Chapter 1 

     Kate Johnson entered Sunnyside School’s office complex to find herself face to face with a scowling young kid.  Is it a boy or a girl, she wondered.    
    Rough-cut straight hair, faded jeans, a tie-died sweatshirt, scuffed tennis shoes much too big, and a long, heavy chain slung from the belt left Kate with no inkling of the child’s gender.   
    The kid aimed an insolent stare at the teacher as though from across a chasm.   
    Something in the dark features and almond eyes stirred a memory of photos of her husband’s American Indian ancestors, and Kate felt sure the child was also Indian. She held out her hand and said, “I’m Mrs. Johnson. I teach fifth grade. Are you a new student for my class?”
    The child turned away toward the window. The hard sneer on its face said more clearly than words that the inside air had somehow turned fetid.
    Aha. We have an attitude, do we?
    The child was the size of her own fifth graders, yet Kate saw something in the eyes--cold, brooding, angry--that seemed much older. A cardboard cigarette box was outlined prominently in the hip pocket.   
    Kate looked up as Nancy, the school nurse, and the principal entered the office. The principal cleared his throat noisily. “Oh, Olivia, I see you’ve already met Mrs. Johnson.”
    So it’s a girl, Kate thought. I would never have known.
    “Yeah,” came the mumbled reply.  
    “Please say, ‘Yes sir,’ Olivia,” said the principal. His tone was syrupy sweet.       
    The child looked at the floor and said nothing.
    “Olivia, my dear, you must be more….” The principal paused, reaching out to pat the child’s shoulder. She jerked away.
    “I’m not your dear!” she snarled, gripping her dangling chain and stepping backward one pace, every belligerent muscle tensed, poised to spring.
    “I’m sor-ry,” the principal responded with undisguised sarcasm. “Olivia, you’ll be in sixth grade. Your mother said you were almost thirteen and should go to junior high, but….” Mr. Marken paused. He glanced nervously from Kate to Nancy and fidgeted with the key ring he’d pulled from his pocket.
    Kate stifled a laugh that both principal and child were unable to go forward in this confrontation without holding on to something—a chain, a key chain--what difference?  Best to intervene before this escalates. “Mr. Marken must be referring to your test scores, Olivia. Did you take a math and reading test at the junior high school?”   
    “Yeah, but it didn’t do no damn good.  I hate shitty schools.” The child arched her neck and turned away again.
    “Perhaps you’ll be here only a short time for help with math and reading to get ready for junior high school.” Kate ignored the offensive words for the moment and smiled at the child, hoping she would respond, even a little. “It might be easier for you, then.”
    Olivia’s eyes grew icy. “Do I hafta be in your class?”
    Kate felt the chill.
    The principal stuttered, “Well, no, not exactly. Your teacher will be Mrs. Warner, sixth grade, but she’s out sick, and we can’t send you to the substitute teacher because….because…the sub might not know how to handle…I mean the sub has her hands full with a large class, so we’re asking Mrs. Johnson to keep you until your teacher comes back to school. Do you understand?”
   “I ain’t no damn nitwit!” Olivia’s steely black eyes flashed.
    Mr. Marken recoiled. Then he stiffened his rotund five-foot-six inch height and blustered, “Young lady, you’ll keep a civil tongue in this school.”
    “And I ain’t no damn young lady either!”
    Kate and the nurse exchanged glances. Things got ugly when their principal got red in the face. He was the only adult on campus who often needed calming as much as did the children. Kate wondered about the logic that had sent this particular principal to this particular low achieving, high-pressure school made up of teachers who volunteered for the difficult job. He was one of its major challenges.
     Kate turned to Olivia. “Let’s go down to my classroom now, and we’ll get the paperwork done later. She extended her hand to guide Olivia toward the door, but she nodded at Nancy, signaling that Nancy was to distract the principal.   
    Mr. Marken was a nice man, nearing retirement, but he expected all children to be immediately pliable, and he seemed ill equipped to handle changes looming in 1968.
    With drugs, free love, race riots, gangs, and anti-war demonstrations in the hippie culture and colleges, lawlessness seemed to have spilled over into a few difficult neighborhoods, even down to school level. Kate was as disturbed as anyone by negative societal changes in these few, localized areas of Los Angeles County. But, she didn’t believe it was effective to jump to conclusions from first contact with a child and perhaps lose what little chance a teacher might have to help the child progress.
    She wanted to talk quietly with this young girl when, hopefully, a few of Olivia’s distrustful barriers had lifted.
    Could such intervention be successful? Children at Sunnyside Elementary School were from the most desperate of homes—mostly single-parent families headed by women. Not only was the school in a welfare neighborhood, rife with dysfunctional families, alcohol, and abuse, but the children were also frequently neglected and given the poor moral example of hot and cold running fathers/uncles/boyfriends who mysteriously changed almost weekly.
    As she walked the open breezeway with this child new to their school, Kate wondered what it would take for Olivia to become a warm human being. Many children took the whole six years to make the grade, yet for Olivia, they would only have what was left of this one year to make any progress at all.
    Half way down the hall Olivia suddenly jerked her arm away from the contemplative teacher and yelled, “Don’t think I’m doin’ any shitty old homework!”
     Kate sighed heavily. Olivia is going to be a tough customer, even for Sunnyside.

