Whatever it was, he was taking a while coming out with it. And Leo did not like how cheerful Jim seemed. Not tonight. Why tonight? Allie’s new harmonica was pressing into Leo’s hip bone through his front jeans pocket. He pulled it out and lay it on the table. He could hear Jim open and close a drawer back in his room. Leo looked down at the yellow linoleum of the kitchen floor, then at the sink counter and the stove, at his father’s black-bottomed coffeepot sitting clean and dry on the back burner, and he wondered if the same man who recruited him would be picking him up. Then the picture of the smiling, gum-chewing sergeant came into Leo’s head and he felt a hot shuddering cave open up in him because in the dark of that cave was Allie’s last hug, so tight, and so full of love for him, that he had to stand and walk out to the stoop to breathe better, but the shine of the outside bulb was in his face and so were the bugs, one of them skimming across his cheek before it perched itself in his ear. He crushed it with his finger and stepped into the driveway just as the headlights of Ryder’s Impala made a scanning arc through the trees on his way down Saunders Hill Road.

“Come on in, son.”

The three of them sat at the table, Leo in the middle facing the window. Ryder had opened them all beers, even though Jim said no thank you, he didn’t want one. He was keeping the surprise in his lap till he was ready, and he wasn’t smiling but his eyes seemed to hold something warm, and right now it left Leo feeling a little better to see it.

“You and your damn ceremonies, Jimmy.”

Jim’s eyes didn’t change. He pulled out a green hardcover book and slid it across the table in front of Leo. “’Member this one, Ride?”

In fancy gold letters on the cover was printed: The Concise Dictionary of French. Ryder reached for it and began to thumb through the pages. He looked tired, his small eyes moist from the beer, but now he sat up and read something on the inside cover.

“Show him.”

Ryder flipped the book around for Leo to read. In Katie Faye’s small handwriting was her full unmarried name in blue ink, but later she’d crossed out Hewson with green ink and written Suther over it. Then she wrote under her name Jim’s and Ryder’s. And an inch under Ryder’s name, in black this time, was Jim’s blocky handwriting: LEO J. SUTHER August 1967.

“Here.” Jim lay down a folded map. Leo opened it. It was brand new and took up the whole table.

“Our old one didn’t make it.” Jim leaned closer. “Look at this.”

“The Arch of Triumph, Young Buddy.”