So he did not take that route but turned on his heel and walked back through the green leaves and the heat to the road. He could see the whole of the country to the north from that point, the hills that flowed up the side of Auburn Ravine, their shapes covered, acre after acre, with the ordered rows of orchard trees and through which he could make out the snug pale homes of the farmers themselves. He knew they would still be picking the late peaches and plums and the first of the pears but he could make out none of that activity from the road. The whole spread of the landscape to the north seemed something he might have dreamed—and there it was again, the idea that he was somehow asleep and dreaming all this even though it was right here, present and alive. The breeze blew up the ridge from the south, up Red Ravine and across the orchards that lined the county road to the sheds at Penryn and Loomis and the quarries of Rocklin and on to the great railyards at Roseville, a place he had seen only once, that very day when his train from San ­Francisco had slowed and paused there as the tracks were switched. Even now the train rattled on up the mountain: Dutch Flat and Donner Summit and the great mythic blue of Tahoe before plunging into the high desert beyond. He had been at Bruyères near a year ago and now he was here, home again, although of course already it seemed less home than it ever had been. How alone he must have looked there.

The Wilsons’ drive appeared just as everything else did, so exactly matching his memory that it seemed utterly false, the dark leaves that lined the road perfectly still. The back of his shirt had soaked through an hour ago and remained wet and hot against his flesh, the duffel burden enough that he slung it to the side of the road against the low trunk of a peach tree long since harvested clean.

The first of the pickers appeared when the bare peach trees changed to pears heavy with late summer fruit, and he glanced down the rows to see ladders disappearing into the upper branches. He did not stand to watch, instead quickening his pace so that he was nearly at march step. He could sense them watching him now and although he could not identify any clear reason for his own sense of disquiet, he did not return their gaze, only continuing to walk as their chatter diminished, their eyes upon him, this uniformed soldier.

And then his name, called from behind in a voice cheerful and bright, and he turned to that sound even though it felt as if doing so might augur into place a future he did not want to accept.