arie-Ange Hawkins lay in the tall grass, beneath a huge, old tree, listening to the birds, and watching the puffy white clouds travel across the sky on a sunny August morning. She loved lying there, listening to the bees, smelling the flowers, and helping herself to an apple from the orchards. She lived in a safe, protected world, surrounded by people who loved her. And she particularly loved running free in the summer. She had lived at the Château de Marmouton for all of her eleven years, and roamed its woods and hills like a young doe, wading ankle deep in the little stream that ran through it. There were horses and cows, and a proper barnyard on the lower property at the old farmhouse. The men who worked the farm always smiled and waved when they saw her. She was a laughing, happy child, and a free spirit. And most of the time, as she wandered through the tall grass, or picked apples and peaches in the orchard, she was barefoot.

“You look like a little gypsy!” her mother scolded her, but she always smiled when she said it. Françoise Hawkins adored both her children.

Her son Robert had been born shortly after the war, eleven months after she married John Hawkins. John had started his business, exporting wine, at the same time, and within five years, he had made an immense amount of money. They had bought the Château de Marmouton when Marie-Ange was born, and she had grown up there. She went to the local school in the village, the same lycee that Robert had attended. And now, in a month, he was leaving for the Sorbonne, in Paris. He was going to study economics, and eventually work in his father’s business. The business had grown by leaps and bounds, and John himself was amazed at how successful it had become, and how comfortable they were as a result of it. Françoise was very proud of him. She always had been. Theirs was a remarkable and romantic story.

In the last months of the war, as an American soldier, John had been parachuted into France, and broken a leg when he landed in a tree on Françoise’s parents’ small farm. She and her mother had been there alone, her father was in the Resistance, and had been out at one of the secret meetings he attended nearly every night. They had hidden John in the attic. Françoise had been sixteen then, and more than a little dazzled by John’s tall, midwestern good looks and charm. He was a farm boy himself and only four years older than she was. Her mother had kept a watchful eye on them, afraid that Françoise would fall in love with him and do something foolish. But John had been respectful of her, and as much in love eventually as Françoise was. She taught him French, and he taught her English, in their whispered conversations at night, in the pitch black of the attic. They had never dared to light so much as a candle, for fear that the Germans would see them. He had stayed with them for four months, and by the time he left, Françoise was heartbroken over his going. Her father and some of his friends from the Resistance had spirited him back to the Americans, and he had eventually taken part in the liberation of Paris. But he had promised Françoise he would come back for her, and she knew without a doubt that he would.

Her parents were killed in the final days just before the liberation, and she was sent to Paris to live with cousins. She had no way of reaching John, his address had been lost in the chaos, and she had no idea he was in Paris. Long afterward, they learned that they had been within a mile or two of each other most of the time, as she lived just off the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and he never knew it.

John was shipped back to the States before seeing her again, and returned to Iowa. He had his own family worries. His father had been killed in Guam, and he had to take care of his own family’s farm with his mother, sisters, and brothers. He wrote to Françoise as soon as he got back, but his letters were neither returned, nor answered. They never reached her. And it was a full two years before he had saved up enough money to go back to France, to see if he could find her. He had been obsessed with her since he left. And when he reached the farm where they had met, he found that it had been sold and was inhabited by strangers. And all the neighbors knew was that Françoise’s parents were dead and she had gone to Paris.

He went there next, and used every resource he could think of to find her, the police, the Red Cross, the registry at the Sorbonne, as many local schools as he could visit. And on the day before he was to leave, sitting in a small cafe on the Left Bank, as though by a miracle, he saw her, walking slowly along the street in the rain, with her head down. At first, he thought it was a stranger who just looked like Françoise, but as he glanced at her more closely, and then ran after her, feeling foolish, but knowing he had to try one last time, she burst into tears the moment she saw him and threw her arms around him.

They spent the evening together at her cousins’ home, and he left for the States the following morning. They corresponded for a year after that, and then he finally returned to Paris, to stay this time. She was nineteen, and he was twenty-three by then, and they were married two weeks after he got back to Paris. In the ensuing years, nineteen of them, they had never left each other for a moment. They left Paris after Robert was born, and John eventually said he felt more at home in France than he ever had living in Iowa with his parents. It was meant to be, they always said, as they smiled at each other whenever they told their story. Marie-Ange had heard the tale a thousand times, and people always said it was very romantic.

