Mom still blames Dad for everything that happened—for my being kidnapped and spirited away on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, for all the trauma, for me getting shot in the rescue, for losing my leg. I know none of it is his fault, not directly, anyway, and keep telling her that, but she won’t listen. “I’m leaving him,” she says. “He can stay in Vietnam until they drop an atomic bomb for all I care. I’m through. We’re through.”

Dad follows us home and gets a room in a hotel near the hospital. He times his visits for whenever Mom isn’t here and around his frequent trips down to Washington for meetings at the Pentagon. I guess he’s killing two birds with one stone—looking after both me and the war at the same time. We don’t talk about what’s going on with him and Mom. He doesn’t bring it up, and I don’t ask.

“I’m here for you, buddy” is all he says. “The only thing that’s important right now is getting you back on your feet.”

“You mean foot, don’t you?” I say, but he scowls, not liking the joke.

“There’s nothing you can’t do with one good leg,” he says. “Don’t let anybody tell you different. I’ve seen plenty of good men come out of Veterans Administration hospitals in a lot worse shape than you. Some give up. The best ones refuse to let it stop them.”

I want to yell at him that I bet plenty of those guys do give up, even if they’re “the best”—and how can Dad know what’s going on inside of anybody who’s just lost their leg?

But I’m too tired, and it would make him mad, and it’s just not worth the effort.

Dad goes with me to rehab, pushing me harder than the therapists. It’s like I’m in boot camp and he’s the drill instructor. If I cry from the pain, or out of frustration, or because I’m feeling sorry for myself, he tells me I have to knock it off, that I’m never going to get my strength back if I don’t keep trying, and crying isn’t trying.

My leg has to heal more before I can get a prosthesis, but in the meantime they want me up on crutches and building upper body strength to be ready. I hate every minute of the exercises, but Dad won’t let me skip a single session.

“You just have to buck up,” he says. Over and over. “You just have to buck up.”

So I buck up, even through continuing bouts of phantom pain—and real pain, too, when I stumble and crash into things, which is a lot. I can tell he’s proud of me for sticking to it. But I also suspect that once the project is over—my rehabilitation—he might not have the patience to stay. His trips down to DC get more frequent, sometimes two or three times a week. Mom still comes. Geoff comes, too, though he also tries to time his visits for when she’s not around.

One night, after a particularly grueling day of physical therapy, I’m lying in bed, bathed in sweat, when Geoff comes in. “Quick shower and then we’re out of here,” he says. “You got some pants around here you can wear?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m too tired. Plus I haven’t left the hospital since I got here.”

“Oh, come on,” he insists. “You remember those girls we were with that night at the Moby Grape concert? They’re waiting for us in my car. They want to see you. Especially the one you hooked up with that night, Beth. Remember her? ’Cause she sure remembers you.”

“No way,” I say. “I’m not ready.” The idea of Beth, of anybody, seeing me like I am, makes me so anxious that it’s all I can do to keep from yelling at Geoff and kicking him out of my room.

But he won’t take no for an answer and somehow wears down my resistance. And the next thing I know we’re on an elevator heading down to the parking garage.

“Relax, man,” Geoff says. “You’re, like, a cult figure at Dalton. You’re the Kid Who Got Kidnapped in Vietnam.”

“Not funny,” I say.

What I am, as it turns out, is a freak show. Things start off okay with the girls, but pretty soon all I can think is that they’re staring at what’s no longer there, just an empty leg of my pants hanging there, useless, not even pinned up or anything, and Beth and Cassandra, the other girl, are doing everything except ask me about it, or about what happened in Vietnam. It’s like when somebody has a blemish or scar or deformity on their face. People try to look anywhere but at the person’s face, which only makes it that much more obvious what’s on their minds. And pretty soon it’s clear that it’s the only thing on their minds.

The truth is that Beth and Cassandra can’t be nicer. But that’s part of the problem, too. They’re working so hard to be nice that nothing’s natural. And I feel tongue-tied and awkward and self-conscious about not just my leg, but about how emaciated I must look to them, about how tight I have to cinch my belt to hold my jeans up, about how pasty I am from all this time in the hospital, and my ragged hair. I’m self-conscious about how little I have to say to anybody. How little of me is left. Finally I tell them I have to go, that I have an early rehab session in the morning, which isn’t true.

“Will we see you again?” Beth asks.

I hesitate for a second before answering: “No, I don’t think so.” It’s about the only honest thing I say all evening.

They fit me with my prosthesis a week later, but it takes a long time to learn to walk on it without falling on my face. Once I get the hang of it, though, Dad tells me he has to go back to Vietnam. “I’ll come home again,” he says. “As soon as things are stable over there. Sooner. I promise.”

But we all know it’s a war of broken promises. And I must have known all along, deep inside, anyway, that Dad being here with me was only temporary.

There’s one thing I have to ask him before he leaves. I know he’s going to get mad, but I have to know.

“Dad,” I say on his last day. “What you do in Vietnam. Your job. The people who kidnapped me said you were CIA.”

“People say a lot of things,” he says.

“So are you? And they also said you’re one of the Architects—that that’s what they call you and the others.”

“What others?” he asks. “What architects? Not sure what you’re talking about, Taylor.”

“The Trail,” I say. “The Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Reunification Trail. Blood Road. They said you’re responsible for planning the bombings, the land mines, the bouncing bombs. And Agent Orange. The commando raids. Even stuff like seeding clouds to make it rain more and mess up the trails.”

Dad doesn’t get angry and I’m relieved. He just shrugs. “Like I told you, people say a lot of things. What you’re describing, that’s the war, son. Things happen in war. Things have to be done. Tough decisions have to be made. There’s always a cost.”

“I saw little kids, Dad,” I say. “Bodies. Burnt. In pieces.” I can’t seem to get out what I want to say. If I try to describe what I’ve seen, I know I’ll start crying again, and Dad hates it when I cry.

“Look,” he says, “you didn’t question me like this about the Second World War. You know I fought in that war. You know I was responsible for people who died in that war. Because I shot them or ordered my men to shoot them or when I called in air strikes and artillery. I was responsible for the loss of a lot of lives on our side, too, good men I ordered into battle who didn’t survive. That’s just something I had to live with. People die in war.”

“I know, Dad,” I say. “I know you did what you had to do.”

“Do you know how many people died in that war?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Eighty million, that’s how many. Give or take ten million or so. It’s impossible to know exactly.” He pauses to let that sink in, then he says, “And do you know how many of them were civilians?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Sixty million. Three out of every four who died in World War II were civilians. And do you know what? It’s always been that way. And when they add up all the casualties in Vietnam, it’s going to be the same there.”

“It’s always been that way,” I repeat. “That’s the only explanation for what I saw over there? Dad, I carried body parts out of a hospital. Arms and legs and heads and torsos, torn up every way bodies can be torn up. Bodies burned so bad they were just skeletons and dust. And those kids who died. What did they ever do to anybody?”

Dad stares up at the ceiling. I can tell he’s getting mad now. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He’s exasperated with me. He thinks I’m soft. Despite everything I went through, everything I survived, everything I just told him, or tried to tell him, everything I witnessed.

“One day you’ll understand,” Dad says, and that’s the end of it.

He flies back to Saigon the next day. I’m heartbroken again, because how many times and in how many ways can you lose your dad?