Together for Christmas

by Debbie Macomber

“Tell me about your grandmother.”

  Ruth was more than willing to change the subject. “This is my paternal grandmother, and she’s lived in Cedar Cove for the past thirty years. She and my grandfather moved there from Seattle after he retired because they wanted a slower pace of life. I barely remember my grandfather Sam. He died when I was two, before I had any real memories of him.”

  “He died young,” Paul commented sympathetically.

  “Yes.... My grandmother’s been alone for a long time.”

  “She probably has good friends in a town like Cedar Cove.”

  “Yes,” Ruth said. “And she’s still got friends she’s had since the war. It’s something I admire about my grandmother,” she continued. “She’s my inspiration, and not only because she speaks three languages fluently and is one of the most intelligent women I know. Ever since I can remember, she’s been helping others. Although she’s in her eighties, Grandma’s involved with all kinds of charities and social groups. When I enrolled at the University of Washington, I intended for the two of us to get together often, but I swear her schedule’s even busier than mine.”

  Paul grinned at her. “I know what you mean. It’s the same in my family.”

  By the time they stepped off the Bremerton ferry and took the foot ferry across to Cedar Cove, it was after eleven. They stopped at a deli, where Paul bought a loaf of fresh bread and a bottle of Washington State gewürztraminer to take with them. At quarter to twelve, they trudged up the hill toward her grandmother’s duplex on Poppy Lane.

  When they arrived, Helen greeted them at the front door and ushered Paul and Ruth into the house. Ruth hugged her grandmother, whose white hair was cut stylishly short. Helen was thinner than the last time Ruth had visited and seemed more fragile somehow. Her grandmother paused to give Paul an embarrassingly frank look. Ruth felt her face heat as Helen spoke.

  “So, you’re the young man who’s captured my granddaughter’s heart.”

  “Grandma, this is Paul Gordon,” Ruth said hurriedly, gesturing toward Paul.

  “This is the soldier you’ve been writing to, who’s fighting in Afghanistan?”

  “I am.” Paul’s response sounded a bit defensive, Ruth thought. He obviously preferred not to discuss it.

  In an effort to ward off any misunderstanding, Ruth added, “My grandfather was a soldier when Grandma met him.”

  Helen nodded, and a faraway look stole over her. It took her a moment to refocus. “Come, both of you,” she said, stepping between them. She tucked her arm around Ruth’s waist. “I set the table outside. It’s such a beautiful afternoon, I thought we’d eat on the patio.”

  “We brought some bread and a bottle of wine,” Ruth said. “Paul got them.”

  “Lovely. Thank you, Paul.”

  While Ruth sliced the fresh-baked bread, he opened the wine, then helped her grandmother carry the salad plates outside. An apple pie cooled on the kitchen counter and the scent of cinnamon permeated the sunlit kitchen.

  They chatted throughout the meal; the conversation was light and friendly as they lingered over their wine. Every now and then Ruth caught her grandmother staring at Paul with the strangest expression on her face. Ruth didn’t know what to make of this. It almost seemed as if her grandmother was trying to place him, to recall where she’d seen him before.

  Helen had apparently read Ruth’s mind. “Am I embarrassing your beau, sweetheart?” she asked with a half smile.

  Ruth resisted informing her grandmother that Paul wasn’t her anything, especially not her beau. They’d had one lovely dinner together, but now their political differences seemed to have overtaken them.

  “I apologize, Paul.” Helen briefly touched his hand, which rested on the table. “When I first saw you—” She stopped abruptly. “You resemble someone I knew many years ago.”

  “Where, Grandma?” Ruth asked.

  “In France, during the war.”

  “You were in France during World War II?” Ruth couldn’t quite hide her shock.

  Helen turned to her. “I haven’t spoken much about those days, but now, toward the end of my life, I think about them more and more.” She pushed back her chair and stood.

  Ruth stood, too, thinking her grandmother was about to carry in their empty plates and serve the pie.

