"Mary Lou didn't manage to connect with you because she didn't want any options other than the one she got." Jules could be a regular pit bull when he was feeling self-righteous. "Marriage to a Navy SEAL. Congratulations. The bride may kiss her grand prize. The groom wins a chance to be completely miserable for the rest of his life. And the baby grows up with this really warped sense of family anda"

"Stop," Sam ordered. "Maybe you don't understand this, Ca.s.sidy, because you live your life however the f.u.c.k you want to, but I got Mary Lou pregnant, and I had to deal with it. I had to do the right thing."

His words echoed in his head as he crept into his house at 0400, as he found Mary Lou asleep in the living room, curled up on the sofa, in front of the TV s.h.i.t.

Her makeup was smudged around her eyes and running down her face in big black streaksa"obvious evidence that she'd been crying.

Maybe from watching one of those weepy romantic movies she liked so much.

But probably not.

On the TV screen, Tom Hanks, dressed in WWII combat gear, died. Saving Private Ryan. It was a long movie, but still, she must've started it well after midnight. Well after she usually was in bed.

Unless she was up, crying over something Sam had done, or something Sam had failed to do, or something she was afraid he might go and do.

Jesus save him, what a G.o.d-awful way for both of them to live their lives.

He'd wanted to do the right thing, but it was entirely possible he'd done the exact opposite for everyone involved.

Except maybe Max Bhagat, who was sleeping with Alyssa.

Sam wanted to cry, too. But, Jesus, he'd shed enough tears in the past few years to float a battleship. It didn't do a d.a.m.n bit of good. In fact, it only made him feel worse.

The remote was on the floor in front of the couch. Sam picked it up and turned off the TV.

Which woke up Mary Lou. She was groggy at first. "Sam?" With her thick southern accent, she could make his name sound as if it had two syllables.

"Yeah, it's me. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

She sat up, got her bearings. "What time is it?"

"A little after four."

She was wearing a pair of thin cotton pajamas that did little to contain the bounty of her bosom. He'd read that somewhere. He couldn't remember exactly where or what. But the phrase came to mind immediately whenever he looked at Mary Lou.

She had a body that didn't quit. After her pregnancy she thought of herself as fat, but Sam had seen her naked and the more appropriate word was lush.

With just a little bit of sweet talk, a few hints, and some extra warmth in his smile, he could have her. Whenever he wanted.

Trouble was, he didn't want her.

He knew she was working hard to try to make him happy. In every possible way. Even right now, after she'd spent the night crying over him. If he so much as told her that she smelled good, she'd be on her back, waiting for him.

And, Jesus, that was weird. Like, instead of a wife, he had a concubine. Her selflessnessa"and he didn't mean that in any positive sense of the worda"was getting kind of freaky.

She did something of the same thing when it came to her so-called domestic duties. She cooked and cleaned and did his laundry with a devotion that was a little frightening. If he so much as mentioned that the kitchen floor needed sweeping, she not only had the broom in her hands, but the mop and bucket out as well.

As if maybe keeping the house clean enough would magically make him happy.

Mary Lou opened her mouth to speak, and he braced himself. Because as compliant as she was these days about everything else, the line was drawn when it came to Alyssa Locke.

And no matter how often Sam a.s.sured her that he hadn't slept with Alyssa since they were married, Mary Lou didn't buy it.

But this time she only said, "You're home earlier than I expected."

"Yeah." Unwilling to wait for her to bring up the subject, Sam threw it out on the table. "I spoke to Jules today. He told me he and Alyssa b.u.mped into you at work."

"Yes." Mary Lou stood up. "They both looked ... fit. It was... nice to see them."

What the h.e.l.l... ? Sam stared as Mary Lou headed toward the bedroom.

"I'd appreciate it if you took a shower before coming to bed" was all she said before she vanished down the hall.

His first thought was that she finally believed him. That everything Sam had told her about Alyssa hooking up with Max had been verified through the local grapevine and that Mary Lou now knew the trutha"that his affair with Alyssa really was a thing of the distant past.

But he knew that wasn't a possibility. Because who would've told her that about Alyssa? Who would've dared bring Alyssa up in a conversation?

No one, unless Nutjob Don next door had received the info via an alien radio signal picked up by his fillings...

