“You may have seen it already.” He indicated the small table with Pigeon Pie set in the back corner.

In truth, she’d avoided the table of her failure until that moment. What she beheld left her stunned.

What had once contained a neat stack of one hundred books had only a handful remaining. The pasteboard propped in the center of the table proclaimed: “Written while Chamberlain was still prime minister.”

Mr. Evans grinned at her. “They’ve been selling like butter ever since.”

Grace laughed in spite of herself. “That was quite genius of you.”

Mr. Evans’s old cheeks went red beneath his glasses as he tilted his head humbly. “I was rather proud of it. Nonetheless, it’s your idea. I only added my own stodgy twist.”

As the march of time pressed on, they sold the remainder of their stock of the ill-fated Pigeon Pie, and Mr. Evans’s advice became all the more poignant.

For those coming weeks brought the fall of France. And then, what they all had feared the most: the bombing of Britain.

TWELVE

German bombers descended on Cardiff and Plymouth first, targeting docks and prompting aerial battles with the RAF. London had not been hit as yet, but the expectation that it might happen hung forefront in everyone’s mind.

The BBC broadcasts were listened to fastidiously and clung to every tongue, with people repeating what had been heard to analyze the potential for their own bombing.

While Grace didn’t know where George was stationed, she was well aware being a fighter pilot would place him directly in the middle of danger.

She’d received another letter from him, this one equally as sliced through for censorship as the last, leaving only half his message visible, but enough to be assured he was doing well. Viv’s letters only had periodic items run through with a black marker, but it was easy to make out that regardless of where she was, she appeared to be safe.

The person she worried most over, however, was Mrs. Weatherford. For the entire time Grace had known the older woman, she had been one to push the world into action with her immeasurable energy. There wasn’t a solution she didn’t find, a problem she couldn’t fix.

Now, she shuffled through the house with eyes that focused on nothing. No longer that bright, cheerful person with a bit of advice for everyone—whether they wanted it or not. She was a husk of herself, with her flat gray hair falling around her pallid face. Lifeless.

No longer did Mrs. Weatherford attend the WVS or meticulously clean the house. Grace never thought she’d see the day when the foyer lost the residual scent of carbolic. And when Mrs. Weatherford found out about tea and margarine being added to the ration booklet, she didn’t crow with delight at her stockpiled trove, she simply replied with a resigned nod.