  Helen motioned her to sit. “Stay here. There’s something I want you to see. I think perhaps it’s time.”

  When her grandmother had left them, Ruth looked at Paul and shrugged. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Paul had been wonderful with her grandmother, thoughtful and attentive. He’d asked a number of questions during the meal—about Cedar Cove, about her life with Sam—and listened intently when she responded. Ruth knew his interest was genuine. Together they cleared the table and returned the dishes to the kitchen, then waited for Helen at the patio table.

  It was at least five minutes before she came back. She held a rolled-up paper that appeared to be some kind of poster, old enough to have yellowed with age. Carefully she opened it and laid it flat on the cleared table. Ruth saw that the writing was French. In the center of the poster, which measured about eighteen inches by twenty-four, was a pencil sketch of two faces: a man and a woman, whose names she didn’t recognize. Jean and Marie Brulotte.

  “Who’s that?” Ruth asked, pointing to the female.

  Her grandmother smiled calmly. “I am that woman.”

  Ruth frowned. Helen had obviously used a false name, and although she’d seen photographs of her grandmother as a young woman, this sketch barely resembled the woman she knew. The man in the drawing, however, seemed familiar. Gazing at the sketch for a minute, she realized the face was vaguely like Paul’s. Not so much in any similarity of features as in a quality of...character, she supposed.

  “And the man?”

  “That was Jean-Claude,” Helen whispered, her voice full of pain.

  Paul turned to Ruth, but she was at a complete loss and didn’t know what to tell him. Her grandfather’s name was Sam and she’d never heard of this Jean or Jean-Claude. Certainly her father had never mentioned another man in his mother’s life.

  “This is a wanted poster,” Paul remarked. “I speak some French—studied it in school.”

  “Yes. The Germans offered a reward of one million francs to anyone who turned us in.”

  “You were in France during the war and you were wanted?” This was more than Ruth could assimilate. She sat back down; so did her grandmother. Paul remained standing for a moment longer as he studied the poster.

  “But...it said Marie. Marie Brulotte.”

  “I went by my middle name in those days. Marie. You may not be aware that it was part of my name because I haven’t used it since.”

  “But...”

  “You and Jean-Claude were part of the French Resistance?” Paul asked. It was more statement than question.

  “We were.” Her grandmother seemed to have difficulty speaking. “Jean-Claude was my husband. We married during the war, and I took his name with pride. He was my everything, strong and handsome and brave. His laughter filled a room. Sometimes, still, I think I can hear him.” Her eyes grew teary and she dabbed at them with her linen handkerchief. “That was many years ago now and, as I said, I think perhaps it’s time I spoke of it.”

  Ruth was grateful. She couldn’t let her grandmother leave the story untold. She suspected her father hadn’t heard any of this, and she wanted to learn whatever she could about this unknown episode in their family history before it was forever lost.

  “What were you doing in France?” Ruth asked. She couldn’t comprehend that the woman she’d always known as a warm and loving grandmother, who baked cookies and knit socks for Christmas, had been a freedom fighter in a foreign country.

  “I was attending the Sorbonne when the Germans invaded. You may recall that my mother was bo
rn in France, but her own parents were long dead. I was studying French literature. My parents were frantic for me to book my passage home, but like so many others in France, I didn’t believe the country would fall. I assured my mother I’d leave when I felt it was no longer safe. Being young and foolish, I thought she was overreacting. Besides, I was in love. Jean-Claude had asked me to marry him, and what woman in love wishes to leave her lover over rumors of war?” She laughed lightly, shaking her head. “France seemed invincible. We were convinced the Germans wouldn’t invade, convinced they’d suffer a humiliating defeat if they tried.”

  “So when it happened you were trapped,” Paul said.

  Her grandmother drew in a deep breath. “There was the Blitzkrieg.... People were demoralized and defeated when France surrendered after only a few days of fighting. We were aghast that such a thing could happen. Jean-Claude and a few of his friends decided to resist the occupation. I decided I would, too, so we were married right away. My parents knew nothing of this.”

