Beneath the tears, she was so thankful that she’d returned to Italy, despite the fear, and that she’d told a story worth telling.

But that night she saw Warren Stone in the bar shaking his head over a newspaper and she knew her picture well enough to recognize it as the one of Victorine and Dan. Warren still didn’t have his promotion. But Jess had a set of well-regarded pictures behind her name. It would be best if she kept well out of his way and did nothing to provoke him. Not that she really thought there was anything much he could do to her, other than waste her time with disagreeable exchanges.

So, after a short break, where she spent as much time as she could outside, tracing the unfamiliar geography of a wounded city where bedrolls littered tube stations and women with scarves wrapped around their hair sat atop piles of rubble and drank cups of tea and children pretended to shoot one another with crumpled iron bars fallen from buildings, she got herself another set of orders to go back to Italy, to search out another story, thankful that Warren Stone was now on a week’s leave and she didn’t have to deal with him.

She waited in London for a few more days, hoping to see Martha—who was on her way back from visiting her husband in the States—and had almost given up when Martha phoned her room and told Jess she was downstairs. Jess made her way across the black-and-white marble floors and through the mahogany opulence of the lobby until she reached the American Bar where the U.S. Army Press Office had set itself up. She sank into a booth opposite Martha, who had two large whiskies in front of her.

“Wait till you hear this,” Martha said to Jess.

“What?”

“Collier’s has made my dear husband their war correspondent.”

“But you’re the Collier’s war correspondent,” Jess said uncomprehendingly.

“They want someone who can go into combat zones. Especially now that rumor confidently predicts an Allied invasion of Europe within two months. Because I’m a woman, I can’t do the job they want done.” Martha downed her whiskey in one swallow. “The RAF even flew him to London. I had to hitch a ride on a Norwegian freighter.”

“How could he do that to you?”

Martha shrugged, a gesture that might seem nonchalant on anyone else but on Martha it was like a cowering in, an enfolding of herself into something that could not, would not, be hurt. But of course she had been hurt, and not just emotionally, as her next words confirmed, making her action—her attempt to deflect what was likely still to follow from her husband—all the more affecting. “That’s Hem for you,” she said dully. “I asked him for a divorce, of course. He laughed, after he hit me.”

“I’m so sorry.” Jess reached for her friend’s hand. But that wasn’t enough. She moved across and wrapped her arms around Marty, all the while knowing that no matter how much they tried to shield themselves, the wounds were still getting through.