I have worked my every contact in an attempt to get information about his well-being and secure his release. I am told that he is fine and will soon be freed.

I exhaled slightly. Still my heart screamed for my gentle brother, forced to endure such circumstances.

I finished reading the letter.

Before he was arrested, Maciej applied for a visa for you, which recently came. I am enclosing it here. Please come when you are able and we would very much like to have you live with us.

Yours,

Phillipe

I looked in the envelope and pulled out a second piece of paper. It was a visa for me to travel to France.

I held the visa in my hand, contemplating it. It was a pass to freedom. So many people would kill to have it. Once it was all that I had wanted. But that dream, which I had held so dearly just a short while earlier, felt like a relic from another life now. Still, I should take it, go to Paris and make sure Maciej was all right.

Then Sadie appeared in my mind. She needed me in a way few people ever had, was counting on me for food to survive. I thought of the times I had stood by helplessly, first with Miriam and later when the woman jumped from the bridge with her children. Then, whether by circumstance or choice, I had done nothing. Here, I could make a difference. The easy thing would be to leave, but the brave thing to do was stay. I could not go, at least not now. I folded the envelope and tucked it in my pocket.

17

Sadie

Mama huddled in the corner of the chamber, trying to nurse the baby. Some days, I knew, her milk didn’t come, but thankfully today her breasts were swollen and full. As I moved to shield her from the view of the others in the chamber, I could see how thin and drained she was. A nursing mother should have good, rich food. All we had were the potatoes Ella had helped me find, and even those would not last forever. What would we eat then?

Pushing my concerns aside, I looked at the baby, whom we still had not named three days after she was born. She turned her head away from Mama’s breast and stared back at me with her clear, unblinking gaze. Babies weren’t really supposed to be able to see you the first few months, Mama said. But whenever I drew near, my sister’s eyes found mine and held. We had an instant connection. I was the one who could soothe her when she was tired and cranky, or when Mama tried to nurse her but was dry.

I studied my mother. Despite the difficult childbirth, Mama had seemed to draw strength from the baby after she was born. She was filled with purposefulness at taking care of her. She moved through the routines of feeding and changing the child, as though we were back at home and not in a sewer where she had to wash the same two dishrags that served as diapers over and over again.