  “How did you join the Resistance?” Paul asked as Ruth looked at her grandmother with fresh eyes.

  “Join,” she repeated scornfully. “There was no place to join, no place to sign up and be handed a weapon and an instruction manual. A group of us students, naive and foolish, offered resistance to the German occupation. Later we learned there were other groups, eventually united under the leadership of General de Gaulle. We soon found one another. Jean-Claude and I—we were young and too stupid to understand the price we’d pay, but by then we’d already lost some of our dearest friends. Jean-Claude and I refused to let them die in vain.”

  “What did you do?” Ruth breathed. She leaned closer to her grandmother.

  “Whatever we could, which in the beginning was pitifully little. The Germans suffered more casualties in traffic accidents. At first our resistance was mostly symbolic.” A slow smile spread across her weathered face. “But we learned, oh yes, we learned.”

  Ruth was still having difficulty taking it all in. She pressed her hand to her forehead. She found it hard enough to believe that the sketch of the female in this worn poster was her own grandmother. Then to discover that the fragile, petite woman at her side had been part of the French Resistance...

  “Does my dad know any of this?” Ruth asked.

  Helen sighed heavily. “I’m not sure, but I doubt it. Sam might have mentioned it to him. I’ve only told a few of my friends. No one else.” She shook her head. “I didn’t feel I could talk to my sons about it. There was too much that’s disturbing. Too many painful memories.”

  “Did you...did you ever have to kill anyone?” Ruth had trouble even getting the question out.

  “Many times,” Helen answered bluntly. “Does that surprise you?”

  It shocked Ruth to the point that she couldn’t ask anything else.

  “The first time was the hardest,” her grandmother said. “I was held by a French policeman.” She added something derogatory in French, and although Ruth couldn’t understand the language, some things didn’t need translation. “Under Vichy, some of the police worked hard to prove to the Germans what good little boys they were,” she muttered, this time in English. “I’d been stopped and questioned, detained by this pig of a man. He said he was taking me to the police station. I had a small gun with me that I’d hidden, a seven millimeter.”

  Ruth’s heart raced as she listened to Helen recount this adventure.

  “The pig didn’t drive me to the police station. Instead he headed for open country and I knew that once he was outside town and away from the eyes of any witnesses, he would rape and murder me.”

  Ruth pressed her hand to her mouth, holding back a gasp of horror.

  “You’d trained in self-defense?” Paul asked.

  Her grandmother laughed. “No. How could we? There was no time for such lessons. But I realized that I didn’t need technique. What I needed was nerve. This beast of a man pulled his gun on me but I was quicker. I shot him in the head.” She paused at the memory of that terrifying moment. “I buried him myself in a field and, as far as I know, he was never found.” She wore a small satisfied look. “His mistake,” she murmured, “was that he tightened his jaw when he reached for his gun—and I saw. I’d been watching him closely. He was thinking of what might happen, of what could go wrong. He was a professional, and I was only nineteen, and yet I knew that if I didn’t act then, it would’ve been too late.”

  “Didn’t you worry about what could happen?” Ruth asked, unable to grasp how her grandmother could ever shoot another human being.

  “No,” Helen answered flatly. “I knew what would happen. We all did. We didn’t have a chance of surviving, none of us. My parents would never have discovered my fate—I would simply have disappeared. They didn’t even know I’d married Jean-Claude or changed my name.” She stared out at the water. “I don’t understand why I lived. It makes no sense that God would spare me when all my friends, all those I loved, were killed.”

  “Jean-Claude, too?”

  Her eyes filled and she slowly nodded.

  “Where was he when you were taken by the policeman?” Paul asked.

  Her grandmother’s mouth trembled. “By then, Jean-Claude had been captured.”

  “The French police?”

  “No,” she said in the thinnest of whispers. “Jean-Claude was being held by the Gestapo. That was the first time they got him—but not the last.”

  Ruth had heard about the notorious German soldiers and their cruelty.