Marie-Ange had never met her father’s relatives. His parents had died before she was born, and both his brothers. A sister had died a few years before, and his other sister was killed in an accident when Marie-Ange was a baby. His only surviving relative was an aunt on his father’s side, but Marie-Ange could tell from the way her father talked about her that he didn’t like her. None of his relatives had ever come to France, and he had said more than once that they thought he was crazy when he moved to Paris to be with her mother. Françoise’s cousins had died in an accident when Marie-Ange was three, she had no grandparents, and her mother had no brothers or sisters. The only family Marie-Ange had were her brother Robert, and her parents, and a great-aunt somewhere in Iowa, whom her father hated. He had explained to Marie-Ange once that she was “mean-spirited and small-minded,” whatever that meant. They no longer even corresponded. But Marie-Ange felt no lack of family. Her life was full, and the people in it treated her like a blessing and a joy, and even her name said she was an angel. Everyone thought of her that way, even her brother Robert, who loved to tease her.

She was going to miss him when he went away, but Françoise had already promised Marie-Ange that she would take her to Paris to see him often. John had business there, and he and Françoise loved going to Paris for a night or two away. Usually when they did, they left Marie-Ange with Sophie, the elderly housekeeper who had been with them since Robert was a baby. She had come to the château with them, and lived in a little house on the property. Marie-Ange loved to visit her, and sip tea and eat the cookies that Sophie baked for her.

Marie-Ange’s life was perfect in every way. She had the kind of childhood that most people dreamed of. Freedom, love, security, and she lived in a beautiful old château, like a little princess. And when her mother dressed her in the pretty dresses she bought in Paris for her, she even looked like one. Or so her father told her. Though when she ran barefoot through the fields, in the dresses and smocks she tore while climbing trees, he loved to say that she looked like an orphan.

“So, little one, what mischief are you up to today?” her brother asked when he came to find her for lunch. Sophie had gotten too old to chase after her, and their mother had sent Robert to find her, as he often did. He knew all her favorite haunts and hiding places.

“Nothing.” She had peaches smeared all over her face, and her pockets were full of peach pits as she smiled at him. He was tall and handsome and blond, like their father, as was Marie-Ange. She had blond curls, and blue eyes, and the face of an angel. Only Françoise had dark hair and big velvety brown eyes, and her husband often said that he wished they had another child, who looked just like her. But there was a lot of Françoise’s sense of mischief and fun in Marie-Ange’s spirit.

“Maman says it’s time for you to come in for lunch,” Robert said, shepherding her like a young colt. He didn’t want to admit it to her, but he knew how much he would miss her when he went to Paris. Ever since she could walk, she had been his shadow.

“I’m not hungry,” the child said, grinning at him.

“Of course not, you eat fruit all day. It’s amazing you don’t get a stomachache from it.”

“Sophie says it’s good for me.”

“So is lunch. Come on, Papa will be home any minute. You have to come and wash your face, and put some shoes on.” He took her by the hand, and she followed him back to the house, teasing and playing, and running around him like a puppy.

And when her mother saw her, she groaned at what the child looked like. “Marie-Ange,” she said to her in French. Only John spoke to Marie-Ange in English, and she was surprisingly proficient, although she had an accent. “That was a new dress you put on this morning. It’s in shreds now.” Françoise rolled her eyes, but she never looked angry. Most of the time, she was amused by her daughter’s antics.

“No, Maman, it’s just the pinafore that’s torn. The dress is still all right,” Marie-Ange reassured her with a sheepish grin.

“Thank Heaven for small favors. Now go and wash your face and hands, and put shoes on. Sophie will help you.” The old woman in the frayed black dress and clean apron followed Marie-Ange out of the kitchen, and upstairs to her room on the top floor of the château. It wasn’t easy for her to get around anymore, but she would have gone to the ends of the earth for her “baby.” She had cared for Robert when he was born, and had been overjoyed when Marie-Ange came as a surprise seven years later. She loved the entire Hawkins family as though they had been her children. She had a daughter of her own, but she lived in Normandy and they seldom saw each other. Sophie would never have admitted it, but she was far more devoted to the Hawkins children than she had ever been to her own daughter. And like Marie-Ange, she was sad that Robert was leaving them and going to study in Paris. But she knew it would be good for him, and she would see him when he came home for holidays and vacations.

