“My mother isn’t well,” Audrey said in a choked voice, but Audrey knew she couldn’t protect her from this, and her mother wouldn’t want her to. She had a right to be there. “She’s bedridden. I’ll bring her in.” They sat down on the edge of the couch, and Audrey felt as though the longer she could keep them from telling them the news, the longer Will would be alive. She walked into her mother’s downstairs bedroom and told her that there were two officers waiting to speak to her. They both knew what it meant, or could mean. That he was wounded or dead. Ellen looked panicked and her hands were shaking violently, but she asked Audrey and Mrs. Beavis to get her into her wheelchair and wheel her into the living room to see them. She was wearing a navy housedress with pink flowers on it, which Audrey knew she would remember for the rest of her life. She had blue velvet slippers on her feet.

Audrey wheeled her into the living room, and turned her to face the officers as they stood to greet her. She introduced Audrey to them, which Audrey hadn’t thought to do herself. Their speech was brief and formal and as compassionate as they could make it. The Navy Air Force officer delivered the news they were both dreading. Will had been killed in the second wave of the attack, at the airfield. He had been working on his plane, and had used an antiaircraft gun from the plane to try and bring one of the Japanese planes down, but they got him first. They had an eyewitness report from a pilot who had been there and been injured. He had survived it and Will hadn’t.

“He died honorably in battle, Mrs. Parker, and will be awarded a medal posthumously to show his country’s gratitude,” the captain said. “He was one of our finest pilots. I met him myself last year. He was a fine young man. We extend the navy’s sympathy, and the president’s. We are very sorry. His body will be flown home when we can get the aircraft over there to do it. There isn’t a functioning plane on the ground there right now. We lost two thousand, four hundred men yesterday, and there are over a thousand wounded. Ships and planes destroyed, sunken ships. It may take awhile to bring him home, but we’ll bring him back as soon as we can.”