Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19 FIFTEEN YEARS LATER OCTOBER 3, 1959 LE ROC "When's he coming, Papa? When's he coming!?" Paul smiled. His six-year-old son, Jacques, was as excited as he was. They were having a special visitor today, someone who Paul hadn't seen since the war.

Paul's wife, Valerie, scooped Jacques up. "Let's go to Grandma and Grandpa's," she said to him. "Daddy needs some time alone with his old friend." Paul walked to the porch and watched them disappear down the winding road. "Don't let your friend leave without meeting me!" Jacques shrieked. Paul smiled and sat down on the porch. He breathed in the familiar smells of sweet grass and apples and that hint of salt from the sea. There was nothing better. Paul had traveled some. He and Valerie had visited Victor in Texas twice. But Le Roc was his home. It had changed in the fifteen years since the war. Most of the town had been destroyed in those terrible weeks after D-Day. The Allies dropped thousands of bombs to try to stop the Nazi troops, to destroy their supplies and weapons. They tried to spare the people of Normandy. But by the time

the Nazis finally fled, thousands of French people were dead. It wasn't until the following September that World War II finally ended. Paul stood up and looked down the road again. He checked his watch. This special visitor would arrive any minute. What would it be like to be together again after all this time? Would seeing him bring back all those years of fear and pain? Even now, memories came back to Paul out of nowhere—those men dying on the beach on DDay, the bombs raining down as he and Maman huddled together in their basement. But of course there were happy memories, too. Like when Mr. Leon finally returned to the Castle Le Roc. He'd been injured in an Allied bombing, but somehow made it back. He was bruised and bloodied but amazed to hear the story of Ellie and Stroop. It was a story far better than any legend of a dragon.

Paul smiled to himself, thinking of how much Jacques loved that story. There was only one story he loved more. It was the story about how Papa—Jacques's grandfather—got home after the war. "You really walked for four months, Grandpa?" Jacques would ask, stroking his grandfather's snow-white beard. "Didn't your feet hurt?" "I had to get home to my boy," he'd say, glancing at Paul. "And to your grandmother," he'd add, smiling at Maman. "For them I would have walked to the moon and back." Jacques would lean forward. "Grandpa," he'd whisper. "You can't walk to the moon." Paul had tried not to think too much about the war after Papa came home. Life moved forward. Papa got stronger after his years in the prison camp. They rebuilt their house. Time passed. Paul went to college and met Valerie. They moved back here and had Jacques. Paul tried his best to forget the past.

But then, a month ago, the past arrived in a letter for Paul. My old friend, it began. My name is Gerry Goldman, but you will remember me as Gerard Drey… Paul's hands had started to shake when he read that, and Valerie had to finish reading the letter for him. "My parents were murdered by the Nazis," Valerie had read aloud. "But the day before my parents were arrested, they managed to get me into the hands of the Le Roc resistance." Into the hands of Maman, Mr. Leon, and the others, Paul would learn. They'd rescued Gerard and three other Jewish children from Le Roc. They'd hidden them at the castle. And then somehow they'd gotten them to a village in the mountains where dozens of Jewish children were hidden throughout the war. Maman had never told this to Paul—it was the one secret she'd never shared. She later explained

it to Paul, tears brimming in her eyes. "We were never sure if Gerard survived the war." So many Jewish people didn't. But Gerard had made it. And after the war, his father's cousins tracked him down and took him to America. As Gerard's letter explained, he went on to live a happy life. Over time, though, his memories of his childhood in France had dimmed. The loss of his family was so painful. Like Paul, he'd tried his best to forget those dark years. "But I've never forgotten you, Paul." This visitor Paul was waiting for now—it was Gerard. Paul paced back and forth on the porch until the sound of a car sent him rushing to the steps. And at last, there he was: his best friend. Gerard was tall. His curls had gone straight. But there was that lopsided smile. They stood on the porch and stared at each other, tears running down their