John had talked briefly about sending his son to the States to study for a year, but Françoise didn’t like the idea, and Robert himself had finally admitted that he didn’t want to go so far away. They were a close-knit family, and he had a vast number of friends in the region. Paris was far enough away for him, and like his mother, and sister, he was profoundly French, in spite of his American father.

John was seated at the kitchen table by the time Marie-Ange came downstairs. Françoise had just poured him a glass of wine, and a smaller one for Robert. They drank wine at every meal, and sometimes they gave Marie-Ange a few drops in a glass of water. John had adapted easily and well to French customs. He had conducted his business in French for years, but spoke to his children in English so they would learn the language. And Robert was far more fluent than his sister.

The conversation at lunch was as lively as usual. John and Robert spoke about business, while Françoise commented on various bits of local news, and made sure that Marie-Ange didn’t make a mess while she was eating. Although she was allowed to roam the fields, her education had been a formal one, and she had extremely good manners, when she chose to use them.

“And you, little one, what have you done today?” her father asked her, tousling her curls with one hand, while Françoise served him a cup of strong, steaming filtered coffee.

“She’s been stripping your orchards, Papa,” Robert said, laughing at her, and Marie-Ange looked from one to the other with amusement.

“Robert says eating too many peaches will give me a stomachache, but it doesn’t,” she said proudly. “I’m going to visit the farm later,” she said, like a young queen planning to visit her subjects. Marie-Ange had never met anyone she didn’t like, nor anyone who found her less than enchanting. She was the proverbial golden child, and Robert especially loved her. Because of the seven-year gap in their age, there had never been any jealousy between them.

“You’re going to have to go back to school soon,” her father reminded her. “The vacation is almost over.” But the reminder made Marie-Ange frown. She knew that it meant Robert would be leaving, and when the time came, they all knew it would be hard for her, and for him as well, although he was excited by the adventure of living in Paris.

They had found him a small apartment on the Left Bank, and his mother was going to settle him in before they left him to his studies. She had already sent several pieces of furniture and trunks ahead, all of which were waiting for him in Paris.

When the big day finally came for Robert to leave, Marie-Ange got out of bed at dawn and was hiding in the orchard when Robert came looking for her before breakfast.

“Aren’t you going to have breakfast with me before I go?” he asked. She looked at him solemnly and shook her head. He could see easily that she’d been crying.

“I don’t want to.”

“You can’t sit out here all day, come and have some cafe au lait with me.” It was forbidden to her, but he always let her take a long sip of his, and what she liked best were the canards he let her make, dipping rough lumps of sugar in his coffee until they were soaked through with it. She would pop them into her mouth with a look of ecstasy before Sophie saw her.

“I don’t want you to go to Paris,” Marie-Ange said with tears filling her eyes again, as he took her gently by the hand, and led her back to the château, where their parents were waiting for them.

“I won’t be gone long. I’ll come home for a long weekend on All Saint’s Day.” It was the first holiday he had on the schedule the Sorbonne had sent him, and it was only two months away, but it seemed an eternity to his little sister. “You won’t even miss me. You’ll be much too busy torturing Sophie and Papa and Maman, and you’ll have all your friends at school to play with.”

“Why do you have to go to the stupid Sorbonne anyway?” she complained, wiping her eyes with hands that were still covered with dust from the orchard, and he laughed when he looked at her. Her face was so dirty she looked like an urchin. She was so pampered and so loved and so protected. She really was their baby.

“I have to go to get an education, so I can help Papa run his business. And one of these days you’ll go too, unless you plan to climb trees forever. I suppose you’d like that.” She smiled at him through her tears, and sat down next to him at the breakfast table.

Françoise was dressed in a chic navy blue suit she had bought in Paris the year before, and their father was wearing gray slacks and a blazer, and a dark blue Hermes tie that Françoise had bought him. They made a striking couple. She was thirty-eight years old, and looked a good ten years younger, with a girlish figure, and a lovely, unlined face, and the same delicate features John remembered from the first day he met her. And he was as handsome and blond as he had been when he parachuted over her parents’ farmhouse.

