“It’s only that…” Thoughts that broke my heart were always fiendishly difficult to articulate. They lodged themselves inside my chest. That my corset scarcely allowed me a full breath did not help. “I wanted to make a difference. I thought I would leave my mark on my students’ lives and that would be my legacy. But I’m not the person I thought I was.”

There, the core of the matter. The horrible, disappointing truth.

“How so?”

“I wanted to be independent. I thought I was ready to be independent. That I was independent, an adult woman. I should have been able to manage in Utrecht. Dries moved to Paris, a whole other country, and he is managing.”

“The whole world is set up for men to manage.”

She wasn’t wrong. My brothers could go anywhere at any time, talk to anyone. Their opinions were heard and considered. In Utrecht, as an unmarried woman, I had not been able to dine at a restaurant alone, or walk in the park, or visit the museum. Unless I could find a chaperone to accompany me, in my free time I’d been trapped in my room. And all my suggestions to improve my students’ education and their circumstances in the dormitory had been summarily dismissed by the director of the institute.

Ahead of us, a young woman darted from a yellow-striped cabana with a squeal.

Anna whispered, “Goodness, she is naked.”

We slowed and stared.

The blonde woman wore absolutely nothing but ankle-high swimming shoes, blue cotton stockings with matching bloomers that ended just below her knees, a matching swimming dress, and a hat. Her arms below the elbows were entirely bare.

She crossed the sand and ran into the sea, then disappeared in the waves. She resurfaced in a spray of water, faced the sun, and laughed.

Soon, three others darted after her from their cabanas, all similarly undressed, all similarly reckless.

Anna’s nostrils trembled. “The freckles!”

Yet the sisters—they looked alike—weren’t bothered by the sun or the curious eyes that followed them.

I couldn’t make myself turn away either. “Who are they?”

“The Newhouse girls. Americans. Their father is Gordon Newhouse, the shipping magnate. His wife is Dutch, and she brings her daughters to the Netherlands every summer. Mama met them on our first day here, at lunch, before you arrived.”

Another gust of sea breeze hit us. We hurried along.

“Did I tell you…” Anna pressed her hat onto her head. “That the stove we ordered for the summer kitchen will be delivered this week? Only one more month, and my true happiness begins. Something only marriage can give a woman.”

I didn’t bring up my brother Dries and his bride, both miserable, their marriage certainly no start to any joyful life. “Jan loves you.”

“And I shall endeavor to love him.”

She made it sound easy. “But what if you can’t?”