“Lisette is right,” Didier said, yanking her into a rough embrace. “We must have a special dinner tonight and share the news. Isn’t there still a bottle of champagne in the cave?”

She swallowed hard, remembering the bottle she had stolen to drink with Hank. “I wouldn’t know. The Nazis help themselves to everything.”

“Everything?” Rotrude demanded with a sneer. “Even your wife, Didier?” She hated Lisette, because Lisette had supplanted her at Sauveterre. And if an heir was born, then Rotrude and her daughter, Petra, would be relegated to mere guests in the household.

“Will you let your sister speak to you with such disrespect?” Lisette quietly asked Didier.

He let go of her and turned to Rotrude. “Make sure there’s a feast tonight,” he ordered. “And don’t forget the champagne.”

After the encounter, Lisette couldn’t even look at herself in a mirror. Pretending the tiny, fragile life inside her belonged to Didier was the worst sort of lie, but she had to hide the truth in order to protect Hank.

“Let us take Papa to the market,” she said to her mother later that morning. She had to get out of the house. “Didier is demanding a big supper tonight. We can take the scooter. I have an extra petrol coupon from last month.”

She loved taking her father out in the cart attached to the scooter. It made him forget, just for a while, that he could no longer walk. Going to town allowed him to reconnect with friends, the way he used to do. The Monday market was not the same as it had been before the war. With so few men to work the fields, and the Germans taking the lion’s share, the yield was less bountiful. But this was the Var, and it was high summer, and there was fish from the harbor, big tubs of olives, and lovely spice blends. The gardens of Sauveterre were bursting with tomatoes and peppers, aubergines and courgettes, so they would have everything they needed for Didier’s feast.

She left her parents at the Café de la Rive by the bridge, one of the few still open in the village. It was a foggy morning, cool for August. Papa’s friends, the Cabrets, helped him to sit at a table. The ersatz coffee was vile stuff, just an excuse for enjoying a few moments of companionship. The setting by the river beside the mossy old fountain with the spitting fish, under a shade trellis twined with grapevines, reminded her of the old days. Seeing her mother and father with their friends filled Lisette’s heart with warmth.

She had not yet told them about the baby. She didn’t know what to say. For their own protection, she had never complained to them about Didier. Perhaps they would be thrilled to know they were going to become grandparents.

“Why do you look at us so?” asked her mother with a smile.

“You all look so content, four friends having coffee together. In that soft light . . .” She took out her camera and composed the shot, capturing the play of fog and shadow, and the expressions on their faces.