His assessment had been right and in line with most of his astute commercial and business decisions, as evidenced by the success of his trucking company and its notable survival of the Depression. That he adored Monique Barton, Bucky had no doubt. After almost twenty-three years of marriage, the feeling his rough, bombastic father had for his lovely, refined French mother still bordered on adulation. “Imagine the luck of an old high school dropout country boy like me winning the hand of a beautiful, educated woman like your mom,” he’d say to Bucky. “Never let me hear you say a cross word to her, son, you hear me? The belt if you do.”

“Yessir,” Bucky would dutifully reply, as if he could ever disrespect his mother, but he had learned that Horace Barton’s idea of parenting was to instruct by empty threat, for Horace Barton would never lay a hand on his son, even if Bucky had been the sort of child to test his concept of good conduct. His father loved him without bounds. Of that, Bucky had no doubt, either, and he was happy to make him proud.

Looking into his rearview mirror, he saw his father glance worriedly at his mother and reach for her hand. She had not spoken the whole drive, and the car vibrated with her deep silence. “It will be okay, sweetheart,” Horace said soothingly. “Your sister in Paris will be fine. The Germans treat the upper-class French with respect, and should Bucky decide to join the Army Corps of Engineers, it doesn’t send its bridge builders into combat. If Bucky is sent overseas, chances are he will be given an assignment far behind hostile lines, ready to step up to do his stuff when the path is clear.” Horace reached forward and popped his son on the shoulder. “Right, son?”

“If you say so, Dad,” Bucky said. From his mother’s expression, his father’s assurances had the effect of a sprinkler bottle used to put out a house fire, and she turned her head to stare out the window. Bucky added no words to comfort her. They would have been meaningless and untrue, as were his father’s, for in the First World War, Horace Barton had seen firsthand what the Germans could do to the French population. Also, Bucky would not be volunteering for the Army Corps of Engineers, as his father assumed. The unit he planned to join would not assign him to build bridges but to destroy them from deep within enemy territory.