“Of course she’s not herself,” Humberto snapped. “She’s lost her only child in a war he had no business being involved in.”
“That’s not what I mean, Humberto,” Frade said.
“When she doesn’t take her pills, she weeps. For hours, she weeps,” Humberto said.
“She is your wife,” Frade said.
“Meaning what?” Humberto snapped.
“Meaning that while I am concerned to see her drugged that way, it is not really any of my business.”
“The doctor comes every day,” Humberto said. “I can only presume he knows what he is doing. And of course it’s your business. She’s your sister. You love her.”
“I wept when I heard what happened to Jorge,” Frade said. “I have some small idea of what you are going through.”
Tears welled in Humberto’s eyes.
“Why don’t you make yourself a drink?” Frade asked.
/> “Yes,” Humberto agreed quickly. “Will you have another?”
Frade shook his head no, and murmured, “No, gracias.”
When Duarte was at the chest-of-drawers bar, with his back to Frade, he said, “Jorge, I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you have done. I don’t know how we would have managed without you.”
“I have done nothing,” Frade said.
“But you have, dear Jorge,” Humberto said, turning and walking to Frade and handing him a drink. “And we both know it.”
Frade put his arm around Humberto’s shoulders and hugged him.
“And what of your boy?” Humberto asked. “I realize I do not have the right to ask, but…”
“My latest information is that he has entered the Marine Corps…”
“The what?”
“The Marine Corps. They are soldiers, an elite force. He will be trained as a pilot. Presumably, he will soon go to the war. As I understand it, the Marine Corps is fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.”
“I will pray for him,” Humberto said. “Now, after what has happened to my Jorge, I will pray very hard for your boy.”
With a masterful effort, Colonel Jorge Guillermo Frade controlled his voice and replied, “Thank you, dear Humberto.”
[THREE]
3470 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana
1615 1 November 1942
It was growing dark enough for people to turn their headlights on, and it was raining hard, the drops drumming on the convertible’s roof. It hadn’t been raining long enough, though, for the rain to clean the road grime from the windshield, and it was streaked.
As he drove down St. Charles Avenue past the Tulane University campus, Clete noticed a couple walking slowly through the rain, sharing the man’s raincoat. He had done that himself, more than a few times, when he was at Tulane.
They’re in love, he thought, or at least in lust.
He’d noticed similar couples on the Rice University campus in Houston. And he’d admired a spectacular brunette in Beth’s sorority house, when he was taking tea with the house mother—a “ceremony” that gave Beth and Marjorie the chance to show off their brother, the Marine Aviator Hero fresh home from Guadalcanal.