Lena ran to her son, stumbling forward, her legs unable to carry her fast enough, and embraced him with all the joy and love she’d felt on the day he was born. He was so tall! She’d forgotten how tall he was. Had he grown taller while he’d been away? His fair hair was long and ragged and needed to be cut. His chin felt stubbly when she kissed it. Pieter would have to teach him to shave. She was holding Wim at last! It didn’t seem real. Her husband was home and now her son. Thank God, thank God!

Lena laughed when Wim also asked for a glass of milk. She poured him one, remembering that he’d been caring for the cows when the Nazis took him. Unlike Pieter, who didn’t want to talk about the past few months, Wim told his story as if it had been an adventure. “We weren’t treated badly,” he said. “But when the Nazis heard that the Canadians were coming, they just left us in the camp and drove away. The Canadians fed us and told us we could all go home, but we didn’t even know where we were. They had to draw us a map!” He chuckled before adding, “I guess I should have paid more attention in geography class.”

“Were you scared?” Maaike asked. “I would be.”

“When they shoved me into the back of that truck and we drove away . . . and I had no idea where . . .” He paused, gathering himself. “Ja, I was scared. I prayed the Lord’s Prayer, over and over, because those were the only words that came to mind. And it helped.”

Lena gazed at this boy, soon to be a man, and her heart swelled with love and pride.

“The work got so hard that sometimes I thought I was going to drop . . . and they would beat us if we stopped working . . . so I started saying the Twenty-third Psalm, too. The others heard me mumbling all day and started calling me Dominie —but I knew they meant it in a good way. We were all young, all scared. I wasn’t the oldest, but I was the tallest.” He smiled, then took another gulp of milk. “After a while, the others started asking me to pray for them, too. They sort of depended on me. I knew I had to stay strong and ask God to keep me going because I didn’t want to let the others down. I thought of Opa so often. Things he said in his sermons . . . I remembered how he’d held all the people in his church together.”

“Yes . . . he did do that,” Lena murmured.

Wim looked up at her. “Do you think I could really be one someday?” he asked.