“You’re angry. I get it. I still need your promise.”

“I can’t give it to you.”

“Not even for your mother’s sake?”

“Not even for yours.”

I stared at him, and he stared back; and in the end, that’s where he left me: in a silence that spoke of fathers and sons and difficult truths. I couldn’t turn my back on Jason, not after losing Robert.

I thought my father understood.

That maybe he approved.

French stopped ten feet from the door, and took a moment to remember his sons as they’d been before the war: Robert, with his easy smile and gracious nature, and Jason, who’d been sardonic and brilliant and occasionally cruel. From the beginning, Gibby’s love for Robert had been the most obvious, but he’d been more like Jason than he chose to admit. He had the same insight and self-awareness, the same cutting wit. Gibby’s heart, of course, was immense, and the only reason he’d yielded, for so many years, to his mother’s insane demands. No girls. No sports.

“Damn it, Gabrielle.”

Rationality played no part in her overprotective nature. Robert had been selected in the draft, with Jason being spared only because he’d been born two minutes after midnight, which made them twins with different birthdays. Gabrielle had wept on the day Robert left for Vietnam, and broken entirely at news of his death. He’d been the first and the favorite. Gabrielle would never admit such a truth, but her cries in the dark of that terrible night still haunted his memories.

It should have been Jason!

It should have been him!

He’d tried to stifle the words, but believed, to this day, that they’d carried through the house. How long after that before Jason enlisted?

Two days?

Three?

French sighed deeply, and his face was rough beneath his palms. Pushing away from the wall, he made his way to the master bedroom door and peered inside. Gabrielle was in the bed, on her side. Moving quietly past, he lifted his weapon and shield from the dresser.

“Are you going out?” She rolled over, a rustle in the sheets.

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“Gibby’s in bed?”

“Tucked in and safe.”

“Where are you going?”

“A call,” he said. “I might be a while.”

“What time is it?”

“Not that late. Go back to bed.”

He kissed her cheek, and she rolled again, showing the lift of a shoulder, a spill of hair. He felt bad about the lie, but had she known his intent, there would have been recrimination and tears; she would not have slept at all.