“I’ve known Archer all his life,” he said. “You know how I feel about him. I love him as if he were my own. I know his strengths and his weaknesses. And I know Vanessa’s as well. And yours too.”

Despite the darkness, I could see his face well enough to notice a wistful smile.

“I never wanted Archer to go into politics,” he said. “You know about his father.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That sort of thing runs in the family,” he said. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

“Glimpses.”

“Arch is stronger than his father. His need to prove himself always seemed enough to hold back the darkness. But maybe not strong enough. And there’s the other thing. What’s the old saying? Don’t get caught with a dead girl or a live boy.”

“Did you ever say that to Arch?”

“Of course. But Arch stopped listening to me a long time ago,” Jim said. “Anyway, Arch made his own choices.”

“Maybe that other thing isn’t really a choice,” I said.

“Everything is a choice, Charlie,” he said. He looked up at the stars.

There was no point in disagreeing with him; he would never come around to understanding anything outside of what he’d always known. “What do you want me to do, Jim?” I asked.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to do anything,” I said.

“That’s not an option, son.”

“I know.”

I tossed my cigarette on the ground and stamped it out.

“I just remembered,” Jim said. “I have something for you.”

I followed him back up into the house. I resumed my place on the couch. Jim went upstairs. A few minutes later, he came down holding a cardboard file box. He set the box on the table in front of me and sat back down in his chair.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”

Inside, I found stacks of letters, envelopes filled with photographs, and an old Zippo lighter, and a set of dog tags. I lifted the string up and held the dog tags in my palm. The name I saw was one I had not thought about for a very long time: John LaRue.

I looked up at Jim.

“That’s right,” he said.

I sat in silent astonishment, flipping through photographs of the father I’d never known.

“Five or six years after you left,” Jim explained, “your mother received a letter on US Department of Defense stationery.”