Geertrui van Riet Timeline and Summary

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• Geertrui sees parachutes falling from the sky in 1944, and is certain that Holland will be liberated soon. Yay. She and her parents celebrate.
• Too bad there are still battles to fight until they are free; bombs go off all around and Geertrui and her mom help patch up British soldiers.
• One of the injured soldiers, named Jacob, needs a lot of care. He's got shrapnel in his body and is badly injured, so Geertrui helps nurse him back to life, dutifully changing his bandages and cleaning his wound every day.
• Another soldier, Sam, has a book of poetry that he reads from; Geertrui loves the poems in it, even though she's just learning English and hasn't perfected it yet.
• One night, the order comes in for all the troops to leave, except for the injured ones. Geertrui doesn't think this is fair and worries about Jacob, who can't make it with the soldiers.
• She stands up to her dad and asks them to help Jacob—a soldier, liberator, and now family member whom they've cared for. No one quite gets why at first, but eventually they agree.
• Geertrui, Henk, and Dirk run off to Dirk's farm, carrying Jacob. If the Germans find them helping an English soldier, they'll be killed, so they feel they have no choice.
• At the farm, Jacob keeps getting stronger, and Geertrui and he get closer. They read poems from Sam's book to each other and laugh together.
• After a run-in with a German officer, Dirk and Henk run off to join the Resistance—they don't want to hide out any more, but Geertrui is sad to see them go.
• She finds comfort in Jacob, and the two start sharing more than just poems and secrets. Soon, these lovebirds are spending every night together. Things are perfect—aside from the fact that there's a war going on and Jacob is actually married.
• One day while Jacob and Geertrui are dancing, Jacob falls and dies of a heart attack. Geertrui is shocked and devastated; they bury his body out in the garden.
• Two months later, Geertrui finds out she's pregnant. She's unmarried and is not sure what to do.
• Dirk arrives home—without Henk, but with a marriage proposal for Geertrui. She accepts after telling him the truth about Jacob and her secret pregnancy; they promise to never tell anyone.
• Fifty years later, Jacob goes to visit Geertrui in the nursing home, and they talk about his family. She knew Jacob's grandpa (also named Jacob) in WWII and helped him during it—Jacob's not really sure what he's doing there, but he's happy to talk to her.
• Geertrui asks to see Jacob again, so Daan takes him up to the nursing home. There, Geertrui gives Jacob a gift, which he has to promise not to open until he gets home.
• At home, Jacob opens the gift, a memoir from Geertrui about her time with Jacob's grandpa. In it, Jacob learns that his grandpa and Geertrui were in love, and that they had a baby, Daan's mom, Tessel. It's the memoir we've been reading the whole time.