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I figured you'd get over it in time. It never occurred to me that you might be right and he could be alive. I thought you just didn't want to face his being dead. I hope he knows how much you love him.”

“I think he loves me just as much,” she said softly. She hated the look in Andy's eyes. He was being gentlemanly, but he looked devastated by what he'd just heard.

“Are you getting married?” Andy wanted to know, and wished she had told him before he'd gotten home, although he understood why she hadn't. It would have been an even bigger shock hearing it on the phone.

But he had spent the whole summer thinking about her, and planning their engagement and subsequent marriage. He'd been planning to pick out a ring for her as soon as he got back to Boston.

“Not for the moment. Eventually, I guess. I'm not worried about it.”

“I wish you luck, Kate,” Andy said nobly, “both of you. Offer Joe my congratulations.” He only hesitated for a moment then, and she reached out a hand to him, but he didn't take it.

He walked quietly out of the house, got in his car, and drove away.

10

JOE LEFT THE HOSPITAL two months after he'd arrived, on canes, with stiff legs, but they were coming along. The doctors thought he might be walking normally by Christmas. No one could believe the recovery he'd made, least of all Kate. It still seemed like a miracle to her that he was with them.

Two days after he left the hospital, he got his discharge papers. They had already spent an afternoon at the Copley Plaza Hotel by then.

She couldn't get away for an entire night, now that she was living with her parents. And he had accepted their kind invitation to stay with them. But he was well aware that he couldn't live with them forever, and he wanted privacy with Kate.

Joe had already called Charles Lindbergh long before he left the hospital, and he was planning to go to New York to see him. His mentor had some interesting ideas he wanted to discuss with Joe, and there were some people he wanted him to meet.

Joe was going to stay in New York for several days, and then come back to Boston.

Kate drove him to the train on her way to work the week after he'd gotten out of the hospital. It was the end of September by then, and the war was over. Victory in Japan had finally come in August. The nightmare had ended at last.

“Have fun in New York,” she kissed him before he left the car. She had found a way of sneaking into his room at night without waking her parents.