“It’s already done. You know I have to go. You know it’s the right thing to do.”

“But it isn’t! You have a wife and children to think about. A farm to look after. No one will fault you for not going. Tell them you changed your mind. Please!”

“I’m not changing my mind.” He twisted free. Lena knew she was supposed to submit to her husband’s decisions, but she couldn’t face the thought of him going away. Or of being left alone.

“Pieter, I’m afraid for you.”

He sighed and pulled her into his arms. She thought he was going to give in and listen to reason, but he released her after only a moment and walked toward the open barn door. She followed him inside. “You’re getting all worked up for nothing, Lena. You didn’t carry on this way when I trained during the first war.”

“We weren’t married yet,” she said, keeping pace with him. “You didn’t have three children to think about.”

“And now I do!” he said, raising his voice. “They’re the reason I have to go!”

“If you’re truly thinking about us, you’ll stay home.”

Pieter halted and closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them again and looked intently at her. “The first war was more than twenty years ago. I need to take a retraining course with the latest weapons. There’s no reason for you to worry because we aren’t at war and we aren’t going to be. But our military needs to demonstrate that we’re prepared to defend our borders. And I need to be ready too.”

“What about our farm?”

“I’ll get everything in order before I go. Wim will help with the milking. He knows what to do. The training only lasts eight weeks.”

She turned away without answering and walked back to her clothesline. Her anger grew as she shook the wrinkles from each piece of clothing and hung it up to dry. She was angry at the war, angry at Pieter’s stubbornness, angry at her own helplessness. Pieter and Ans would both be gone, and with the two younger children in school all day, Lena would be alone. She had felt helpless as she’d watched Ans board the train to Leiden. She’d felt helpless to stop the march of time when she’d watched her youngest child walk down the road to start school. And now she was helpless to stop Pieter from leaving. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her life would be. How had it spun out of control?

Before dawn on Monday morning, Pieter fed and milked the cows for the last time, then returned to their bedroom to pack. Lena’s anger transformed into panic as she watched her husband place his neatly folded clothes in an empty feed sack and gather his shaving gear.