The news stories she turned up took her back to the seventies, to long hair and ugly colors like mustard brown and avocado green and red-orange, to the Vietnam war, cities burning in race riots, the Black Panthers. Patty Hearst was in jail and other members of the Symbionese Liberation Army had died in a fiery shoot-out with police. Other radical antiestablishment groups had abandoned the peaceful protests of the sixties for violent action. One such group, the People’s Liberation Front, had robbed several Boston area banks in order to get money to advance their cause, supposedly protecting “the people” from the “fascist establishment.” Officer John Joseph O’Toole was among the officers responding to an alarm at the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank on Washington Street. He was the first to enter the bank and had been shot point blank in the chest by one of the fleeing robbers.

Two of the Front members had been killed in the ensuing shoot-out, a third had been wounded and was later tried and sentenced to life in prison, but the driver of the getaway car was never caught. Numerous photos were published in hopes that somebody would recognize him and turn him in, but that had never happened. He still showed up from time to time on lists of Ten Most Wanted Criminals.

Looking at the grainy photo of the long-haired, bearded young revolutionary, Lucy thought how much he looked like some of the boys she went to college with. If he was as blinded by youth and idealism as they had been, he had never seriously considered the human cost of his behavior. They played at revolution like kids today play video games, thought Lucy, shooting anyone who got in their way.

Lucy sat back in her chair, thinking over what she had learned and reached for her coffee cup. It was empty so she got up to refill it and make herself a piece of toast or something when Sara came down the stairs.

“You’re up early for a Saturday,” said Lucy.

“I couldn’t sleep,” said Sara.

“Want some breakfast? I’ll make you an egg, French toast, whatever you want.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Sara, pouring herself a glass of orange juice.

“You’ve never had trouble sleeping before,” said Lucy. “Was it because of what happened at Lake Wingate?”

“No, Mom. Nothing like that. I shouldn’t have had that glass of Coke before I went to bed, that’s all.”

“Try another one,” said Lucy, dismayed to catch her daughter in a lie. “It’s caffeine free.”

“Well, I didn’t know that, did I? They say half of the effect of caffeine is in people’s heads. I probably thought it might keep me awake, so it did.”