That was more than he’d said about World War II than any other time Jerry could recall. It also reminded him of how veterans his age talked about Vietnam. Before Jerry could ask him to go on, the waiter came by to take their orders. They both chose the number two dinner. The waiter scribbled on a notepad and went back to the kitchen.

Hyman Stieglitz sipped tea and looked down at his hands. He seemed as surprised he’d opened up a little as Jerry was. After a moment, he asked, “What was it like while you were on the ship?”

“Like a hotel, more than anything else. Hughes has more money than they know what to do with,” Jerry answered—once more, the truth, as long as you substituted the Glomar Explorer’s actual owners for the ones it belonged to on paper. He tried to steer his father back to the days before he’d been born: “What was the ship you crossed the Atlantic in like?”

“Horrible scow. Liberty ship. Couldn’t make ten knots if you threw it off a cliff.” Plainly, his dad didn’t have fond memories. “Bunks four and five high, maybe eighteen inches between them. Crappy food. Nobody wanted to eat anyway, ’cause it smelled like puke all the time—the ocean was rough and we got seasick. The heads … You don’t even want to think about the heads.” He paused. “Let’s not talk about that. Here come the soup and the appetizers. How can you enjoy appetizers with no appetite?”

The soup was egg drop, something Jerry only had at Chinese restaurants. The spoons were similarly distinctive. The first mouthful took him back in time. He’d loved egg drop soup when he was little, and he still did. The appetizer platter hadn’t changed, either. Fried shrimp with the batter curled around to make them circles. Pork ribs in a sweet-and-sour glaze. Foil-wrapped chicken, his least favorite part of the platter. Egg rolls. Egg foo young.

“I hope this place is still here when your kids can enjoy it,” his father said.

“That would be good,” Jerry answered, though Anna was dubious about children. He was dubious about them himself; he didn’t think he’d make a great dad. He added, “We’ve got a new wedding date—the twenty-fourth of November.”

“I was going to play golf that day,” his father said, so straight-faced that Jerry believed him for a moment. Hyman Stieglitz smiled crookedly; he knew he’d scored a hit.

You got beef with broccoli and exotic, steaky mushrooms, along with chicken fried rice and shrimp chow mein. The shrimp there were much smaller than the ones that glorified the appetizer platter. A bowl of fried noodles let you soak up sauces or just eat something crunchy if you felt like that. Jerry’d always pigged out on them when he was little. Now he made sure he cleaned his plate first.