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Dickey's anger evaporates. She reaches for Robert's hand.

"Slug," she says using her old nickname for her little brother. "I love you all so much. But you know my contacts in New York and DC are essential to my assignments. And at this point, if I ever set down roots, it would be in South Vietnam. I've fallen in love with it. You'd understand if you could watch the sunset over the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, while the flute plays, and the kids fish the canals, and the bell on the church rings the 'all clear' every hour. Where a lifetime of birth, death, marriage, war, and worship happen in a day, and the world is in vivid color. I have this dream that your family will visit me there, sometime in the future."

"Sure, I'll pack the kids in a chopper and we'll all parachute into the village under enemy fire the way Aunt Dickey does."

She laughs.

"If I achieve my life's goal," she says, "you'll be able to do just that, minus the enemy fire."

"I thought your life's goal was to always be first."

"That was a directive by an editor. A code of female correspondent conduct if you will. My new goal is different."

Hans and Martha's laughter calls her attention. They glide around the lawn with arms outstretched like airplane wings. Dickey thinks of the endless air shows she dragged Robert to, growing up. She thinks of the grainy black-and-white film of her hero Admiral Richard Byrd in his flying missions over Antarctica and of the rush she gets jumping out of airplanes. Dickey stomps out her cigarette and holds up her hands to frame the scene, thinking of the captions. Children, higher learning, a brisk fall day, a Norman Rockwell vision of freedom and democracy. She pulls her camera out of her field pack, aims, and takes the shot.

"So, what's your goal?" Robert asks.

"My goal is to make the picture to end all wars. And until my last assignment, for them," she says, pointing toward the children, "I'll work to achieve it."

PART ONE

1954-1958

CHAPTER ONE

DECEMBER 1954

New York City

Dickey thinks this over and over on the way to the restroom of Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel, wobbling in stiletto heels on feet partial to combat boots. She'd excused herself during her mother telling a story to Dickey's husband, Tony, and a recently immigrated German Quaker couple—Ernst and Helga—about Dickey's first date. Dickey's mother told the group, shortly before the boy had arrived to pick up young Dickey, the phone had rung and a classmate had informed Dickey the boy only asked her out because he was dared.

"Chubby little Georgie Lou was a soldier about it," Edna said.

"Marmee, please," Dickey said.

Edna continued. "She squeezed herself into a dress for the first time since childhood, told the boy to take her for a milkshake, and spent the whole time staring into the engine of his car asking how it ran. At least they had that in common."

The inebriated group howled.

Their cackles follow Dickey to the bathroom, joining with those of all the bullies she's endured throughout her life whose cruel laughter echoes, relentless, in the halls of her memory. She has never fit in, anywhere. No one understands her. She barely understands herself. Over time she's created a sort of imaginary shield to protect herself, but that shield is harder to access when teasing comes from those closest to her.

Since Tony had met Dickey's parents, years ago, he and Edna had aligned themselves over their shared conviction that Dickey couldn't function without either of them. Every time they got together it was as if those two were on one side of a tennis court, Dickey on the other, trying to lob back endless shots fired at her. It was foolish to think her mother's personality might be tempered by widowhood. If anything, the woman has thrown herself into overdrive. Dickey's father was an ally for her, but he died two months ago. The memory of his kind face, his dignified manner, and his encouragement draws forth a lump in Dickey's throat, but she pushes it down. If she starts crying, she might never stop.

The light in the bathroom is unforgiving. It reveals the dark circles under Dickey's blue-green eyes behind her harlequin eyeglasses, the wide, dark line of her roots against the brassy bleached blonde Tony wanted her to dye her hair, and the pills on her hunter-green dress. She hadn't had time to paint her nails—chewed low on rough, dry hands, and her teeth are stained from the Roma burgundy she drank at home.