Gram stared at me with a look of consternation, but I forced myself to continue. “Hans wasn’t really the Gray Ghost, Gram. He was just a messenger. It was Ludwig who provided all the information about the movements of the German Army, among other things. He was the Gray Ghost.”
She sat back, and I felt the air between us crackle with the potency of her shock. “No, that can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“But Hans . . .”
“Hans was a spy, just like you were. He never revealed his true identity to anyone. He was good at keeping secrets. So was Ludwig, apparently.”
I knew she couldn’t fault him for that, when she had been living a lie her entire life and keeping her true identity secret, even from her own family.
Gram’s eyes seemed dazed and bewildered. She grew fretful.
“What I wanted you to know . . . ,” I said uncomfortably, “was that it wasn’t Hans or Armand who arranged for your escape from the prison truck on the way to Ravensbrück. It was Ludwig.”
She shook her head, as if she didn’t want to believe it. “No . . .”
“He’s the one who contacted Hans with the information about where you and Daphne were. He gave Hans the car and the Nazi uniform, and it’s because of him that you were rescued.”
Gram sat frozen, her lips parted in dismay, her brows drawn together in anguish, and I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake—that telling her the truth had been the wrong thing to do.
My father stepped forward with the chest and presented it to her. “Gillian brought this home for you.”
Gram stared with wide eyes at the chest, as if it had appeared like an apparition out of thin air. “Where did you get this?”
“Hans gave it to me,” I explained. “Ludwig gave it to him after you left France, and he asked Hans to deliver it to you. He tried, but when he tracked down April Hughes in England, he was told that she was dead, which is what everyone believed at the time. They thought it was Vivian who had survived.”
Gram reached for the chest, and my father helped settle it on her lap.
For many moments, she ran her hands over all the details—the aged wooden surface, the brass fittings, the engraved plate with the gentleman in the top hat. Eventually, she opened it and went through the contents one item at a time, seeming spellbound, as if it were all something out of a dream.
“This is me at the most exclusive nightclub in Berlin,” she said, handing me the newspaper clipping. “I was a bit famous, you know. For a short while.”
“You look beautiful,” I said.
She studied each photograph of her and Ludwig together and spoke softly. “I remember this day. And this one too. It’s all imprinted so clearly in my memory, even after all these years.”
“Gram,” I said, reaching for her hand, needing to prepare her. “There’s something else. He wrote a letter to you.”
She stared at me with an almost vacant expression, and I wasn’t sure if she understood what I’d just said, but she must have understood it very well, because she immediately went searching for the button inside the chest that released the secret drawer. Without hesitation, she pulled the ribbon to lift the false bottom and found the letter inside.
I never saw my grandmother—or anyone—weep so hard in my life. She sobbed desperately, from the very depths of her soul, doubling over in agony on the sofa. It was gut wrenching to behold.
When she finally pulled herself together, she reached for my hand.
“How did he die? Do you know?”
I explained that he’d been arrested and interrogated the day after her escape from the prison truck and that he had been executed shortly before the liberation of Paris.
Her sobs deepened, and she bent forward to bury her face in her hands.
Dad and I could do nothing but watch and wait for her to let all her grief come pouring out, for the worst of it to pass.
After a few minutes, she grew quiet, calmed herself, and blew her nose. I handed her another tissue, and she wiped at her eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” But she rose to her feet and clutched the letter to her chest. “I need to be alone.” She shuffled quickly to the stairs, then went up to her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
My eyes shot to my dad. “That didn’t go well. Do you think she’ll be all right?”
“Just give her some time. It was a big shock.”
I sat back and wondered again if I’d made a mistake in showing her the letter. Maybe Dad had been right. Maybe she would have been better off never knowing.
About an hour later, Dad approached me in the kitchen, where I was making toast.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about some things.”
I turned to face him, and he regarded me with a pensive expression.
“All this, Gillian, has made me realize that life is full of heartbreaks and hardships, and some of them are tragic beyond words. But we all have to find a way to keep going. We need to know that it’ll get easier, and life will be good again.” He stopped and swallowed hard.
“What is it you’re trying to say, Dad?”
He cleared his throat and began again. “Gillian . . . what happened to your mom in that bathtub was a terrible thing, and I know I told you before that it wasn’t your fault. But there’s more to it than that.” He looked down at the floor. “I’m just as much to blame for it, because I left you home alone with her when you had a midterm the next day. And even if you had gone to the library, it probably still would have happened under my watch, because it wasn’t unusual for your mom to take a long bath. I certainly wouldn’t have been checking on her every five minutes.”
He moved closer and reached for my hand. “I also want to thank you for everything you did here—for caring so much and traveling all the way to Europe to find out the truth about Ludwig, for all of us. Especially when you had your own stuff going on. You handled it like the strong, heroic woman that you are, and I’ve never been more proud of you. Mom would have been proud too. I’m sure she is proud, wherever she is.”
