“Why are we here?” He looks at me when he asks the question, his face creased in bafflement.

“I was just wondering that myself, Dad,” I say.

Iris is already halfway up the graveyard. Dad gets out of the car and inches forward, careful to give the crosses a wide berth.

Not all of them are crosses. There are some rectangular shaped markers, with a domed top, each engraved with a star and a crescent moon. Most markers have a name, a date, and a rank number. Some just bear the inscription, “Un Français Inconnu. Mort Pour La France.”

And, worse, there are crosses that are blank. Nothing written on them. No name. No country. No reason for dying.

Even the brightness of the midday sun spilling across the white stone of the markers refuses to soften the stark interruption of the landscape with the remains of these soldiers. Some of them only boys, younger than my girls. Never been in love. Probably never even been kissed. Maybe never discovered who they really were. What they were capable of.

Although perhaps few of us do.

“There’s something peaceful about this place, isn’t there?” says Iris.

“Peaceful?” I check myself, but I’m certain I’m not feeling peaceful. I think I might be angry. I don’t know why. It sits uncomfortably on me, like an ill-fitting jacket.

“Yeah,” says Iris, looking around and not noticing that I might be angry, which is good because maybe it means that I’m not angry, after all. And now I’m annoyed with myself because it seems that I’m a person who doesn’t know if they’re angry or not. What kind of a person doesn’t know how they feel?

“With all the trees surrounding the place,” continues Iris, “it just feels kind of...sheltered, you know?”

“They’re beech trees,” I say. I recognize them from a nature project Anna did in fourth class.

“Are you okay?” Iris stops walking and looks at me.

“Yes,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Iris shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “You just look a little...angry.”

So I am angry.

I shake my head. “I’m fine.” And then I look at her. “We’re so different, you and I.”

Iris grins. “Yes, but good different,” she says. “Like Mork and Mindy.”

“No, I mean...” But what do I mean? I sweep my hand around the graveyard. “You look around this place and you see beauty and peace and shelter and I just see death and hopelessness and...”

Iris puts her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Terry, I shouldn’t have asked you to stop here.”

I shrug like I don’t mind.

She should not have asked me to stop here.

“Anyway,” Iris says. “I just want to say that I’m glad you’re here, even with all your death and hopelessness.” She smiles her disarming smile and I can’t help feeling a rush of affection for her, and I am about to smile back when she continues with a breezy, “And on a more practical note and one that you will be surprised by, given my casual relationship with administration, I have made all the necessary arrangements.”