hadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved in high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago. Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said, "It's good to be home!"

Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the other arm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the old jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the and-then-I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger. She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt the difference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency to Ralphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he could think of nothing else to say, "What a big fella, what a big fella."

Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. "I didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough."

So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington.

"Give it some time," Carlisle had said. "You need the time; they need the time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive."

Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his, a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat down beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; she had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him.

Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but more so. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had worked with him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantastic journey—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed genius in uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another.

The eyes. It always showed in their eyes.

He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boy already tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large of feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a way that few ten-year-old faces are.

"How's it going in school?" he asked.

"Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation."

"Well, then, before summer vacation?"

"Pretty good."

Edith said, "He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and he made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank."

He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering the warmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears as he left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They had feared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even in continent-to-continent experimental flight.

They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up. But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made the long journey. Ralphie suddenly said, "I got to go, Dad. I promised Walt and the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It's Harmon, you know. I got to keep my word." Without waiting for an answer, he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—and ran from the room and from the house.

He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. "I'm very tired. I'd like to lie down a while." Which wasn't true, because he'd been lying down all the months of the way back.

She said, "Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around