“Her name was Florence Overby, Jack,” Harry said. “I swear I’m remembering it right. And she was from Tennessee. Had a nifty accent. And here’s the thing: She was a widow. Her husband had died already. And she didn’t have any children, I know for a fact. Because she used to say how much she wished she did. How much she wished she had a son like me. The thing is, it makes sense. Dad trying so hard to get rid of Nick, you know?”

Jack hardly noticed that the car was slowing down; he’d forgotten to keep pressing down on the gas. He looked at his brother, and their eyes locked. “Jesus, Harry. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Harry said. “But close to ninety-nine. She left that fall. Went back home to Tennessee, as I recall it. To be closer to her family, was the story. I remember because I sure did miss those cinnamon rolls.”

“So she could have been—”

“Pregnant,” Harry said. “Cripes, I don’t like to think it, but—did you notice how much he looks like us, Jack? How much he looks like Chase? Even the smile, for God’s sake?”

“Thought it was a coincidence,” Jack mumbled.

“And why else would Dad have gone to such lengths to get rid of him the first time?” Harry said. “If you think about it, it makes sense.”

Jack clenched his jaw.

“We’d better hurry,” Harry said. “We have to tell them. If we can find out his birthday, then we can figure it out for sure.”

“Yes,” Jack said, and pressed his foot down, felt the car responding.

“Dad will never admit it,” Harry said.

“It will kill Mom,” said Jack, swallowing back the bile that had risen in his throat. “If it’s true.”

Chapter 64

PINE RAPIDS DEPOT
Thursday, November 22, 1945

Nick was getting comfortable in his seat aboard the train, and counting his blessings that he’d happened along at just the moment one was leaving for Milwaukee. He’d figure out how to get home from there; the important thing was, he wasn’t going to be hanging around Pine Rapids a minute longer than necessary. Then the man in the window seat elbowed him and said, snickering, “She doesn’t look half bad, for a drowned rat.”

Nick looked where the man pointed, then looked again. There, approaching the train across the platform, limping a little, her coat flapping open over her sweater and skirt, her hair flattened to her head by the rain, was the girl he’d been certain he would never see again. The expression on her face was one of bewilderment, exhaustion. And a lingering hope.

He leapt to his feet, grabbed his duffel off the floor, and rushed down the aisle, just as the train lurched and began to crawl forward.

“Soldier,” said the conductor, blocking the aisle. He had eyebrows like caterpillars. “Don’t even think about getting off this train.”