Eloise trudged up the stairs after they returned home and went into her bedroom instead of her workroom. “I would like to sleep now,” she told Ans. “Please leave me alone.” She tried to stop Ans at the door, but Ans followed her inside.

“I need your help, Eloise. We have to come up with a plan to move Miriam’s family here without being noticed. Do we know if we can trust your neighbors?”

Eloise turned away to stare out the window. “We can’t fight the Nazis. They’re too strong. This war is different from the last one. This time we’re going to lose.”

“So you’re just going to give up, Eloise? You’re going to let those monsters take Miriam and Avi and that beautiful little baby away?”

“I can’t watch everyone I love die again. I can’t! I won’t!”

Ans crossed the room and grabbed Eloise’s shoulders, turning her around and shaking her. “Eloise, stop it! I just heard you promise Miriam that her family could hide here. Are you going to break that promise?”

Eloise grasped Ans’s wrists, pulling her arms down and pushing her away with surprising force. “I told you I need to sleep! I’ll think about everything later!” She had never argued this way before, and it terrified Ans.

“Let me get your medicine —”

“I can take it myself! I’m not a baby!” The word seemed to trigger something inside her, and Eloise collapsed to the floor, sobbing. “That baby . . . that beautiful little baby . . . I watched everyone die in the last war, and I can’t do it again . . . I can’t!”

Ans sank down beside her, holding her tightly and letting her cry.

When Professor Huizenga arrived home an hour later, he found them there. It had been one of the longest hours of Ans’s life. “Come, darling, take your medicine now,” the professor soothed. He waited in their bedroom until she finally fell asleep.

“What happened?” he asked Ans afterwards. She saw his concern. He wasn’t accusing her.

“We read in the underground newspaper that they’re starting to round up all the Jews in Amsterdam, and it was too much for her. I know she handles things better when she has something to do, so we went to Miriam’s apartment to warn her and her family. Eloise offered to hide them here. But seeing the baby triggered Eloise’s grief, and . . .” She couldn’t finish as sorrow clogged her throat.

“Did the newspaper say when the roundups might start here in Leiden?” Ans shook her head. “Might your friend on the police force know?”

“I-I could ask him. I’ll run over to his apartment right now and see if he’s home.”

“Ans —thank you for helping Eloise today,” he said, stopping her. “She told me she pushed you, and I’m sorry —”