“Yes, sometimes when we have too much choice it’s hard to make even one,” Henry said.

“That’s exactly how it is for me, Henry. But Ben always knew what he wanted. He never felt like the water encircling Campobello Island was going to drown him, the way I did. Ben always said the ocean simply meant there was an enormous world beyond and it made him appreciate the world he was actually living in. Ben has always blamed his father’s death on his need to see the world. So I understand why Ben is content at home.”

But her voice had caught then and Henry tilted his beautiful head to the side, knowing there were some things she couldn’t speak of easily. It had broken Viola’s heart to leave Ben behind but it would have broken her spirit to stay. It was easier to at least try to forget Campobello Island and everyone on it.

Henry asked about Viola’s boyfriend, Ralf, who was a software engineer. He’d been married once before and had a twenty-three-year-old daughter, the same age as Viola. She lived in New York and would call sometimes, usually hanging up if Viola answered. I don’t recognize you, the daughter said once. You are just one more. Don’t think you are the only one even now. Ralf said his daughter was jealous. She was insecure. She refused to grow up. Ralf did research on how to use the internet to make telephone calls. It was the way of the future, he said. He travelled frequently, so Viola was studying German, something to keep her busy while he was gone. She had no work papers, no official status. “I might have to fly back to Canada if we don’t sort something out. Ralf wants to get married but that seems so final.”

Henry’s face relaxed into what seemed to Viola to be a look of solace. “It might be a good idea to go home, Viola. There are worse places to live. I have a great affinity for Canadians. They’ve been kind to me.”

“That might be the case for you, but Canadians aren’t as nice as everyone seems to think. It’s easy to be a coward underneath all that beer and bacon.” Viola told him the Canadian embassy in Saigon had closed up shop in the night and fled just before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975. The Vietnamese who’d worked for the Canadians found an abandoned building in the morning. “That wasn’t very compassionate,” she said, looking at the sky.

Henry’s voice was serious, what Viola imagined it would sound like if he were addressing a group of students. “Viola, no one puts their best foot forward when the army is advancing. Things did not go as Ho Chi Minh planned. He was hopeful after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the First Indochina War. But the negotiations at the Geneva Conference in 1954 were not what Ho wanted. Zhou Enlai was the Chinese diplomat involved in these negotiations, assisting the Vietminh. Zhou Enlai was brilliant.”