While Allie got them from the kitchen counter, Leo went to the bed and shook Chick’s good hand. Chick pulled him down and half-hugged him with his arm cast, then he let go just as quick. He lay back on the pillows and pointed at the portrait of the bearded man above the mantel. “I have to explain myself to him now. Can’t even keep you from signing on.”

Leo wanted to say more, that he wasn’t signing on, but he couldn’t open his mouth to do it. Allie handed him the keys, then brushed by him to kiss her father.

“Get him pointed north, damn it.”

“Say good-bye to Mrs. Donovan for me, Chick.”

“Tess; when you write from Montreal I want to see “Chick and Tess” on the envelope. You can send Allie’s separately. Now hit the road.”

Leo drove the flatbed slowly over the river road. One of the headlights was out of center and pointed up and off at the trees. Allie sat over on the passenger side. She had her elbow propped out the truck window, her cheek resting against her fingers, and she hadn’t said a word since they stepped off the porch and both got into the truck as smooth and regular as if they were off to buy groceries. And then all she had said was, “You can drive.” Her voice wasn’t polite anymore; it sounded tired, let down, as if she’d just asked fifteen questions in a row and not one of them had been answered.

Leo drove by the fork of the job site and kept the flatbed going along the river. He could smell the mud by its bank and he thought again of the day he and Allie had made love all afternoon in his room. He felt the blood begin to fill his penis, and he wanted to reach over and touch Allie’s blue-jeaned leg, but not to start anything really, not that.

“So I did what I wanted, huh?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Don’t you dare lecture me; I can’t believe you’re going to that war. That’s some band, Leo. That’s some tour. God.”

Leo slowed the truck and guided it over the dry rain ruts in the gravel. The headlight path dipped and jerked as they went and he was gripping the steering wheel pretty hard; he didn’t want the conversation to go this way. He would give her an inch or two more rope and that was it, but he didn’t want to yell. These days he’d been feeling more hurt than mad, and if they were going to talk about anything, why not talk about that? He wanted to tell her about Paris and Katie Faye, that he had no intention of going down to Asia to fight anyone, but he couldn’t open his mouth to speak because he also knew that if the army did fly him down to that war, he wouldn’t run away from it either. And Allie was smart; she’d hear that part of him in his voice too, no matter what he said about his mother’s plans.