“You have to promise you’ll listen to Sophie while I’m gone,” Françoise admonished Marie-Ange, as Robert slipped her a dripping canard of coffee under the table, and she popped it into her mouth with a grateful look at him. “Don’t go roaming around where she can’t find you.” She was starting school herself in two days, and her mother hoped it would keep her mind off her brother. “Papa and I will be home on the weekend.” But without Robert. It seemed like a tragedy to his little sister.

“I’ll call you from Paris,” he promised.

“Every day?” Marie-Ange asked him with the huge blue eyes that were so like his and their father’s.

“As often as I can. I’ll be pretty busy with my classes, but I’ll call you.”

He gave her a huge hug and squeeze and kissed her on both cheeks when he left, and got into the car with his parents. They each had a small overnight case in the trunk, and just before he shut the door, Robert pressed a little package into her hand, and told her to wear it. She was still holding it as the car drove away, and she and Sophie stood side by side, crying and waving. And as soon as she walked back into the kitchen, Marie-Ange opened the gift, and found a tiny gold locket, with a picture of him in it. He was smiling, and she remembered the photograph from the previous Christmas. And in the other half of the locket, he had put a tiny photograph from the same day, of their parents. It was very pretty, and Sophie helped her put it on, and fastened the clasp on the thin gold chain it hung on.

“What a nice present for Robert to give you!” Sophie said, dabbing at her eyes, and clearing the dishes off the breakfast table, as Marie-Ange went to admire the locket in the hall mirror. It made her smile to look at it, and she felt a pang of loneliness again as she looked at her brother’s face in the picture, and another as she looked at the photograph of her father and mother. Her mother had given her two big kisses before she left, and her father had hugged her and ruffled her curls as he always did, and promised to pick her up at school at noon on Saturday, when they got back from Paris. But the house seemed empty now without them. She drifted up to Robert’s room on the way to her own, and sat on her bed for a while, thinking about him.

She was still sitting there, looking lost, when Sophie came upstairs half an hour later to find her.

“Do you want to come to the farm with me? I have to get some eggs, and I promised to bring some biscuits to Madame Fournier.” But Marie-Ange only shook her head sadly. Even the delights of the farm held no lure for her this morning. She was already missing her brother. It was going to be a long, lonely winter at Marmouton without him. And Sophie resigned herself to going to the farm alone. “I’ll be back in time for lunch, Marie-Ange. Stay in the garden, I don’t want to have to look all over the woods to find you. Do you promise?”

“Oui, Sophie,” she said diligently. She didn’t feel like going anywhere, but once Sophie was gone, she wandered out into the garden, and found nothing to do there. And then she decided to go down to the orchards after all, and pick some apples. She knew Sophie would make a tarte tatin with them, if she brought back enough of them in her apron.

But even Sophie was out of sorts when she came back at noon, and made some soup and a Croque Madame for Marie-Ange. It was normally her favorite lunch, but today she only picked at it. Neither of them was in great spirits. And Marie-Ange went back out to the orchard to play afterward, and for a while, she just lay nearby, in the grass, looking up at the sky, as she always did, and thinking of her brother. She lay there for a long time, and it was late in the afternoon when she wandered back to the house, barefoot as usual, and looking as disheveled as she always did by that hour. And she noticed that the car of the local gendarmerie was parked in the courtyard. Even that didn’t excite her. The local police stopped by occasionally to say hello, or have tea with Sophie and check on them. She wondered if they knew her parents had gone to Paris. And as she walked into the kitchen, she saw a policeman sitting with Sophie, and noticed that Sophie was crying. Marie-Ange assumed she was telling the officer that Robert had gone to Paris. Just thinking of it made Marie-Ange touch her locket. She had felt for it all afternoon, and wanted to make sure she hadn’t lost it in the orchard. And as she walked farther into the room, both the officer and Sophie stopped talking. The old woman looked at her with such desolation in her eyes, that Marie-Ange looked at her, and wondered what had happened. It was more than just Robert, she could sense that. She wondered suddenly if something had happened to Sophie’s daughter. But neither adult spoke a word, they just stared at the child, as Marie-Ange felt an odd ripple of fear run through her.

