“You stay here.” Anna snapped up the newspaper cutout. “I’ll bring pen and paper.”

I could barely see the white sheet she slid in front of me a few seconds later. When shall I come? I wrote, in terrible script, with trembling hands.

Two agonizing days crawled by before a response arrived. Anna and her sweet daughter had returned home by then. My family surrounded me with love, but nothing could budge the dark burden of grief from my chest.

“Theo wishes for me to remain in Amsterdam.” I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mother and sisters, numb, unable to comprehend the words on the paper. “He says to stay where I am.”

Yet to be separated from him at a time like this was unimaginable. I ached to be with him, ached for the comfort of his embrace. Our broken hearts belonged together.

I barely had the strength to push my chair back, but I managed. “I am going upstairs to pack. When the maid returns from the market, please send her up to help.”

The next morning, my little son and I took the first train to Paris, since Theo’s last letter had been posted from there. I’d sent a telegram, so my dearest husband was waiting for us at the station.

“Oh, my love.” How his clothes hung on him!

He had been growing stronger before this tragedy, and I had trusted that our holiday in Amsterdam would heal him completely. But instead of resting and recovering together, we had been apart, and Theo appeared more haggard than ever. He looked at me helplessly, like a child. I could not lean on him, nor could I huddle against his chest.

The sight of Theo with his strength drained away broke my heart. When I’d married him, I’d been transferred from my father’s care into his. He’d protected me. Two weeks ago, he’d escorted me to Amsterdam. But I came back on my own, and I could see that something had shattered inside him while we’d been apart. I would have to take up the weight he could no longer carry. I would have to step into the lead.

I had been a married woman for over a year. I had a child. But I finally grew up on that platform, in that single moment. I felt fate carve lines around my eyes with a merciless hand. I doubted the baker would ever make the mistake of calling me “mademoiselle” again.

I took Theo’s hand. “Is there a fiacre waiting?”

“At the entrance.”

I slipped a coin to the porter and asked him to follow us with our valises and bundles. Then, once we were settled in our hired carriage, our belongings loaded in the back, I claimed Theo’s hand again.