She went out in the early mornings while her new family slept, and took walks to where the forest was returning. She followed new roads and looked at the places people were rebuilding. After cleaning at the flower shop, after watching the owner make arrangements, after watering carefully all the plants, one day Lin made a beautiful flower arrangement with pale lotus blossoms and, instead of ribbon, she tied it with some of the wild green grasses, braided long and light, grasses from the forest. Surprised, the boss woman said, “Oh, it’s so beautiful, it looks like angels made it.”

One night, Lin met the man who would become her husband. It was his first night at the school. He was in the corner sitting on a crooked chair at their makeshift school. In one look she saw that somehow his eyes held her world or part of it. She knew what he knew. He knew what she did. Not in the way of school and learning, but in the world, in their lives and histories. Somehow he, too, had managed to survive. She didn’t know he had been an enemy. That he had been on the other side. The necklace of skulls suddenly had another strand. She didn’t know that he had wanted to be a doctor and then was forced to be a child-warrior in a child army. All she saw was the sweat on his forehead as he struggled over the words of English and his starched-collar white shirt was damp. Starch, she thought, he must have a wife or money enough to go to the laundry. Sweat. He must be having trouble with school. But in truth it was nerves from seeing her beauty and calm, like when the wind blows and water lilies fly across the water and onto the land, and what’s on land is blown into the water. Lin said, “Doesn’t that breeze cool you?” She pointed at the window and smiled at him to show that it wasn’t an insult. She thought he needed help reading and he was struggling with the work. He thought she was reading his thoughts and knew they were all about her. He said, “No, but I like the scent of flowers.” So forward he was being, but she thought he was a poet. What he meant was something with insight into her life, and it did have depth, as he smelled the scent about her as if he were a butterfly. Later they walked together and he said, “I am going to university. What should we do?”

She said, so bold she couldn’t believe she had even spoken the words, “I think we should get married.” Embarrassed, her face was hot and now she was the one in a nervous sweat.

“Yes. I know I have seen you before, but I can’t remember where.” Perhaps it was another lifetime. All he knew was that they were meant to be together. He didn’t know she was the child, years ago, on the bloody trail, the one he had picked up that he was supposed to kill or injure and not help, that even then when he looked into her face and felt her tiny arm, he could not harm her.