A gigantic lump lodged itself in my throat. All I could do was smile tearfully at my dad, wrap my arms around his neck, and take comfort in his words—words I’d been longing to hear for a very long time. “Thank you, Dad. That means everything to me.”
In that moment, I felt a lightness in my heart, and for the first time, I believed that Mom didn’t need to keep such a close eye on me. She might finally be able to rest in peace.
Later, when Dad and I were watching TV in the den, I heard the sound of floorboards creaking upstairs and the toilet flushing.
“She’s up,” I whispered to Dad as I sat forward in my chair, listening. “I think she’s coming downstairs.”
Sure enough, wearing her dressing gown and slippers, Gram entered the living room. Her eyes were red and puffy.
“I’m all right now,” she said.
Neither of us knew what to say as she took a seat in the rocking chair next to the television and stared blankly at the basketball game we’d been watching. She rocked back and forth, her eyes weary, blank, unseeing.
“I’m so sorry, Gram,” I said when I could no longer endure the silence. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shown that letter to you. I wasn’t sure . . .”
She turned to me. “You did the right thing, Gillian. I’m grateful that you did. It just came as a shock. That’s all.”
“It’s understandable,” Dad said.
She continued to rock slowly back and forth in the chair.
“So now you know,” I said. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
She pondered that for a moment, then rested her head on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. “When I read that letter, I hated myself for not seeing the truth, for not knowing what was in Ludwig’s heart in the interrogation room that day.”
“But he didn’t want you to see it,” I said. “He made Hans promise not to tell you, because
he thought if you knew, you wouldn’t have gotten on the airplane.”
“He was right,” she said without wavering. “He knew me very well. I wouldn’t have. But part of me wishes he had let me make that choice myself.” She stopped rocking. “Yet . . . another part of me is glad that he didn’t.” She looked away, into the distance. “Although, maybe there might have been a way for Hans and me to save him. Maybe we could have broken into Gestapo headquarters . . .” She shook her head. “We probably would have both been killed.”
“If only he hadn’t been arrested,” I said. “The Allies were so close. It was only a few days later that the Germans surrendered in Paris.”
She considered that and sighed heavily. “We could all drive ourselves mad thinking about what could have been. But life happens the way it happens, and there’s no point wishing the past was any different. It will always be what it was, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”
I looked down at my lap, feeling somber. “Yes, that’s life, I suppose.” A full minute passed before I lifted my gaze. “But at least you know the truth now. And it wasn’t an illusion, Gram. You weren’t wrong to have loved him.”
I saw in her eyes that even now, the embers of that love still glowed.
“All my life,” she said, “I tried to hate him.” She turned slightly in her chair to gaze meaningfully at my father. “But if you want to know the truth, Edward, every time I looked at you, I saw him. Especially in the way you carried yourself and your expressions. Even the way you held a pencil reminded me of him. And your laughter . . . in those moments, I saw the good man that I remembered, not the unfeeling Nazi I met at Gestapo headquarters that day. That man was someone I didn’t know. A stranger, with no connection to you or me.”
She sat for a long time, gazing into the past. “You know, I remember when he forced me to leave him in Paris. He’d just come back to our flat after spending the day securing a building somewhere—whatever that meant—and he was shaken. He poured himself a drink, and I remember very clearly what he said to me. ‘This won’t be good for the people of France. That’s why you have to go. I don’t want you to see what will happen here.’ Now I realize that what he really didn’t want me to see was the part he would play in it. The things he would be forced to do.”
“It must have been very difficult for him,” I said.
“I’m sure it was. But now I finally feel that I can speak the truth about my feelings. Jack never knew, but the Ludwig I remembered, the man I once loved, always remained in my heart—just like my sister—and he’s still there. After all, he gave me you.”
My father bowed his head and wept softly.
“So now you can finally accept it,” I said, reaching for her hand. “He really was the great love of your life.”
Gram’s gaze shot to meet mine. “Oh no, Gillian. I did love him, but the great love of my life will always be Grampa Jack.”
“But I thought . . .”
“No.” She shook her head. “Ludwig broke me in that interrogation room, but it was Jack who put me back together again. And he never once let me down. We were married for over fifty years, and he was always there for me, beside me, and he’s still beside me now, every single day. I feel him in here.” She held her fist to her heart. “And I truly believe that that’s what Ludwig would have wanted—for me to be happy. It’s why he made sure I got on that plane. He wanted me to live, and I’m glad I finally know it. I’ll always love him for that. But it’s Jack who was my true love. My faithful partner, every day.”
As I sat in my grandmother’s cozy den on that cold November evening, I harkened back to my childhood and the many visits to this loving, happy home, where Gram had played piano for us and baked cookies. The house had always smelled delicious when we arrived. Grampa Jack had showed me how to set up a tent and light a campfire in the backyard. We’d played cards together, and he took me fishing.
Closing my eyes, I saw Ludwig in plain clothes—a plaid shirt and jeans—walking across a fragrant meadow alone while loving my grandmother with all his heart. I thought of him in the interrogation room, after his arrest, and I imagined what had been done to him.
