“Because I was one of them. That's why.”

“You were not. You were a pawn. Don't you see that, you fucking jerk? They used you to fight a war we shouldn't be fighting in a place we shouldn't be in.”

His voice was deathly quiet as he looked at her. “Maybe I think we should.”

“How can you say a dumb thing like that? Look what happened to you over there!”

“That's the whole point.” He leaned forward in his bed, and he looked as though he wanted to strangle her. “If I don't defend that … if I don't believe in why I was there, then what the hell good was it anyway?” Tears suddenly sprang to his eyes and he went on, “what does it all mean, goddamn it, Tan … what did I give them my legs for if I don't believe in them? Tell me that!” You could hear him shouting all the way down the hall. “I have to believe in them, don't I? Because if I don't, if I believe what you do, then it was all a farce. I might as well have gotten run over by a train in Des Moines…” He turned his face away from her and started to cry openly and she felt terrible. And then he turned to her, still in a rage. “Now get the hell out of my room you insensitive radical bitch!”

She left, and she cried all the way back to school. She knew that he was right—for him. He couldn't afford to feel about it as she did, and yet, ever since he had come back from Vietnam, something had begun to rage in her that had never been there before, a kind of anger that nothing could quench, and possibly never would. She had talked to Harrison about it on the phone one night and he had put it down to youth, but she knew it wasn't just that, it was something more. She was angry at everyone because Harry had been maimed, and if people were willing to take more chances politically, to stick their necks out … Hell, the President of the United States had been killed a year and a half before, how could people not see what was happening, what they had to do … but Tana didn't want to hurt Harry with all of it. She called him to apologize but he wouldn't talk to her. And for the first time in six and a half months since he'd gotten to Letterman, she didn't go to see him for three days. And when she finally did, she stuck an olive branch through the door of his room, and followed it in sheepishly.

“What do you want?” He glared at her, and she smiled tentatively.

“The rent, actually.”

He tried to suppress a grin. He wasn't angry at her anymore. So she was turning into a crazy radical. So what? That's what Berkeley was all about. She'd grow out of it. And he was more intrigued by what she had just said. “You found a place?”

“I sure did.” She grinned at him. “It's on Channing Way, a teeny little two-bedroom house with a living room and a kitchenette. It's all on one floor, so you'd have to behave yourself somewhat or at least tell your lady friends not to scream too loud,” they both grinned and Harry looked ecstatic at the news, “you're going to love it!” She clapped her hands and described it in detail to him, and that weekend the doctor let her drive him over there. The last of the surgeries had been completed six weeks before; his therapy was going well. They had done all for him they were going to do. It was time to go home. Harry and Tana signed the lease as soon as he saw it. The landlord didn't seem to object to the fact that they had different last names, and neither of them offered to explain. Tana and Harry shook hands with a look of glee, and she drove him back to Letterman. Two weeks later, they moved in. He had to arrange for transportation for his therapy, but Tana promised to take him. And the week after her exams, he got the letter congratulating him on his acceptance to Boalt. He sat in his wheelchair waiting for her when she got home, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

“They took me, Tan … and it's all your fault.…” They hugged and kissed, and he had never loved her more. And Tana knew only that he was her very dearest friend as she cooked him dinner that night and he uncorked a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.

“Where did you get that?” She looked impressed.

“I've been saving it.”

“For what?” He had been saving it for something else, but he decided that enough good things had happened in one day to warrant drinking it.

“For you, you jerk.” She was wonderfully obtuse about the way he felt. But he loved that about her too. She was so engrossed in her studies and her exams and her summer job and her political ideas that she had no idea what was going on right beneath her nose, at least not in regard to him, but he wasn't ready yet anyway. He was still biding his time, afraid to lose.

“It's good stuff.” She took a big gulp of champagne and grinned at him, slightly drunk, happy and relaxed. They both loved their little, house and it was working out perfectly, and then she remembered that she had to ask him something. She had meant to ask him before, but with the rush to move, and buy furniture, she had forgotten to ask. “Listen, by the way, I hate to ask you this … I know it's going to be a drag … but…”

“Oh Jesus, now what? First she forces me to go to law school, and now God knows what other torture she has in mind…” He pretended to look terrified, but Tana looked sincerely grim.

“Worse than that. My mother's getting married in two weeks.” She had long since told him that, but she hadn't asked him to go to the wedding with her. “Will you come with me?”

“To your mother's wedding?” He looked surprised as he set down his glass. “Is that appropriate?”

“I don't see why not.” She hesitated, and then went on, her eyes huge in her face. “I need you there.”

“I take it her charming stepson will be on hand.”

“Presumably. And the whole thing is a little much for me. The happily married daughter with one child and another on the way, Arthur pretending that he and my mother fell in love only last week.”

“Is that what he's saying?” Harry looked amused and Tana shrugged.

“Probably. I don't know. The whole thing is just hard for me. It's not my scene.”

Harry thought it over, looking into his lap. He hadn't been out like that yet, and he had been thinking of going to Europe to meet his Dad. He could stop on the way … he looked up at her. There was nothing he would have denied her, after all she had done for him. “Sure, Tan, no sweat.”

“You don't mind too much?” She looked doggedly grateful to him and he laughed.

“Sure I do, but so do you. At least we can laugh together.”

“I'm happy for her … I just … I just can't play those hypocritical games anymore.”

“Just behave yourself while we're there. We can fly in and I'll head on to Europe the day afterwards. I thought I'd meet Dad in the South of France, for a while.” It was so good to hear him talking about things like that again. It was amazing to realize that only a year before he had been talking about playing for the rest of his life, and now, thank God, he was playing again, at least for a month or two, before he started law school in the fall. “I don't know how I let you talk me into that.” But they were both glad she had. Everything was working out perfectly. They had divided the chores in the house. She did the things he was unable to do, but it was amazing how much he did. Everything from dishes to beds, although he had practically strangled himself vacuuming one week, and now that was her task to do. They were both comfortable. She was about to start her summer job. Both of them thought life pretty damn grand in the summer of '65, and Harry picked up two of the stewardesses on their flight to New York in July. And Tana sat back in her seat, laughing at him, loving every minute of it, and thanking God that Harry Winslow IV was alive.





Only the family were present at the ceremony, but Tana had insisted on bringing Harry along, much to his chagrin, since they arrived from the city in the same limousine. Tana was staying with him at the Pierre. She insisted to her mother that she couldn't leave him alone. And she was relieved that her mother and Arthur were leaving the next day on a honeymoon so she didn't have to stay in New York for an extended period after all. She would have refused to stay in the Greenwich house, and she was going to fly out of New York when Harry did. He was going to Nice to meet Harrison in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and she was flying back to San Francisco to her summer job. And Jean and Arthur were threatening to come out and see her in the fall. Her mother looked pointedly at Harry each time she spoke of it, as though she expected him to disappear by then, and eventually Tana had to laugh at it.