Epilogue Stefan
SANOK, POLAND
Blue skies, poppies in every flower bed, and gabled shops painted in pastel tones.
Vendors with street carts, performers, and artists, children chasing balls and running with kites across cobblestone.
It took a village of people to return home, to sweep away the ash, to patch, and paint.
No one above another, no one below. Every hand with a broom or paint brush.
Rosalie rests her head on my shoulder as we gaze out the clock tower window. “Isn’t it the most beautiful view?” she asks.
“Like a painting of perfection,” I reply, staring only at her.
She nudges her elbow into my side. “How lucky was I to grow up being able to stare out this window every day?”
She didn’t think so then. With her mother gone, and her father lost in grief, Rosalie lived before as if caught between the minutes of a broken clock. Some scars never heal. Some nightmares outlive a mind. And yet, she pressed onward to fix what couldn’t be left behind.
“Dinner is getting cold,” Eloise says, huffing and puffing from the spiral stairwell.
“No, it’s not,” I argue with my sister, pointing out the window. “People are just taking their seats.”
I glance over my shoulder, finding Mama’s look painted on Eloise’s face—at twenty, she’s a spitting image.
“It’s time,” Mama calls out as she reaches the top of the steps, Benjamin shoving past her in the hurry he’s always in to go nowhere.
“Is the cake up here?” Father calls out, following the others upstairs.
“Yes, I’ll take care of it,” I tell him.
“Well let’s go!” he exclaims.
“Just another minute,” Rosalie tells the others, staring down at her papa’s watch.
She scoots off the window bench and hurries over to the pendulum and gears, counting quietly to herself as she peers between her watch and the escapement, bobbing her head like her Papa used to do. She closes her eyes gently and smiles just as the clock bells chime.
“Perfect,” she says.
“It truly is,” Mama agrees, making her way over to Rosalie and placing her arm around her shoulders.
They almost didn’t survive the years after the Sanok ghetto was liquidated.
A priest who knew my family took them amid the chaos of ghetto deportations and hid them in a storage room beneath a small church.
They lived in darkness, afraid that even the smallest movement might be heard above.
The priest had nothing more to give, but gave them whatever spare food he could, hoping it would be enough to keep them alive.
After liberation, Father was in the hospital for a while from starvation.
“Something a man does to save his family. All I could do was give them my crumbs,” he told us.
Mama didn’t know he had stopped eating to make sure she, Eloise, and Benjamin were being fed enough.
If there was one more mouth to feed, Papa wouldn’t have survived. I’ve recognized that on my own.
The day Papa was released from the hospital, he set out to find me. We found each other outside our family’s factory. I made my daily rounds between our house, the factory, and the clock tower, convinced someone would come back to find me there too. We found each other.
Horseshoes clomp steadily, the strings of a violin harmonize with the passing breeze, and the small village of Sanok, those who rebuilt it with their bare hands, sit at the longest table I will ever see, in the middle of the square, and share a Sunday night meal together every week.
As evening settles over Sanok, all twenty different desserts have been depleted, and a clink against glass shushes all the conversations at once.
“It’s my turn to make a toast this week,” Father says, standing from his chair.
“To the wonderful people of Sanok, another week has come and gone, more flowers have budded, another shop has reopened, our new bakery is in business, and—” he stalls, swiping at his napkin before blotting a tear beneath his eye.
“I just found out I’m going to be a grandfather today.
And Miriam, she’s going to be a grandmother.
” His voice breaks into a soft cry as Mama reaches up to take his hand.
“He’s going to make me cry,” Rosalie utters beneath her breath, drumming her fingertips gently against my knee as a prideful, shaky smile pokes at her lips.
“I think he knows. It might be his objective,” I utter through a clenched smile.
“My son and daughter-in-law are going to have a baby this autumn. A gift from God. A gift from the heavens. A gift from Rosalie’s wonderful parents, God rest their souls. Another Silberg to leave their footprints in this village beside all of you fine people.”
I wrap my arm around Rosalie’s shoulders and kiss her temple as her joyful tears begin to fall. A faint twitch flickers in my eye, but from excitement, and a bit of nerves.
“I love you,” I whisper in her ear.
“I love you. So much,” she says, her words breaking against her beautiful smile.
Everyone clinks their glasses and cheer, the sound roaring around the square.
When the crowd disappears, my family returns to their home, and Rosalie and I make our way back to the cottage, I see a world unfold before us—one with our baby who will begin a new life for us—untarnished, surrounded by nothing but smiling faces, the smell of blossoming flowers, music in the air, and enough food to never go hungry.
Side by side, wherever we go, I’ll know we’re forever—home.
I’ve watched a world of destruction evolve into a place welcoming of a future for all. Someday, we’ll be looked upon not as victims, but as survivors.
* * *
If Rosalie’s story had you reaching for the tissues, you will absolutely love The Doctor’s Daughter.
Get it here or keep reading for an exclusive extract!