I love you, April, and I want you to have a happy life in a free world.
In the end, he had sacrificed his life for my grandmother—he had died for her—and with that, he gave us everything.
EPILOGUE
Six months later
As the jumbo jet climbs toward the clouds, the sun is just dipping below the horizon, and the sky is a magnificent, blazing masterpiece of color and light. We bank left, and I lean toward the window to look down at the city of New York. We soar higher, and eventually, the lights on the ground resemble tiny twinkling stars.
I feel a momentary sadness for all the moments of my life that have not gone according to plan—the death of my mother, my difficult relationship with my father for many years afterward, and Malcolm’s betrayal. I think of the two years he and I spent together in his penthouse overlooking Central Park. It’s over now—that glamorous, champagne-drenched existence—and his cheating no longer causes me pain. It feels small to me, like the little lights on the ground, growing fainter and more distant as we climb higher toward the night sky.
When we reach our cruising altitude, there’s a ding, and the seat belt light switches off. Any sorrow I feel from past mistakes vanishes instantly. It’s replaced by a burst of anticipation for what awaits me on the other side of the ocean.
It’s springtime now, and the daffodils will be blooming in London. I tip my head back and think of the River Thames and the view of the Tower Bridge from my hotel window, where I’ll be staying this week, directly across the river from Geoffrey’s flat.
He’s promised to pick me up at the airport in the morning. I can’t wait to see him.
As I relax back in my seat, I can’t help but think of Gram as a young woman during the war, riding her bicycle through Hyde Park beneath large barrage balloons tethered to the ground to thwart the German bombers. I think of the collapsed house on Craven Street and how Gram climbed over piles of bricks and fallen timbers, in pain from broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, to retrieve the little antique sea chest that connected her to Ludwig after the loss of her twin. If it wasn’t for that chest, I never would have known the truth about my heritage, and I never would have met Geoffrey. Our paths never would have crossed.
But cross they did, and he was the first person I called after my discovery in Berlin, to tell him about the letter and the chest Hans had kept hidden in his attic. Geoffrey and I have kept in touch ever since, through emails and phone calls, and he’s been a wonderful friend to me, in many ways. On top of that, he helped me with something very important.
Now I am crossing an ocean to see him again and make a few things right.
Although Theodore’s brother, Henry, and his wife, Clara, are long gone from this world, Gram finally agreed to let me contact the current earl at Grantchester Hall. I told him the real story of his great-uncle, Theodore, and his wife, Vivian—the singer he’d met and fallen in love with at the start of World War II. The young earl agreed to let me replace a gravestone in the estate cemetery.
That is the important thing Geoffrey helped me with. And I’m pleased to say that the gravestone will no longer indicate the resting place of April Hughes. It will finally say, “Vivian Gibbons, beloved wife of Theodore Gibbons. 1915–1940.”
Furthermore, Hans has taken it upon himself to contact a historian in Berlin, who is gathering information to write a book about one of Germany’s forgotten heroes, Ludwig Albrecht. Most of it will focus on his secret struggles as a spy in the Third Reich, as well as his contributions to the German Resistance, and later, the Allied victory. The historian has already reached out to Gram to learn about her relationship with him. She has sent him copies of the photographs she and Ludwig kept in their twin chests, as well as the letter he wrote to her shortly before his death.
Hans also helped my father get in touch
with a few cousins he never knew he had, because Ludwig left behind a younger sister who survived the war. She is gone now, but my father hopes to travel to Berlin next year to meet his cousins in person. I’ll accompany him, for sure.
So . . . I feel good as the lights dim in the aircraft’s cabin and the passengers settle in for the long overnight flight across the Atlantic. I’m gratified that the past and its heroes have been honored and that their sacrifices have not been forgotten. I am able to sleep.
When we touch down at Heathrow Airport, I’m wide awake and excited. I can’t wait to get off the plane, and I’m impatient as the flight attendants prepare to open the doors and let us off.
I walk quickly toward customs, passing everyone in front of me. When at last I emerge at arrivals, Geoffrey is there, waiting for me. He wears jeans, sneakers, and a light spring jacket, and the sight of him lifts my heart. I’m wearing sneakers as well, and I realize it’s Saturday.
“At last,” he says with a smile that dazzles me as I approach. He’s more handsome than I remember, and I can’t help myself. I walk straight into his arms and hug him.
He holds me tight and speaks softly in my ear. “It’s so good to see you.” Then he looks at me for a moment, and before I know it, he brushes a soft kiss against my lips.
I feel weightless, as if I am floating on a peaceful river into a future that is unknown, but I am quite certain that whatever it is, it will be wondrous.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When it comes to gratitude, I must begin with my late father, Charles, who passed away in 2018, and my beautiful, loving mother, Noel Doucet. Thank you both for raising me in a kind, loving, and artistic home, and for teaching me what truly matters in life. In the parenting department, you were pure perfection, and you are the reason for my happiness today—because you raised me to live my life with passion and joy. All I had to do was follow your example.
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