What happens in following weeks and  years will change both Kate's and Olivia's lives forever.

           Prologue – 2005

This story begins with two unnamed characters. It is up to the reader to figure out their identity and their relationship and condition. The Prologue sets the stage for all to come, and for the novel's suprising conclusion.

       The couple sat quietly on the back veranda, slowly rocking and staring at the outgoing tide as though it could answer all their questions.
       A solitary loon bobbed on the current, occasionally ducking beneath the waves to search for fish, while an osprey sailed majestically overhead, no doubt looking for his evening meal before nightfall. No sound intruded on the pair’s solitude except the lapping of waves on the rocky coastline below and the rockers’ soft creak on hundred year-old floorboards--a steady, reassuring sound that promised some things lasted.
      “What really happened to us?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
      “I wish I knew.  All I ever wanted was to be with you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who only wanted to please me.”
      “And that always seemed to get me in trouble, didn’t it?
       Her low chuckle moved him, as always. The man reached out and took her hand across the narrow void between their chairs. “Yet, here I am, holding your hand again, and remembering all the joy you brought into my life…when I still had one. Now, I’m wondering how much of it I have left. I’m glad you came…one more time.”
      “You knew I’d come, soon as I heard. It’s been…too long.”

      The Maine breeze wafting off Penobscot Bay blew wisps of his newly graying hair over his forehead. Unconsciously, he brushed them back. His hand shook, she noticed, and his face was bloated and puffy, probably from the medication.
      She couldn’t draw her eyes away from his face. She struggled to conceal her heartbreak that his condition had so deteriorated since last they were together. That had been under such different circumstances. It’s hard to be with him now. It would have been harder not to be. Her thoughts brought tears, and she wiped them away with her palm, hoping he wouldn’t see.
     The man rose to his full height, pulled her to her feet and kissed her, softly and deeply.  “Don’t cry,” he whispered, as she buried her head on his chest. “This is just the way it worked out. We’re together for now, and even a few moments alone feels good.”
     It felt so natural to be in his arms--as though they’d never been apart. She could feel his long-remembered body against hers and closed her eyes.
    “The old fire is still there, isn’t it?” he said. “I can feel your heart beating…a sign…a comfort. This devotion for each other never really goes away.”
      She looked up at him with a sardonic smile. “I suppose we shouldn’t be feeling this now, in our sixties. Aren’t we supposed to be sedate and cool by now?”
       “I’d have to be dead before I’d regret feeling like this again.”

        His mischievous grin warmed her pained heart. Relaxing against him, she said, “I understand now why this is your favorite spot in the world. I can feel the peace, just watching the sea--or maybe it’s being here like this--with you.”
        Standing with their arms around each other, swaying a bit with the breeze in spite of the pain in his irradiated hip joints, the peaceful feeling extended longer than either realized. They watched the last errant folds of twilight sink into the black sea, neither wanting to break the communion of their spirits--or the touch of their bodies.

“Look at the stars--there’s the Big Dipper.” He leaned her back against him as he pointed out each constellation, one arm wrapped around the front of her shoulders.
       “Do you remember the first time you pointed out stars to me?”
       “In our attic in the Alps? One of the highlights of my entire life!” After a few moments searching the night sky, each remembering silently, he turned her to him again to kiss “…for old time’s sake,” he said.

