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special weapons needed for covert warfare. It was a safe job State-side that plenty of guys would’ve wanted.
    â€œIf you ever get to know Alan, Josie – and the day finally comes that he’s free to talk about what we did – ask him about his work on the gadgets called ‘Casey Jones’ and ‘Aunt Jemima.’ Most of what they did didn’t require what he was best at, though, at least in his opinion, and after not very long, he talked the muckety-mucks into letting him switch to an Operations Group. The O.G.s were basically commandos, and Alan parachuted into France shortly before the invasion. He blew up bridges, took out railroads and phone lines, and used the Casey Jones he’d help invent to blow up enemy trains. It was dangerous work, believe me, that he’s rarely talked about since.
    â€œHe speaks French really well. Why I’m not sure. Anyway, after the invasion, he was attached to a U.S. Army unit in France to help referee the process of setting up local governments.
    â€œThere was armed conflict still going on between the political factions in the Resistance in whatever area he was in. I don’t remember which now, but this I do know. Some French woman, who, as it turned out had been wrongly accused of being a collaborator, someone who’d actually worked undercover for the O.S.S., Alan saved her from a live grenade. He threw himself on top of her when he saw what was happening, and that’s how he was wounded in the leg, the shoulder and the head.
    â€œI know he nearly died, but he’s only mentioned it once in passing. I know what I know from a buddy of his. Alan spent a year or two in U.S. hospitals getting put back together. And something else happened in the hospitals that affected him significantly, though I don’t know what that was. Alan’s quiet to begin with, and rarely talks about himself.”
    Jo thought,
There speaks the pot, calling the kettle black.
And turned off the tape.
    Her face was hot – though the rest of her felt icy – as she heard herself telling Alan why she wanted to do what she wanted, and not stay with Toss.
    There was a hard, heavy weight in her chest that shifted painfully when she thought about Alan and what he must think of her. Which irritated her too, as she sat and held Emmy in her lap – till Buddy knocked on her kitchen door and made her jump in her chair.
    â€œWe gotta call the vet out. Brown Berry’s water broke, and the foal’s stuck good.” Buddy’s face was smeared with blood and manure, and his eyes were tense and tired.
    â€œI’ll call Woodford’s, and meet you at the barn. I’ll make us a pot of coffee too.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œWhen’s the lady coming for Sam?”
    â€œTomorrow, from what Toss said. What time I don’t know.”

Chapter Four
    Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
    â€¦And now an unrelated question: Why do Tom and Alan, and Jack too, despite his troubles, seem more interesting than the men who stayed home? It’s something behind their eyes, no matter how different they are from each other. You can see the danger, and the suffering, and the hard edge that got them through it. The peace they want is niggling at them too, that some seem to make for themselves. That others seem afraid of.
    I wonder what WWI did to Dad? He never talked about it that I remember. But memory’s a strange thing. I can see Gabe trotting home without Dad – and Daddy lying dead in the woods with an arm flung wide. I know he would’ve wanted it just that way. A heart attack on the back of a horse, not in some cold white hospital room. But why that comes to mind every few weeks, but not Mom’s death nearly that often I can’t begin to explain…
    Wednesday, April 18, 1962
    E ven though she’d gotten very little sleep, Jo was in the kitchen early, in one of Tom’s T-shirts and her softest sweat pants, looking