I have been studying James Wolfe’s letter to his father in which he explained how his shortened leave affected him. I made a copy of it at the Fisher Library and have it here with me now. I have read and reread it…so now I do see how James Wolfe might come back to visit in 2017. And I see, Jimmy, believe me, how you feel Wolfe has chosen you. To his father he wrote that everybody knows how hard it is to get a bit of time away from the army, yet no one allowed him to seize what little freedom he could. You’ve given him, haven’t you, that opportunity he feared might never occur again?

It has also occurred to me—and forgive me for not having understood this sooner—that James Wolfe was always a young man. He was never not young—thirty-two when he died. In the work I am writing now, he remains young in physical appearance but he is old, really—as you know. Forgive me for appearing to separate Wolfe and your own self, but know that I understand—coming to Quebec City has helped me understand—that, in you, Jimmy, Wolfe has come back to a Canada in which both he and Quebec have grown older.

An important part of my own quest, through getting to know both Wolfe and yourself, is to ask what it might be that remains after one’s youthful illusions fall away. Forgive me for having looked into a few particulars about your recent past—I managed to glimpse the name on your library card at the Fisher, and, from there, I was able to find out about your military record in Afghanistan. I wonder how you manage at all, back from there, encountering a world that, for you, has utterly changed. I fear you find no loveliness here at all, though I hope there might be something in civilian life that can cheer your soul.

Tomorrow I plan to further explore your Plains of Abraham. My old friend Raymond, who lives part-time in Quebec City, walked the plains recently and calls them “desolate and beautiful all at once.” When I met my editor recently and told her I was getting to know Wolfe, she said, “Do you like him?”

I’m not quite sure how I feel or what has happened to me, as I have followed your story.