  Helen straightened, and her back went rigid. “I could only imagine how those monsters were torturing my husband.” Contempt hardened her voice.

  “What did you do?” Ruth glanced at Paul, whose gaze remained riveted on her grandmother.

  At first Helen didn’t answer. “What else could I do? I had to rescue him.”

  “You?” Paul asked this with the same shock Ruth felt.

  “Yes, me and...” Helen’s smile was fleeting. “I was very clever about it, too.” The sadness returned with such intensity that it brought tears to Ruth’s eyes.

  “They eventually killed him, didn’t they?” she asked, hardly able to listen to her grandmother’s response.

  “No,” Helen said as she turned to face Ruth. “I did.”

  Five

  “YOU KILLED JEAN-CLAUDE?” Ruth repeated incredulously.

  Tears rolling down her cheeks, Helen nodded. “God forgive me, but I had no choice. I couldn’t allow him to be tortured any longer. He begged me to do it, begged me to end his suffering. That was the second time he was captured, and they were more determined than ever to break him. He knew far too much.”

  “You’d better start at the beginning. You went into Gestapo headquarters?” Paul moved closer as if he didn’t want to risk missing even one word. “Was that the first time or the second?”

  “Both. The first time, in April 1943, I rescued him. I pretended I was pregnant and brought a priest to the house the Gestapo had taken over. I insisted with great bravado that they force Jean-Claude to marry me and give my baby a name. I didn’t care if they killed him, I said, but before he died I wanted him to give my baby his name.” She paused. “I was very convincing.”

  “So you weren’t really pregnant?” Ruth asked.

  “No, of course not,” her grandmother replied. “It was a ploy to get into the house.”

  “Was the priest a real priest?”

  “Yes. He didn’t know I was using him, but I had no alternative. I was desperate to get Jean-Claude out alive.”

  “The priest knew nothing,” Ruth said, meeting Paul’s eyes, astounded by her grandmother’s nerve and cunning.

  “The Father knew nothing,” the older woman concurred, smiling grimly. “But I needed him, so I used him. Thankfully the Gestapo believed me, and because they wanted to keep relations with the Church as smooth as poss
ible, they brought Jean-Claude into the room.”

  Ruth could picture the scene, but she didn’t know if she’d ever possess that kind of bravery.

  “Jean-Claude was in terrible pain, but he nearly laughed out loud when the priest asked him if he was the father of my child. Fortunately he didn’t have to answer because our friends had arranged a distraction outside the house. A firebomb was tossed into a parked vehicle, which exploded. All but two Gestapo left the room. I shot them both right in front of the priest, and then Jean-Claude and I escaped through a back window.”

  “Where did you find the courage?” Ruth asked breathlessly.

  “Courage?” her grandmother echoed. “That wasn’t courage. That was fear. I would do anything to save my husband’s life—and I did. Then, only a few weeks later, I was the one who killed him. What took courage was finding the will to live after Jean-Claude died. That was courage, and I would never have managed if it hadn’t been for the American soldier who saved my life. If it hadn’t been for Sam.”

  “He was my grandfather,” Ruth explained to Paul.

  “I want to know more about Jean-Claude,” Paul said, placing his arm around Ruth’s shoulders. It felt good to be held by him and she leaned into his strength, his solid warmth.

  Her grandmother’s eyes grew weary and she shook her head. “Perhaps another day. I’m tired now, too tired to speak anymore.”

  “We should go,” Paul whispered.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” Ruth insisted.

  “Nonsense. You should leave now,” Helen said. “You have better things to do than talk to an old lady.”

  “But we want to talk to you,” Ruth told her.

  “You will.” Helen looked even more drawn. “Soon, but not right now.”

  “You’ll finish the story?”

  “Yes,” the old woman said hoarsely. “I promise I’ll tell you everything.”

  While her grandmother went to her room to rest, Ruth and Paul cleaned up the kitchen. At first they worked in silence, as if they weren’t quite sure what to say to each other. Ruth put the food away while Paul rinsed the dishes and set them inside the dishwasher.