“Gordon, may I ask you a question?”

On the radio, the DJ announced that following the next commercial break, he would play every song on the Sgt. Pepper’s album without interruption.

“Ask away,” I said, looking over at Glenna. She was staring out the passenger-side window, and I regretted that my reply had sounded so flippant.

“Will you—will you ever forgive me?”

I shifted my eyes to the road. “Yes.”

“When?”

“I already forgave you.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just haven’t forgotten how much it hurt to lose you.”

I racked up two more miles on the odometer before Glenna said, “I can’t change what happened.”

She was stating a fact; no reason to debate it.

Her voice cracking along the edges, Glenna said, “Why’d you take me to Boston?”

I shrugged.

“Gordon, please. Tell me. Why did you come back to me? What do you want?”

I knew from her voice that if I looked at her, I’d see her eyes misted up with tears, so I shrugged again and stared at the highway.

Sgt. Pepper’s was playing on the radio, and for the rest of the ride neither of us spoke.

EDSALL AVENUE was as narrow as a mountain pass with the snow plowed up on either side, and I was taking the long way around to Glenna’s house, through the train-station parking lot, when my iPhone began warbling like a choir of demented songbirds. I parked and took the phone from the cup holder. On the screen I saw a restricted number and felt as if my blood had stopped circulating. I wasn’t numb, exactly; more like embalmed.

“Hello.”

“Dad? Dad, can you hear me?”

“There’s a lag, but I can hear you.”

“Dad, I’m all right. Really, Dad. I’m in the hospital—Ibn Sina in Baghdad.”

As I was envisioning Alex lying in bed without his legs, he said, “I had some shrapnel in my thigh. A surgeon removed it, and I’m on IV antibiotics. The wound was infected, but I’m fine.”

Alex was alive and in one piece. I floated off somewhere. Thank you, God. Wherever You are.

“Dad? Dad, are you there?”

“I’m here, Alex.”

“You heard about the ambush?”

“Not the details.”

“I don’t know how I got out,” Alex said, his tone flat, like a hammer tapping tin. “I grabbed some water. The guy I was with grabbed a first-aid kit. We cave-hopped in the hills. Some bedouins came through. I talked to them, and they took us to their camp. A team of army medics was there vaccinating children.”

My blood hadn’t started moving yet, but I could feel pressure building behind my eyes.

“The ambush, Dad. They hit us with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms. I can’t stop hearing it. And seeing the bodies. I had to crawl over the bodies to get out of the Humvee.”

His tone wasn’t as flat now, and I could hear how frightened he’d been, and the hangover of fear.

“Alex, it’ll stop.”