The Nightingale

What was the right thing for a mother to say to her nearly grown daughter about the ugliness in the world? How could she be honest? How could Vianne expect her daughter to judge her less harshly than she judged herself?

Vianne sat down beside Sophie. She thought about their old life—laughter, kisses, family suppers, Christmas mornings, lost baby teeth, first words.

“I’m not stupid,” Sophie said.

“I have never thought you were. Not for a moment.” She drew in a breath and let it out. “I only wanted to protect you.”

“From the truth?”

“From everything.”

“There’s no such thing,” Sophie said bitterly. “Don’t you know that by now? Rachel is gone. Sarah is dead. Grandpère is dead. Tante Isabelle is…” Tears filled her eyes. “And Papa … when did we last hear from him? A year? Eight months? He’s probably dead, too.”

“Your father is alive. So is your aunt. I’d feel it if they were gone.” She put a hand over her heart. “I’d know it here.”

“Your heart? You’d feel it in your heart?”

Vianne knew that Sophie was being shaped by this war, roughened by fear and desperation into a sharper, more cynical version of herself, but still it was hard to see in such sharp detail.

“How can you just … go to him? I see the bruises.”

“That’s my war,” Vianne said quietly, ashamed almost more than she could stand.

“Tante Isabelle would have strangled him in his sleep.”

“Oui,” she agreed. “Isabelle is a strong woman. I am not. I am just … a mother trying to keep her children safe.”

“You think we want you to save us this way?”

“You’re young,” she said, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “When you are a mother yourself…”

“I won’t be a mother,” she said.

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you, Sophie.”

“I want to kill him,” Sophie said after a moment.

“Me, too.”

“We could hold a pillow over his head while he sleeps.”

“You think I have not dreamed of doing it? But it is too dangerous. Beck already disappeared while living in this house. To have a second officer do the same? They would turn their attention on us, which we don’t want.”

Sophie nodded glumly.

“I can stand what Von Richter does to me, Sophie. I couldn’t stand losing you or Daniel or being sent away from you. Or seeing you hurt.”

Sophie didn’t look away. “I hate him.”

“So do I,” Vianne said quietly. “So do I.”

* * *

“It is hot out today. I was thinking it would be a good day for swimming,” Vianne said with a smile.

The uproar was immediate and unanimous.

Vianne guided the children out of the orphanage classroom, keeping them tucked in close as they walked down the cloisters. They were passing Mother Superior’s office when the door opened.