P.P.S. I know the mail is much delayed, and I have no idea when this will reach you. We’re in Italy at the moment. I’m sure it would be a beautiful country if we weren’t in the middle of a war zone. I am praying to God to bring me home safely to your mother and to you too, even if you’re in some secret location in Tennessee.

Mary read and re-read the letter to be sure she understood every word. Her father was safe. He was safe. Well, he was safe as of a month ago. She closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks.

Now, if she could only get Nora back, she would truly believe in miracles.

Sunday dawned cold and clear. Frost covered the lawn leading to The-Chapel-on-the-Hill. Nora wrapped the scarf tighter around her neck. If she attended the first service of the morning, the likelihood of running into Mary was slim.

Not that it was at all likely that Mary would go to church on a Sunday. She’d been collecting pine cones and surely hadn’t been on her way to or from the chapel when Nora had run into her on Christmas Day. If one didn’t go to church on Christmas, when would one go? Nora shook off the memory of nearly capsizing Mary’s basket and their subsequent date. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

A wave of sadness threatened to swamp her, as so often happened these days. It won’t do you any good to dwell on what cannot be.

She sat through the service in the back pew and barely listened to the sermon. She had told Mary the truth—she wasn’t religious, but she did have faith. Heaven knew she could use God’s help now. She closed her eyes and prayed. God, please help me to have the strength to get through these days, help me to have the knowledge and the wherewithal to help us win the war, and help me to know your guidance so that I might follow the path you choose for me. Please help me to know what that path is.

Church let out, and she allowed the other parishioners to precede her out the door. It was her day off, and she wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere, although she was enjoying the biography she’d just checked out, Madame Curie. She’d wanted to re-read it in preparation for the release of the new film of the same name, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.

The thought of going to a movie now, without Mary to hold her hand, brought on a renewed bout of self-pity. Get over it.

She exited out into the sunshine and stopped short. There, several feet in front of her, was Mary, looking thin and gaunt, but still breathtakingly beautiful.

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.”