“When’s the next ship back?” she asked, as if she didn’t care about any of it.

“Tomorrow. Take her to one of the hotels for the night,” the PRO said to Jennings.

At that, Jennings hitched Jess’s bag onto his shoulder and walked away to the jeep. Jess followed. What else could she do? Stand at the port and watch the GIs compare pictures of her? She hadn’t won when her story and her photos of Victorine were published. Warren Stone had just wanted her to think she had because he knew that would make the loss hurt all the more.

Jennings pulled the jeep out onto the road. “My orders from my CO are to take you to the hospital at Cassino,” he said shyly. “I could bring you back early enough tomorrow to catch the ship.”

Jess leaned over and kissed his cheeks, which were, as always, suffused with the endearing blush that matched the color of his hair. “Thank you.”

* * *

When Jess woke the next morning, it was to find Victorine curled up in bed beside her, staring at her, obviously willing her to wake. “You came back too!” Victorine said and Jess realized it was what she said every time she saw Dan, and now Jess. As if the little girl could never quite believe that anyone would return, as if being passed by her mother to a convoy of medics, never to meet again, was trapped in her psyche like a leaf fossil in rock, barely visible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for.

Jess hugged Victorine. “I did.”

They climbed out of bed, even though it was before sun-up, and the mundane tasks of the morning were transformed, by both the marvelous lack of rain and Victorine’s assistance, into something more delightful than collecting water in her helmet to wash her face, than eating a breakfast K-ration of egg yolk mixed with spam.

They were walking through the tents to visit Anne when Jess heard a voice say, “I thought I’d better take you somewhere this morning before you leave so that you have your own set of pictures to show Warren Stone.”

She whirled around and saw Victorine leap into Dan’s arms.

“I will come too,” Victorine announced but Jess knew that wasn’t going to happen. The hospital was dangerous enough, let alone going anywhere else.

“But I have a job for you,” Jess said quickly. “Come with me.”

She retrieved a stack of Vogue magazines from her tent. “There are pictures of you in here,” Jess said to Victorine, “and pictures of Anne and some of the soldiers. And one of Dan,” she added. “Can you show the magazines to Anne and the men in the convalescent tent?”

Victorine hopped up and down with excitement. “Yes!” she cried.

Jess opened up the magazines and showed Victorine the photograph of the little girl in Dan’s arms. Victorine’s smile was infinite now, carved onto her face in black and white by Jess’s camera, this one moment of immense love unable to ever be destroyed. Dan’s face in profile was unguarded and Jess had had to close the covers the first time she’d seen it because it made her realize that he was vulnerable; that, without him, Victorine had nobody. Jess had wanted to shout: Don’t you damn well die!