Kennet squeezed him harder. “Tell your imagination to piss off because I’m home.”

“I had no one else to talk to. No one who would understand.”

“You do now. I’m home. You go ahead and talk your face off. Wake me up in the middle of the night if you need to tell me something. Tell me everything.” He gave Minor a little shake. “I’ll beat you up if you don’t.”

“No you won’t.”

“You’re right. I’ll just borrow your best duds and not return them.”

Minor lifted his head. “Now them’s fighting words. Keep your fingers out of my drawers.”

“Bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Oh, you little fucker,” Minor said wearily, laying his head back down on Kennet’s shoulder. “God, I missed your stupid face…”

Our Greatest Weapon

In all his twenty-six years, Kennet had never appropriated one of the rooms at the Fisher Hotel for his own use. But upon his return home, he lifted a key and let himself into #21, putting out the Do Not Disturb sign.

He filled the tub to the brim and lowered himself in. He had no bath junk, no beauty masks or cucumber slices. But he had a champagne bucket of beers, the radio on the closed lid of the commode, two packs of smokes and a stack of Saturday Evening Posts. He lolled in the tub until he was pickled, raising the occasional toast to Schmitt and Nichols, wondering how their widows were coping. He mused sadly that a certain crapper in Brooklyn would never again feel the touch of Jock’s butt.

He worried about O’Hara, praying the visit to the Fragiacomos had gone well.

Nice to meet you. My condolences. Your son was a hell of a foxhole fuck…

Sighing, he reached out and flushed the toilet. Just because he could.

He spent another day suffering delayed bewilderment about the family’s new living arrangements. When he exhausted being confused, he got pissy about it. Nobody in this goddamn house was sleeping where they were supposed to. Kennet had his bedroom to himself because Minor was in the old guest room. That was weird enough, but Marta, for crying out loud, was in his parents’ bedroom, which was nuts. What had happened to his world? It was one thing to congratulate your father on his engagement before you left for war. Quite another to come home ten months later and find Marta sleeping in the master bedroom—as was her right, but still, no woman but Ingrid had ever been in that bed.