It was easy enough to locate the nearest train station, but he soon found that all of France seemed to be making their way to the city. Tickets were oversold, but patriotic conductors and ticket takers turned a blind eye and packed people into the train cars until there was only room to stand in the aisles. He learned, too, that many of the railroads had been destroyed by Allied bombs, so this line was one of the scarce ones that were still intact. Behind the passenger cars were several full of produce from Normandy and Brittany.

Paris was starving.

Yet the mood was celebratory.

Tom gave up his seat for an old woman who boarded after him.

He didn’t need it. He’d been lying down for too many weeks as it was. And the surge of victory pumped through his veins.

The train grew more crowded as they passed Bayeux, Caen, and Rouen, the French people chattering too quickly for him to understand. But no doubt, they were sharing stories of occupation and excitement for what a liberated France might look like.

What would it be like to have Margaret at his side? Entering the City of Lights. The City of Love. Her blond hair pulled into a ponytail with a blue bow tied around it.

Her smile broadcasting her joy.

He put those thoughts aside. It was a dream that could never come true.

At last, it was announced that Paris was the next stop. The people in the seats stretched over other passengers to look out the windows and ooh and aah as countryside turned into city. He hadn’t been in a large city for years, if you didn’t count their brief stop in Brooklyn to board that ship to Liverpool. He’d looked west as they sailed away, passing the Statue of Liberty and all of the tall rectangular buildings that sprouted from the ground like weeds.

He didn’t see the appeal. Give him bare feet in wild grass, peach juice dripping from his chin, stars above that revealed the majesty of the skies. Those were the wonders he preferred.

Still, there was a mythological allure to Paris that he was eager to see for himself.

Tom slung his backpack across his shoulders and stepped onto the platform. Everywhere he looked, throngs of people held up flags, and it was a bevy of red, white, and blue. It never occurred to him that the French, British, and American flags all boasted the same trio of colors. He knew that fact individually, but until he saw them together, adorning anything that could be festooned with banners and ribbons, he didn’t realize that even their aesthetic was allied.