There was an endless pause, as Sophie looked at the gendarme and then the child, and held out her arms to her. “Come and sit down, my love.” She patted her lap, which she hadn’t done in a long time, because Marie-Ange was nearly as big as she now. And as soon as Marie-Ange sat down on her, she felt the frail old arms go around her. There was no way Sophie could say the words, to tell Marie-Ange what she had just heard, and the gendarme could see that he was going to have to be the one to tell her.

“Marie-Ange,” he said solemnly, and she could feel Sophie shaking behind her. Suddenly all she wanted to do was put her hands over her ears and run away. She didn’t want to hear anything he was going to tell her. But she couldn’t stop him. “There has been an accident, on the road to Paris.” She could hear her own breath catch, and feel her heart racing. What accident? There couldn’t have been. But someone must have been hurt for him to come here, and all she could do was pray it wasn’t Robert. “A terrible accident,” he went on deliberately, as Marie-Ange felt terror rise in her like a tidal wave. “Your parents, and your brother—” he began as Marie-Ange leaped off Sophie’s lap and tried to bolt out of the kitchen, but he caught her and held her fast by one arm. As much as he didn’t want to, he knew he had to tell her. “They were all three killed an hour ago. Their car collided with a truck that spun off the road, and they were killed instantly. The highway police just called us.” His words ended as suddenly as they had begun, and Marie-Ange stood frozen, feeling her heart pound, and listening to the clock tick in the silence of the kitchen. She stared at him in fury.

“That’s not true!” she shouted at him then. “It’s a lie! My parents and Robert did not die in an accident! They’re in Paris.”

“They never got there,” he said mournfully, as a sob escaped Sophie, and at the same moment, Marie-Ange began to cry frantically and wrestle with the powerful hand that held her. Not knowing what else to do, nor wanting to hurt her, he released her, and like a torpedo she flew out of the door and raced in the direction of the orchard. He wasn’t sure what to do, and turned to Sophie for direction. He had no children of his own, and this wasn’t a task he relished. “Should I go after her?” But Sophie only shook her head and wiped her eyes on her apron.

“Let her be for now. I will go after her in a little while. She needs some time to absorb this.” But all Sophie could do was cry as she mourned them, and wonder what would happen to her and Marie-Ange now. It was so unthinkable, unbearable, those three lovely people dead in an instant. The scene of carnage the gendarme had described was so terrible, Sophie could barely listen to him. And all Sophie could hope was that it had been painless. All she could do now was worry about Marie-Ange, and what would become of her without her parents. The gendarme had no idea when she asked him that, and said that he was sure an attorney for the family would be contacting them about the arrangements. He could not answer Sophie’s questions.

It was dusk when she went out to find Marie-Ange after he left, but it did not take her long to find her. The child was sitting next to a tree, with her face on her knees, like a small anguished ball, and she was sobbing. Sophie said nothing to her, but let herself down on the ground, to sit beside her.

“It is God’s will, Marie-Ange. He has taken them to Heaven,” she said through her own tears.

“No, He hasn’t,” she insisted. “And if He has, I hate Him.”

“Don’t say that. We must pray for them.” As she said it, she took Marie-Ange in her arms, and they sat there for a long time, crying together as Sophie rocked her gently back and forth and held her. It was dark when they went back finally, and Sophie had an arm around her. Marie-Ange looked dazed as she stumbled toward the château, and then looked up at Sophie in terror as they reached the courtyard.

“What will happen to us now?” she asked in a whisper, as her eyes met the old woman’s. “Will we stay here?”

“I hope so, my love. I don’t know,” she said honestly. She didn’t want to make promises to her she couldn’t keep, and she had no idea what would happen. She knew there were no grandparents, no relatives, no one who ever visited from America. As far as she knew, there were no relatives on either side, and Sophie believed, and Marie-Ange felt, that she was alone in the world now. And as she contemplated a future without her parents or Robert, Marie-Ange felt a wave of terror wash over her, and she felt as though she were drowning. Worse than that, she would never see her parents or brother again, and the safe, protected, loving life she had known had ended as abruptly as if she had died with them.