Chapter 10

Dad cleared his throat. “Well, yes, there was talk that since the—bodies—were not all found, that perhaps they’d, uh, walked away from the war, gone AWOL, you know. It was too horrible to contemplate, to lose your father not to war but maybe to his own choice, to walk away from a wife and son back home. It was horrible that it was even suggested to them, but it was. And it hurt my father deeply.” My dad looked like he was ready to cry. Everyone was completely silent, completely still, until my mother moved to pat my father’s arm in comfort.

“I can help,” put in Frederick, rubbing his eyes like he’d almost cried. “The family name, Maximillian, the town…I mean, it all goes together now. I remember my grandfather once saying something about a plane, but I thought all the people on it were dead.”

I zoned in on that last part, and since I was, after all, technically ‘loopy’, I started to cry. “But I don’t want to be dead!” I sobbed, “I mean, I don’t want…uh…”