Violins of Autumn by Amy McAuley Page B

the light.
    “Are you happy here, Betty?”
    I’d been yanked away from my friends. I didn’t want to live in the home of strangers, feeling as though I had nothing and no one. No, I wasn’t happy, but what was the point in telling him the truth? It wouldn’t change anything.
    “Yes, sir, I’m happy to be here,” I said.
    “Your aunt is delighted to have you with us. You are the spitting image of your mother at your age.”
    “Did you know my mother?”
    “We were childhood friends. But after the Great War, things changed for those of us who grew up together. Some friends came home. Some friends were never seen again. I was one of the lucky ones who came back. Your mother’s brother was not.”
    “Yes, I know. He was a war hero, like my father.”
    “Falling down a flight of stairs does not make one a hero. The only action your father saw was inside a hospital.” My uncle’s pipe flared brightly and cooled. “I do apologize, Betty. I shouldn’t have spoken about your father that way.”
    My mother’s story of how she nursed my father back to health while they fell in love was one of my favorites. Uncle Edward was wrong about my father not seeing action. That wasn’t how the story went at all. My father was an admirable man.
    “But I thought my mother went to America to marry him because he was a hero.”
    “Betty, perhaps you should talk to Aunt Lib.”
    “Please, I’d like to know. Really I would.”
    “Well, your mother wasn’t the same after her beloved brother—” Seeming at a loss for words, he said, “After her brother didn’t return home.”
    In 1917, my mother’s brother died. My uncle couldn’t say that outright, though, because I had lost my own brother. When people talked about death around me, they used pleasant words like “pass away” or “resting in peace.” A tear dripped to my hand.
    “Your mum couldn’t escape her sadness here. She leapt at the chance to run away with your father because … she felt she needed to. To move on with her life.”
    Everything I thought I knew about my parents was turning inside out. Feeling sick to my stomach, I remembered the way my father had looked at Delores, so soon after my mother’s death, as if she were the only woman in the world. As if my mother never mattered to him at all. Was that why he had sent me away? Because he hadn’t wanted to be my father in the first place?
    “Aunt Lib wasn’t blessed with the daughter she always hopedfor,” Uncle Edward said. “We’re truly happy to have you here, Betty. For as long as you’re happy to stay.”
    My uncle misunderstood. Their home was only a temporary stopover, like the stepping stone Tom and I had used to jump from one side of the creek to the other. I had taken the first leap from school to London. I was sure my father wouldn’t leave me stuck in the middle. He would bring me home before the war started.
    I refused to give up hope as days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months. Then, in May 1940, German troops made their move, swiftly invading France. The war became terrifyingly real. And when it did, I didn’t ask my aunt for the truth. I already felt the pain of it in my heart.
    I’d been stranded.
    Dr. Devereux must have given Estelle a dead-on description of my appearance. When I turn down her busy street, I hear a woman call, “Adele! How splendid of you to visit!”
    From the steps of an apartment building a gray-haired woman comes running. Her open arms give fair warning of the hug on its way.
    “Hello, Great-Aunt Estelle,” I say, returning the hug.
    To enter her building we will have to cross paths with an approaching German officer. I lower my head to walk past him without attracting notice.
    Estelle walks right up to him, smiling, and says, “Officer Berger. This is my great-niece, Adele. Isn’t she lovely?”
    He lights a cigarette and says an obligatory, “Hello.” Then he carries on. He couldn’t care less who I am. Little does he know an SOE agent