Page 42 of The Moonlight Healers

But Peter was her family. His brothers were like her brothers, always teasing her, but in a way that made her feel included. His mom was there for her all the times her own mother couldn’t be, the gingerbread decorating party in first grade, when Bobbie told Louise she would be there but either forgot or couldn’t find the energy to come. Louise’s eyes had stung with hot tears as she sat alone, knowing deep down she wouldn’t show. But before the tears could fall, Marion swept her up in a hug, whispering in her ear, “Come sit with us, honey, we’ve got plenty of room.”

At every point in her life when she had felt the absence of her family most acutely, the lack of a father, the chasm between her mother and grandmother, Peter and his family were there to fill the gap. It wasn’t simply that Louise was scared. It was reckless, to risk losing Peter, endanger the world that had taken years to rebuild.

She realized, with a sadness that felt as vast as the night sky, that she would never be able to take the leap he wanted her to take, that this desire for safety was too ingrained in her, that it was better to minimize the ways the world could break your heart.

“I’ll miss everything,” she managed to say. “All of it.”

ROUEN, FRANCE

1942

12

HELENE

Helene woke with a start. She blinked as sunlight peeked through the edges of the blackout curtains.

Her memories of the previous night were hazy and fragmented, the long truck ride back to Rouen, supper surrounded by a cacophony of voices, everyone talking at once. The entire hospital had transformed. Where before the long halls were heavy with a numb, tedious boredom, the entire Hôtel-Dieu had become infused with sound and movement and purpose. The landing was all anyone could talk about, different accounts of what had happened, of the arrival of the soldiers in the wards, chirps and whispers of news.

Helene had sat silently through supper, staring down at the deep red stains underneath her fingernails, resistant to all attempts to scrub them clean. Elisabeth sat beside her. Unlike some of the other girls, she hadn’t pestered Helene with questions when she’d first returned that afternoon, as if she could sense Helene had neither the energy nor will to answer them.

“Matron Durand told me to let you know that you have tonight off,” Elisabeth said when they’d reached the dormitory afterward.

Helene had climbed into her bed, fully dressed. “Fine,” she mumbled. It felt like years had passed since news of the landing hit that morning. Whatever joy had been on her friend’s face was gone now. “Sorry,” Helene said. “I know you thought…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elisabeth said. She hugged her arms to her chest. “I have to go get report from day shift. We’ve been given a temporary transfer to one of the new wards.”

Helene looked up. She wasn’t due to change ward assignments for another three weeks.

“They want all the staff nurses and sisters assigned to the German soldiers. Probates like us can take care of the prisoners. They’re expendable, after all.”

Helene knew her friend was disappointed by the failed landing, as was she, but this felt like a glimmer of good news. “At least we’ll be away from the Germans?”

“Yes, of course,” Elisabeth said dully. “Good night, Helene.”

Helene turned onto her side and burrowed into the thin pillow. Instinctively, she reached for her mother’s journal, which she kept hidden underneath the mattress. She couldn’t use it in the hospital, but on the days she was most homesick, or whenever she needed comfort, she clutched it in her hands for a few moments, just to feel the solid weight of its presence. Yet, even with the journal, she couldn’t close her mind to the events of the day. In the silence of the dormitory, she heard the sound of engines, the cries of wounded men, softly at first, but then building, until it was so loud she wanted to squeeze her hands to her ears to shut it out.

Breathe, Helene.

Thomas’s calm, kind voice cut through the din. Helene held onto it, and the journal, like life rafts.

* * *

In the light of morning, Helene watched Elisabeth from her cot. Even in sleep, her friend was restless. Her hands twitched and mouth moved, as though she were having an argument with someone who wasn’t there.

Helene knew she should try to sleep more in preparation for the night to come, but her mind revved to life like an old engine, playing the events of the previous day in an endless loop, each image sharper than the last. Before she could replay it all again, she grabbed her slippers and a clean uniform from beneath her bed and left for the washroom.

An hour later, Helene walked into the east wing. She had only ever visited this part of the hospital for supplies or to attend lectures in one of the spartan classrooms, outfitted with a few wooden benches and a chair for whichever elderly French physician had been chosen to speak to them. Now, the corridor was full of a charged, frenetic energy as nursing students and sisters streamed past, carrying stacks of linens or boxes of supplies in and out of doors. No one even glanced at Helene as she headed toward the nearest ward.

“Name, if you will, please,” the guard at the door said in broken French.

“Helene. Helene Paré.”

The young soldier checked his papers, then looked up and nodded.“Eintreten.”

Nearly every inch of the ward’s stone floor was occupied by a cot, one after the next stretching from wall to wall with only narrow aisles in between. Some men sat on the sides of their beds, talking and playing cards, and some struggled to test out crutches in the aisles or limped back and forth from the makeshift lavatory set up behind a curtain in the back. Others were still in their beds, covered in bandages, hands folded, eyes fixed on the cracked, peeling ceiling.

Whereas the German military ward had always felt calm and orderly, enough so that Helene spent most of her time folding linens or organizing supplies, the chaos here was overpowering. There were too many voices: English from the soldiers, French from the nurses and sisters who made their rounds, occasional loud barking from the German guards stationed at the front and rear of the ward. It all blended into one indistinguishable wall of noise.

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