Tender Mercies
Copyright© 2025 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 10
May 9th, 1945 dawned clear and bright.
Clarice woke before first light, as always, but lay in bed watching the darkness fade to grey. Listening.
The silence was profound. No guns. No distant rumble of artillery. Just birdsong and the lowing of cows waiting to be milked.
She rose, dressed, went through the morning routine with her hands shaking.
This was the day. After five months of hiding, of fear, of three visits in darkness—this was the day Scotty would see the sky again.
The morning milking took forever. Her hands fumbled. Celeste shifted restlessly, sensing her agitation.
“Ça va, ma belle,” she murmured. “Everything is changing today. Everything.”
She didn’t go to the cellar afterward. Not yet. She needed to know it was safe first. Needed to see with her own eyes that the Germans were truly surrendering.
By mid-morning, she heard it—the sound of trucks, of marching boots. But different this time. Organized. Resigned.
She stood at her gate and watched the German garrison march out.
Hundreds of them. Tired, defeated men carrying white flags. The Lieutenant was among them—she spotted him in the column, his face gray with exhaustion and shame. He didn’t look at her as he passed.
Behind the Germans came the Allies. Canadian troops, she heard someone say. They’d been containing the fortress for eight months. Now they were finally entering it.
The war—at least this part of it—was over.
She waited until noon. Until she was certain. Until she saw the Allied flags flying over the fortress, until the last German soldier had been marched away.
Then she walked across her pasture to the cheese cellar.
Her hands shook as she opened the door.
“Scotty?” she called down. “Scotty, it is safe. They are gone. The Germans surrendered.”
She heard movement. Then his voice, tight with emotion: “They’re really gone?”
“They are really gone.”
Silence. Then: “I’m coming up.”
She stepped back, giving him room.
His head appeared first, then his shoulders. He climbed slowly, blinking in the daylight.
When he reached the top, he stood for a long moment, swaying slightly.
Then he tilted his face to the sky.
Clarice watched him. Watched five months of darkness fall away as he stood in the May sunlight. Watched his eyes close, his chest expand with deep breaths of fresh air.
When he opened his eyes, they were wet.
“I forgot,” he said hoarsely. “I forgot how bright it is.”
She took his hand. “Come. Sit. Your eyes need time.”
She led him to the bench outside the barn—the one Henri had built, where she used to sit on summer evenings shelling peas. Scotty sat, still squinting, still drinking in the daylight like a man dying of thirst.
“Five months,” he said. “Five months in the dark.”
“You are free now.”
He turned to her. “Ask me.”
“What?”
“Ask me if I still want to stay.” His ice-blue eyes—brilliant in the daylight—held hers. “You said to ask you when I saw the sky. Well, I’m seeing it. So ask me.”
Her throat was tight. “Do you want to stay?”
“More than anything.” He stood, pulled her to her feet. “Clarice Deveroux, I love you. I want to marry you, work this farm with you, grow old with you. I want to learn to make proper cheese and speak proper French and meet your friends at the convent and figure out how to explain this to my mother.” He smiled. “But mostly I just want to be with you. Every day. In the daylight. No more hiding.”
She was crying now. “Your accent is still terrible.”
“I’ll work on it. We have time.” He cupped her face. “Say yes.”
“Yes.” She laughed through the tears. “Yes, you stubborn American. Yes.”
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