Kelly Rimmer - The Things We Cannot Say

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. Its a decision that will alter her destinyand its a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alinas tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two womens stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silencedand how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.

Praise for Before I Let You Go

Kelly Rimmer skillfully takes us deep inside a world where love must make choices that logic cannot. Ripped from the headlines and from the heart, Before I Let You Go is an unforgettable novel that will amaze and startle you with its impact and insight.

Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookshop at Waters End

Before I Let You Go is a heartbreaking book about an impossible decision. Kelly Rimmer writes with wisdom and compassion about the relationships between sisters, mother and daughter.... She captures the anguish of addiction, the agonizing conflict between an addicts best and worst selves. Above all, this is a novel about the deepest love possible.

Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

Rimmers timely novel captures the unbreakable bond of two sisters and humanizes the difficult intersection of the opioid epidemic and the justice system.... A heartrending tale.

Publishers Weekly

Get ready for fireworks in your book club when you read Before I Let You Go ! One of the best books for discussion that Ive read in years.

Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Marriage

[A] shimmering and poignant new novel.

Library Journal

Strongly worded, cautionary and honest to a fault, Before I Let You Go is raw and unerringly truthful. Do not expect to put this book down until you get to the very last page. Before I Let You Go is that compelling.

Fresh Fiction

Thanks to Kelly Rimmers authentic voice, Before I Let You Go is a heartwrenching story about the love between sisters, the complexities of women, and the lengths well go for those closest to us. Thought provoking and deeply affecting, I couldnt put this one down until it was finished.

Karma Brown, bestselling author of In This Moment

Also by Kelly Rimmer

BEFORE I LET YOU GO

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. Its a decision that will alter her destiny...and its a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alinas tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two womens stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced...and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.

KELLY RIMMER is the worldwide and USA TODAY bestselling author of five novels, including Before I Let You Go, Me Without You and The Secret Daughter. She lives in rural Australia with her husband, two children and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages.

www.KellyRimmer.com

The Things We Cannot Say

Kelly Rimmer

For Daniel, who always has the best ideas.

Contents

The priest presiding over my wedding was half-starved, half-frozen and wearing rags, but he was resourceful; hed blessed a chunk of moldy bread from breakfast to serve as a communion wafer.

Repeat the vows after me. He smiled. My vision blurred, but I spoke the traditional vows through lips numb from cold.

I take you, Tomasz Slaski, to be my husband, and I promise to love, honor and respect you, to be faithful to you, and not to forsake you until we are parted by death, in fear of God, One in the Holy Trinity and all the Saints.

Id looked to my wedding to Tomasz as a beacon, the same way a sailor on rough seas might fix his gaze upon a lighthouse at the distant shore. Our love had been my reason to live and to carry on and to fight for so many years, but our wedding day was supposed to be a brief reprieve from all of the hardship and suffering. The reality of that day was so very different, and my disappointment in those moments seemed bigger than the world itself.

We were supposed to marry in the regal church in our hometownnot there, standing just beyond the tent city of the Buzuluk refugee and military camp, just far enough from the tents that the squalid stench of eighty thousand desperate souls was slightly less thick in the air. That reprieve from the crowds and the smell came at a cost; we were outside, sheltered only by the branches of a sparse fir tree. It was an unseasonably cold day for fall, and every now and again fat snowflakes would fall from the heavy gray skies to melt into our hair or our clothing or to make still more mud in the ground around our feet.

Id known my friends in the assembled crowd of well-wishers for only a few weeks. Every other person whod once been important to me was in a concentration camp or dead or just plain lost. My groom awkwardly declined to take communiona gesture which bewildered that poor, kindly priest, but didnt surprise me one bit. Even as the bride, I wore the only set of clothes I owned, and by then once-simple routines like bathing had become luxuries long forgotten. The lice infestation that had overrun the entire camp had not spared me, nor my groom, nor the priestnor even a single individual in the small crowd of well-wishers. Our entire assembly shifted and twitched constantly, desperate to soothe that endless itch.