“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.

CHAPTER 1

SIX YEARS EARLIER, JUNE 1939

Lena didn’t want to lose her temper, but her daughter had her close to the edge again. “You simply can’t take a train by yourself to a strange city and live there, Ans. It’s ridiculous!”

“But I’m tired of being stuck here in this nothing town where everyone knows your business. I can’t stand it a minute longer!” Ans was washing dishes, slamming them onto the drainboard to emphasize each word.

“Maybe if you and a group of your friends —”

“They’re all happy living here! Rietje and Corrie have boyfriends.” She said the word as if it disgusted her. “I’d rather be a spinster than marry one of the boys from around here. I would end up being his servant, cooking and cleaning and milking his cows and having countless babies.”

Lena stopped wiping the table and faced her daughter. “Is that what you think my life is like? Do you think I’m a servant with no life of my own? That I do nothing but work and have babies?”

“You wanted this life. I don’t! I’m tired of smelling manure with every breath I take. Tired of eating in a kitchen that’s four feet from the barn.”

And tired of church. That was part of her dissatisfaction, too. Lena knew Ans would start complaining about the church next. And she did.

“The church is nothing but a bunch of dull rituals. Do people even believe the words they say and sing every week? The rules the church makes us follow are so old-fashioned! Like the law that says, ‘Obey your husband.’ The world is a modern place, and —”

“I love your father. It’s no hardship at all to work alongside him and do the things that make him happy.” Lena couldn’t imagine anything better than living with the open fields around her, breathing the aroma of freshly mown hay, and cherishing the seasonal rhythms of land and home. She gave the table a final swipe and tossed the rag into the sink.

“Well, I feel trapped here,” Ans said. “I want to live in Leiden.”