Preferring to withdraw from the maddening crowds in New York, Victoria took a job as a French translator for a small publishing company in Toronto, Ontario, with access to a private plane and pilot that allowed her to fly to Williamsburg to spend weekends with her father and ailing mother. In Austin, Texas, Chris settled down into an academic routine at the University of Texas, became the secret heart swoon of the coeds, and spent most evenings running track.

But their days were not without moments of sudden pause in their activities that caught the attention of their loved ones and associates. Over his drafting table, Bucky would sometimes look up from his drawings in still and deep reflection unrelated to his work, and Bridgette would occasionally stop in midconversation as if interrupted by a voice in her head. “What are you thinking?” the pretty company secretary would ask Brad on their dates when he seemed far away, and he would reply: “Not thinking, remembering.” Chris, poetry in motion on his runs, was noted to slow his pace as if stopped by an invisible force on the track, and from time to time, Victoria was noticed at her desk with her head cocked in the listening mode of someone engaged in dialogue with a visitor that only she could hear.

*  *  *

In mid-August of the year of their return, Bucky came home from Tulsa to find his mother in his room. He had not yet become acclimated to the city, nor had he developed an attachment to his apartment. He preferred to spend his weekends in his parents’ company and the serenity and quiet of their home in Oklahoma City.

His mother turned to him, tears in her eyes. “Where did you get these?” she asked, holding up his father’s gold cadet epaulets, which she had discovered when placing folded laundry in his drawer. Bucky had left the shoulder pieces there for safekeeping, his most precious possession, thinking that his apartment house was vulnerable to robberies. His American father was not home.

When Bucky did not answer, his mother said, “You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I have for some time.”

“How did you find out?”

Bucky told her.

“And you went to France to find him, didn’t you? That’s where you’ve been?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky said.

His mother pressed the epaulets to her heart. “How did you come by these, mon fils?”

“He gave them to me for Christmas.”

“Then you found him?”

“Yes, ma’am, I found him.”

“You must tell me everything, mon fils.”

Bucky hesitated, but only for the seconds required to silence the reminder of the Official Secrets Service Act in his head. What could it possibly matter now? “Oui, Mère,” Bucky said.

*  *  *