The farther he moved from New York, the longer the supply lines of memory stretched, until the intense heartbreak could no longer be sustained. He’d never forget Astrid. He hadn’t gotten over it. But just as Emil said, he learned to get next to it. Or, more accurately, to get in front of it and put Astrid where she used to be—over his shoulder. As the weeks and months passed, as his surroundings changed, he looked back at her less and less. He never stopped completely. He missed her, but it no longer hurt like an untreated toothache. He thought about her and wondered what she was doing, but it didn’t turn his mind into a nest of angry red ants.

The thought rose: I love her, I will always love her, but it became as ordinary as the sky being blue and sugar being sweet. The ache of missing her became like his chilblained fingers—occasionally acting up when his mood turned cold and blue.

Sometimes more troubling thoughts came: Does she still love me, does she miss me, does she wonder about me? But even these were faced down with a newfound pragmatism: You’ll never know. Either you believe she does or you believe she doesn’t. Decide which it is and get next to it.

“Jesus H,” Minor said, swatting Kennet’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “What’s a brother gotta do to get you to smile?”

“Just sit there and look beautiful,” Kennet said, breaking out of his deep thoughts. “And try not to get yourself killed again.”

Minor had gone straight into the Navy after Pearl Harbor. He was sent first to machinist school in Chicago, then posted to the carrier USS Lexington as a Machinist’s Mate. He was the first Fiskare son to see action: in the Coral Sea, the Lexington was struck by two torpedoes and five bombs in the space of eleven minutes. The ruptured fuel lines released gasoline fumes, which were ignited by a generator, and the resulting explosion shook the carrier from bow to stern. Minor was blasted clear through the wall of a boiler room. Bleeding heavily from a gash across his forehead and temple, he lay unconscious in the rapidly rising water of the broken main and would have drowned if buddies hadn’t found him and hauled him out. After a month’s hospital stay, he was reposted to the cruiser USS Indianapolis.

“Quit staring at me,” Minor said, shaking out a cigarette.

“Can’t.”

“Then stare and give me a light.”