Sam looked at the video box for Saving Private Ryan that was lying on the coffee table. Mary Lou hadn't been watching that movie because she'd wanted to. She didn't like war movies. She didn't like anything that didn't have a happy-ever-after ending.

But just last week Sam had casually mentioned how much he'd enjoyed that film.

It was all just more G.o.dd.a.m.n selflessness, both her watching this movie tonight and her walking away from a potential fight about Alyssa.

She was trying to make herself as easy as possible to live with.

Because on some level she knew that Sam no longer truly believed he'd done the right thing by marrying a woman he couldn't even pretend to love.

Charlie couldn't sleep.

She'd fallen asleep right after dinner, and now she was up, drifting about the' use like a ghost at 4:30 A.M., trying to be quiet while Vince , :pt.

Of course, she could probably vacuum the bedroom rug and he wouldn't wake up. He was losing his hearing, despite his insistence that he wasn't. She was getting good and tired of repeating herself every time she spoke.

But whenever she brought up the idea of his getting fitted for hearing aids, Vince found some excuse to go out into the backyarda"usually on the pretense of tending then- garden.

Was it possible that he was in denial about growing old? She had to chuckle at that. His eightieth birthday was fast approaching. It was hard to pretend that you hadn't achieved elderly status when you hit the old eight-oh milestone, as she'd done three years ago.

Despite their advanced years, they were both in good health, and she thanked G.o.d each day for that. Their children and grandchildren were all healthy, too. Well, with the exception of Donny. And she'd long reconciled herself to the fact that he'd never be well.

G.o.d worked in mysterious ways, and for some reason He'd decided that Donny would be one of His special people.

Perhaps it was His way of reminding them that without sadness, joy wouldn't be quite as sweet.

Charlie had learned that lesson years ago. Firsthand.

She stopped her early morning waltz around this housea" their "new" housea"that she'd shared with her husband for the past twenty-five years, pausing by the picture of Vince in his Marine uniform. She picked it up from its place of honor on the fireplace mantel. It had been taken right after he'd signed up. The day after Pearl Harbor. The day after James had left this world.

Vince was grinning in the photograph, looking as if he were going to burst into merry laughter. He looked healthy and robust, with the very devil in his sparkling eyes.

It was true that the photo had been taken several years earlier, but it was a far cry from the intensely grim, hollow-cheeked young man who'd fainted at her feet in Senator Howard's office in January 1944.

As Charlotte had rushed to help him, Mrs. P. had started to phone for an ambulance. He'd revived almost right away, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and insisting that he didn't need to go to the hospital.

It was then that Charlotte found out he didn't have a hotel room in the city. Apparently he'd been sleeping in churches. Lots of servicemen did, those days.

Those few men who didn't spend the night in Sally-the-upstairs-tenant's bed, that is.

And so Charlotte had done the only thing she could think of to do. She'd brought Private DaCosta home.

She and Edna Fletcher took turns sitting with him those first few nights. But the penicillin Dr. Barnes had prescribed won the battle with his infection, thank goodness, and it wasn't long before the young Marine was resting more comfortably.

By Monday, he was doing well enough that Charlotte felt able to return to work.

But for the first time in years, she actually put on her coat at 5:00. For the first time since the early days of her marriage, when James had been stationed here in Washington, she was not merely ready but eager to return home when the evening rolled around.

And it felt wrong. It felt as if she were being unfaithful. As she got off the bus and walked those last few blocks home, it felt like a terrible betrayal to James's memory.

By the time she went into the apartment and hung up her coat, she was good and upset.

And Mother Fletcher was singinga"singinga"in the kitchen as she prepared dinner.

Charlotte didn't say a word as she went in to help.

"He's much better," Mother reported. "He actually ate quite a bit at breakfast and again at noontime. And he even asked me to help him shave just a short while ago." She winked at Charlotte. Winked. "It's a good sign when a young man cares enough about his looks to ask for a shave."

"Good," Charlotte said tightly. "Then it won't be long before he's well enough to leave."

"There's no need to rush him out of here," Mother said calmly as she stirred the chicken gravy.

"You like having him here," Charlotte realized.

"Yes." She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n. "I do. He's sweet, he's smart, and he plays gin rummy. I have to admit, it's nice to have a young man around again, to take care of."

"He's not your son." Charlotte was almost frantically upset. She never would have dreamed of speaking to her mother-in-law this way if she weren't. "It's foolish to pretend he is."

