I look back at the rowboat, where the valise sits, forlorn and forgotten, in the very peak of the bow, because nobody wanted to sit near it—reeking as it does. Gregory stirs in my arms and lets out a lusty cry.

Because I am numb with sorrow, revelation steals over me quietly, like a thief.

Lord Almighty. The football.

And I laugh—giggles at first, then giant, hysterical whoops that shock Gregory into silence and cause everyone in the trawler to stare at me as if I’m crazy. Maybe I am. Are we not still surrounded by misery and death? Does my heart not groan in anguish for what we left behind? Still, I laugh. I can’t seem to help myself.

Sumner Fox’s final handoff, across the goal at last.

Before I fit the baby into the crook of my elbow and reach down with one hand to take the bag from the sailor, I kiss my sister on the cheek. She’s the only one left in the world who understands.

Four

Every man is hung upon the cross of himself.

—Whittaker Chambers

Iris

AUGUST 1952

Dorset, England

After breakfast every morning, Iris settles Gregory into the enormous Silver Cross perambulator and heads out across the lawn and the meadow until the Channel breeze comes out of nowhere to tumble her hair and wash her cheeks and fill her lungs. Then she sits in the grass with her sketchbook and fills the crisp, new pages with drawings.

The perambulator was a gift from Philip, along with the nurse who tends Gregory during the middle of the night so Iris can rest. To say nothing of Honeysuckle Cottage itself—dear, crumbling bricks and climbing vines, like coming home! Philip—reading her mind as always—said it would be easier for the boys if they stay in the cottage, in their old familiar bedrooms, instead of Highcliffe. Even Mrs. Betts has returned to their lives. Philip hired her to look after Honeysuckle Cottage when the Digbys disappeared, and between Mrs. Betts and Ruth and the nurse, everything runs to the beat of some invisible clock, so Iris hardly has to lift a finger. Even if she wants to.

“When you’re strong again . . .” Ruth says, from the grass beside her.

“I am strong. I’m all better.”

“Thanks to good capitalist penicillin. Anyway, you’ve earned a holiday. Who would’ve thought my little pumpkin could break up an international spy ring?”