Page 29 of The Lost Husband
“If you cheat again—” Noah says, bringing him into our small sitting room across the hall from the kitchen. “How can you be a lawyer with habits like that?”
“Some say that trait makes for the best type of lawyer. And it isn’t cheating if it’s simply a rule overlooked.”
“Hmm,” Noah relents.
Those two never give it a rest.
I pull out the tea canister and set cups and saucers on a porcelain tray.
When I bring the tray toward the sitting room, I can’t help but notice the volume of their voices still being uncommonly quiet for everyday common chatter. And I do what any wife would do and listen in before turning the corner.
“If anything happens to me…” Noah whispers.
My stomach drops, nearly bringing me to my knees.
“Don’t—don’t start with that,” Christoph argues.
“Listen to me,” Noah says, his voice harder, filled with more air.
Except for a moving chess piece, silence falls between them, and for a moment I wonder if they know I’m standing here with my eyes closed, gripping the tea tray firmly to restrain a rattle.
“You have to promise me something,” Noah continues. A second passes, a second that feels like a hundred. “Promise me you’ll look after her.”
“You aren’t going anywhere. We’ve worked too hard for this. For you to talk like it’s already over.” Christoph exhales a sigh of frustration. “We’ll get through this.”
I miss the certainty his words used to carry.
“She won’t be on her own,” Noah says. “You won’t desert her. If I’m taken—if I don’t come back…you will not let her be on her own.”
I grit my teeth, tears filling my eyes, and I press my back against the wall, pleading that it holds me up.
“I’m not blind to what’s happening out there,” Christoph growls, anger clear in his tone. Hands fall to the table in thuds, and the coffee table scrapes against the floor, chess pieces collapse. Then there’s a breath of silence. Christoph rights a chess piece, placing it down gently on the board with a soft tap. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she…” His words are quiet, but heavy with knowing.
“I’m not sure.” Noah replies too quickly to be the truth. “Any young wife could be.”
My throat tightens around a sob and my chest bucks with a silent cry.
“Promise me,” Noah begs. “Brother to brother—my closest lifelong friend—we’ve known each other since we were five, getting into trouble before we even knew what trouble was. You’re my family. You’ll look after her.” Each word is more brittle and broken than the last.
“Stop,” Christoph mutters. Then quieter, he says, “I promise…brother.”
I tiptoe back to the kitchen and set the tea tray down on the table and fall into the chair. The single chair across from the other single chair. We’re supposed to need a third, but now he’s talking like that might never happen.
What does he know that he’s not telling me?
THIRTEEN
CURRENT DAY
Kopciowice, Poland
Noah tried to protect me from so much that I’m questioning if I’m capable of protecting myself. I don’t know what he would do if he were here with me beneath this tangled web of trees, waiting for the Soviets to move along with their captured prisoners, and I should. He spent so long preparing us for the worst, and I just followed his lead, thinking he’d always be here as a guiding light to follow.
We haven’t heard a sound in the time I’ve counted out sixty seconds at least thirty times. If the Soviets left the trench thirty minutes ago, we’re far enough behind to keep walking, but every time I’ve moved with the thought to stand and keep walking, the other three have given me wide-eyed stares. Until now.
“It should be safe to press on,” Elias says, standing without anyone giving him ahow-dare-you-look. I press into my thighs to stand, my stomach screaming at me from within as I straighten. The ache from dysentery is relentless, as if someone has taken a bat to my insides.
We approach the rim of the trench that’s now barren and abandoned by the Soviets and German prisoners. I stare down into the crevice of snow, at black spots, wondering if they’re rocks or scraps of clothing, or body parts.