Mother Fletcher's voice was sharper, too. "My son is gone. What's foolish is pretending that anything you or I can do will change that bitter truth. We are here. James is gone. He'll be gone tomorrow, tooa"whether or not we continue to show common decent kindness to this young man."

Charlotte turned and walked out of the room. She was up the stairs and through the door before she realized that she couldn't take solace in her bedrooma"the room she'd once shared with James an entire lifetime ago.

Vincent DaCosta was sitting up in the middle of her bed.

Wearing a pair of James's pajamas.

She stopped short.

He was holding a book, but he wasn't reading. He was looking at her, a silent apology in his eyes.

Of course, he'd heard every word she'd said to Mother Fletcher downstairs. The same way she heard everything that went on in Sally Slaggerty's apartment upstairs.

"How are you feeling, Private?" she asked, trying her best to be polite, while wanting nothing more than to run away from him as wella"while hating herself for noticing how much better he looked with some color in his face, for noticing that he'd washed and combed his hair as well as shaved. For noticing how handsome he looked without that constant haze of pain in his dark eyes.

"Much better," he said. "Thank you. I'll leave first thing in the morning, if that's all righta"

She cut him off. "Has the doctor said you were strong enough to leave?"

"No, but I don't thinka""

"When the doctor says so, then you can leave. If you have a place to stay. If not, you should plan on staying here. I apologize, Private, if I made you feel unwelcome."

He shook his head. "I don'ta""

"My husband is dead." It was not the first time she'd said those words aloud, yet their finality struck her anew each time she uttered them.

"I know." Vince closed his book, set it down beside him on the bed. He looked up at her, and she saw from his eyes that he truly did know. He'd been wounded fighting this lousy war. He knew what dead really meant in a day and age where bombs could blow a man to pieces, where shrapnel could shred him so that he bled to death inside even while he kept on fighting. "I'm sorry. Mrs. Fletchera"your mother-in-lawa"told me he was lost at Pearl."

She didn't want his understanding. "That's a stupid way of saying it," she said sharply. "Lost. As if he were misplaced."

He didn't hide from her flare of temper. "I think the word lost really refers to the survivors," he said quietly. "The loss is theirs. Yours. Mine." He met her gaze steadily. "More than eighty percent of my platoon was lost at Tarawa, Mrs. Fletcher. I, for one, will never be the same for having lost them there."

She didn't want to like him. She didn't want him to be anything more than an injured, anonymous soldier she was helping to nurse back to health.

But Vince DaCosta had stopped being anonymous the first day she'd brought an extra sandwich for him to share for lunch. As they'd talked, he'd told her that he'd grown up on Cape Cod. That his father was a lobsterman, that he'd been raised half in the water. The only thing he could do better than swim was sail a boat.

He'd never been to college, but he was the first of the DaCostas to get a high school diplomaa"no small feat for a working-cla.s.s family.

He'd gotten the rest of his education the same way Abraham Lincoln had, he'd told her. By reading any- and everything he could get his hands on.

Including, apparently, Little Women, the book resting now beside him on her bed.

It was an odd choice for him to have made, considering that all of James's far more masculine books, Jack London's stories and the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes among them, were still on her shelves.

But perhaps Vince knew that seeing him in James's pajamas was quite all she'd be able to bear, "It's time to change your bandages." She knew he hated that. He would lay back in the bed with his arm up and over his eyes, as if that could make him disappear. Blushing furiously the entire time.

Changing his bandages certainly could have waited until after dinner, but Charlotte desperately wanted him to transform back into a patient. He was much too difficult to deal with as a man.

The steady look that he gave her told her he knew darn well what she was up to. Yet she could see kindness, not accusation, in his eyes.

"I'm feeling well enough to do it myself now," he told her.

She challenged him. "Isn't that what you thought the last timea"and you ended up getting an infection?"

"I thought I'd nearly healed," he said. "And I had. I just... You're right, I should've taken better care of myself. I promise I won't make the same mistake again."

"The last promise you made was that if we let you stay here rather than sending you to a hospital, you would allow us to change your bandages every day," Charlotte stubbornly pointed out.

"Mrs. Fletcher," he said, "I really am feeling much better. Everything seems to be working the way it's supposed to be working again. Everything." He looked at her squarely, but a faint blush darkened his cheeks.