietly so she wouldn’t upset the boys. “I’m sorry, Audrey, but you can’t have this life back. It’s too late. We’re settled here. I’m sure we can figure out a different plan for you, a different road to take—”
“I’ve reached the end of the road, Eve. I’m not going any further. I belong here, not you.”
Eve stood as her fear of losing everything made her desperate. “Listen, the war taught us a lot of things, most of all, how to live day to day. We never knew during those long, endless months and years what would happen tomorrow, whether we’d be dead or alive by morning, so we both tried to grab a little happiness wherever we could find it and—”
“I tried to warn you about the poor choices you were making, but—”
“Don’t lecture me, Audrey! I’m not your servant anymore!” She was shouting now. “The war did away with all the barriers between us and made us equals. I’m sorry your father sold Wellingford Hall. But you threw away your chance to have this life when it was offered to you four years ago. It’s too late to change your mind!”
“It’s your fault for—”
“Don’t you dare blame me for the way things turned out! If you’re going to blame anyone, blame Hitler. He ruined our lives the day he invaded Poland. Or blame the Americans for not coming to help us until it was nearly too late. We did the best we could, Audrey, making the best decisions we could, trying to survive the bombs and the rockets, living on a pound of meat a week and a few ounces of sugar and a pinch of tea, if we could get them. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. How could I ever forget?” The determination Eve saw in Audrey’s eyes, the strong tilt of her chin, startled her. “But Bobby and I are not going anywhere. We’re staying here.” Audrey had found her courage at last.
Eve closed her eyes as she faced the reality of what she was about to lose. She pictured Granny Maud standing in front of her, wagging her finger the way she always did when Eve misbehaved. “The Good Book says that when you sin against the Lord, you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” Were the losses she now faced God’s punishment for her sins?
There had to be another way out. But Eve had no idea what it was.