He didn’t put arms around her, only gathered two handfuls of her skirt. “I wish I’d known. If I’d known, I would’ve come after you. Why didn’t you tell me?” The pain of the past reared up on him like a spooked horse, and he resisted the impulse to shake Astrid by putting his forehead against her belly. “I wish you’d told me.”

“I’m so sorry. By the time I found out—”

“I know. I know why you couldn’t tell me. I know you must’ve been out of your mind, terrified, caught in a situation with so fucking few options. I know now, Asta, but back then, I was just…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, crying again. “Nobody gave you a chance and I was no help. I didn’t fight. I should’ve fought.”

Her knees bent and she came down to him. They didn’t kiss. They didn’t even hug. Only their foreheads pressed tight.

Finally, he dried her face with the tails of his shirt. “Did Zé know about us?”

“Yes.”

“He knew the baby was mine?”

“He knew everything. I couldn’t lie to him. On top of everything. And I thought…or hoped…”

“Telling him absolutely everything would make him not want you.”

She nodded. “It was a wretched time. I despised myself. Every day I wanted to write you and tell you everything, but each time I started, I couldn’t think of a thing to put on paper. I was sure you hated me and anything and everything I said would only make it worse. I had only two ways to interact with you: totally in love, or totally estranged. Then your last letter came, with the Hildur.”

He slid his palm from her shoulder, across her collarbone and to the little lump of gold pinned inside her blouse. A bit of shrapnel from when their love affair had been hit by a grenade.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I told you once,” he said softly, “that being a lady of your word is nothing to be sorry for.”

“What about the word I gave you?”

“There was none. We were ripped apart so fast, we didn’t have time to make promises.” He smiled and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “If I recall correctly, we barely had time to put our clothes on.”

Her hands came up to her face, but he couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.

“You have no idea how the memory of the day we spent here sustained me through everything,” he said. “I thought about it all the time.”

“I thought losing the baby was punishment for not fighting. I still feel it.”