They set to work, dousing the small flames that flickered in the rubble with their stirrup pumps and continued their watch on the rest of the sector. More bombs fell as the night went on, though no more were in their area of patrol. The better part of their night was spent sweeping up the fallen glass on the surrounding streets where all the windows had been blown out, and at one point chasing away looters from the Hewses’ property.

Mr. Stokes waited for Mr. and Mrs. Hews when the all clear sounded, thinking it best that he be the one to share the dismal news. Their pain was difficult to witness. After all, a woman’s pride was her home, and Mrs. Hews had put a lifetime of work into the grand little townhouse where purple cabbages grew in flower boxes that once held geraniums.

But in the end, it wasn’t only Grace and Mr. Stokes who stayed on after the all clear to help them sort through the dusty rubble for anything salvageable. The inhabitants of the entire row of townhouses helped as well as neighbors from other streets. They ignored their own broken windows and blown-out doors to offer aid to those whose suffering was far greater than their own. A community brought together by loss.

Their close friends took the meager pile of possessions to hold for them while Grace directed the stunned couple to the local rest center to be sheltered until a new home could be found. After Grace’s shift ended, she made her way back to Britton Street in such a fatigued state that her feet could scarcely function and clumsily stumbled over one another. She fell into bed with her dirty clothes on and slept where she landed until she could rouse herself for her shift at the bookshop.

A bath worked miracles for her and by the time she entered Primrose Hill Books, she didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as when she’d come home. Mr. Evans, however, frowned at her as she entered the store.

“Have you had enough sleep?” He set his pencil in his ledger so it lay neatly along the seam.

“Have any of us?” She offered a smile.

He folded his arms over his brown pullover, which had become baggy as the ration whittled away at his once rather stout frame. “I heard the Hewses’ house was bombed on Clerkenwell Street. Were you there?”

“Only afterward.” There was something in the seriousness of his tone as he asked that made her feel like a child about to be reprimanded.

“You could have been there when it happened.” The white tufts of his brows inched together. “What would you have done if you’d been near the bomb when it fell?”