Safe Haven Read Online Free Page A

Some brick houses positioned on a hill, a small cemetery, and in the background the remnants of the actual fort remained as reminders of a site that had been so important to the security of a young America—through the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and even the Civil War. Theo guessed that other buildings might house offices and dining halls, a laundry and a chapel, as well as an infirmary and maybe a recreation center. But overall with the fence surrounding it, the place looked less like a military fort than it did a prison.
    Theo had arrived after an overnight bus ride. In their family meeting with Matthew and Jenny back in Wisconsin, they had sat in silence, waiting for guidance as they decided the best way to bring Franz, Ilse, and Liesl home to the farm. After making several telephone calls and scanning the national newspapers in the local library, his father had learned that the refugees would need to remain at the shelter until the war was over. And although with the landing at Normandy in June the tide of war seemed to have turned in favor of the Allies, no one thought for a minute that it would end quickly.
    “Well, we can’t just leave them there among strangers,” his mother had said, her lips set in a tight line that meant she intended to do something for her brother and his family immediately. She had already made plans to reassign the bedrooms of the farmhouse to make room for them. In the end it was decided that Theo would go to Oswego, find a room in a boardinghouse, and do everything he could to persuade the authorities that Franz, Ilse, and Liesl did not need to stay in the so-called shelter—they had a home and family right here in the United States.
    The boardinghouse part had worked out fine. Once the owner—Selma Velo—learned that he was Quaker, in spite of the fact that her regular rooms were all filled, she had offered Theo a cot and dresser in the attic in exchange for him mowing the yard and weeding her garden and taking care of other household repairs that her son usually handled. Her son was serving in the Pacific. After supper—shared with the other boarders less one woman from Washington, DC, who had not yet arrived—he had followed his landlady to the basement and unearthed an old fan in need of a new electrical cord.
    “My late husband’s workshop is out in that shed behind the house. Can you fix this?”
    “If I can find the right parts, I can,” Theo assured her. He was grateful for the possibility of a fan, because in spite of the fact that he’d propped open the three small attic windows and there was nearly always a breeze off Lake Ontario a couple of blocks away, it was oven hot up there.
    “There’s a hardware store down on Ninth Street on the way into town,” Mrs. Velo explained as she led him to the workshop. “I run an account there. It’s closed up for tonight, but tomorrow if you need something …”
    “Let me see what I can do tonight,” Theo replied. The one thing that he had noticed about Oswego was that everything was close enough that he could walk—even to the fort. That was one of the best things about small towns. On their way to the workshop he saw an old bicycle also in need of repair.
    Mrs. Velo saw him looking at the bike. “Use it if you can fix it.” Inside the cluttered shed she pulled a chain that turned on the single lightbulb overhead. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said and headed back across the yard to the house, where a taxi was just pulling into the driveway.
    He watched through the square, four-paned window curtained with dust and cobwebs and saw a woman get out of the cab. She was tall and thin with long dark hair. She wore a light-colored skirt and a printed, short-sleeved blouse and sandals with that wedge heel that made Theo wonder how women kept their balance. Over one shoulder, she carried a large purse, and when the cabdriver removed the luggage from the trunk there was one large suitcase and another smaller case that