“And this is all we’ll ever have, isn’t it? A chance to kiss good-bye, again.”
       “A pity. We dreamed of so much more. But this will have to be enough to last me until….” He didn’t finish the sentence.
       “We must be the poster children for bad timing,” she whispered.
       “It would be comic if it weren’t so tragic. Timing appears to really be, as the saying goes, ‘everything.’ It has certainly had its way with us.”
       “Even now, I don’t understand it.” She leaned her face back to look into his eyes, reaching up to caress his cheek. “Do you? We never meant to hurt each other, or anyone else. And everything seemed so…so right…so meant to be….” Her voice rasped into a sob. “I wish…before it all ends, I’d like to at least understand…where we lost the dream….”

With a soft touch to her temple, he pulled her head again to his chest and rocked her back and forth in his arms. “I don’t know, my dear. I wish I did. I would have preferred to spare you….” His sigh was laced with sad resignation. “Somewhere we missed a communication, I guess. The most difficult decision of a lifetime, regret from the choice, my fear-paralyzed inaction at a moment of truth--I’m not sure. It’s painful to remember….”

They fell into silence and the lapping of the waves finished his sentence.

     Regina’s steps slowed. Her neighbor was waiting near the gate as usual, balancing her young daughter on her hip. She dreaded the customary question.

    “Guten Tag, Frau Wolff. Any news? Have you heard from your husband?”

    “Not yet,” answered Regina. She didn’t need reminding. He’s been missing over two years with no word, she thought to herself for the hundredth time--but she quickly remembered to pretend he could not be dead. Never! Don’t think of it now.

    “And you, Frau Schmidt,” she answered evenly. “Has anything come from your Mann?”

    “Mail’s been scarce since the war’s so much worse. I’m afraid he may be lying dead in some frozen foxhole in Russia.”

     Regina saw tears form in the woman’s eyes and reached out to pat her arm “You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t even think it. None of the other women has heard anything either. The Russians can’t have swallowed up all our soldiers. The war will end, and they’ll all come home. You’ll see.” She forced a smile, waved, and moved away from their communal fear.

    Regina shuddered to block out thoughts her neighbor might be right. Were their husbands dead, captured, or terribly wounded? The disasters at Stalingrad with many casualties on both sides, had come and gone with no news. She sighed and walked on more slowly. She wasn’t sure she believed her own words of encouragement? At first, after Gustav’s last leave during Christmas, 1941, she had received his usual, loving letters--then nothing. Now, in 1944, she lived each day determined to lock her fear inside so the children wouldn’t see it. 

   She approached the house where her three little boys and their young nanny usually waited, but this time they came running down the walk toward her.

   Willi screamed, “Mutti, Mutti! Vati’s alive!”

   Regina reeled dizzily, grabbing a white picket fence to keep from falling. Willi screamed again at the top of his lungs, “Mutti, didn’t you hear? Vati’s alive!”

  “How do you know?” Regina gasped. “What’s happened?” 

   Elli pulled a letter from her apron pocket. “There’s no return address, but I think the envelope is in his handwriting.” 

   “Please, let me see!” Regina dropped her briefcase and ripped open the letter. Yes, it was from Gustav. Her hands shook. She wanted a moment of privacy to read it alone, but the children danced around her.

   Willi insisted, “What does Vati say?  What does he say?”

   She glanced at the opening line and froze.  Then she answered slowly, without looking up, “Vati says he is well and he loves you.” She felt guilty for making up the words, but she could not tell them what the letter really had said.

   Shaking her head and unable to speak further, Regina turned pleading eyes to Elli.

   The younger woman realized something was wrong, and began herding the boys back toward the house.  “Come boys, we must get our supper. We’re already late. Your mother needs some time alone.” 

   They skipped, chanting happily in singsong fashion, “Vati’s alive, Vati’s alive!” 

   Her husband’s first words burned in Regina’s mind. “Destroy this letter as soon as you’ve read it, and tell no one of its contents. You must get the boys out of Königsberg, now!”

Megan James is a naive, grief-stricken woman in her early thirties who is leaving home for the first time in her life and traveling across an ocean to a temporary job with the Department of Defense Overseas Schools. She has no idea that her life will soon change in ways she never imagined as she confronts both the camaraderie and the secret intrigue of the Cold War Border running across a divided Europe. This excerpt is from her first introduction to flight, to Germany, and her shock at the less-than-conservative behavior of a new acquaintance. 

An ancient World Airways jet circled over Frankfurt Airport waiting its turn to land in the dense fog of morning.  Though most passengers were waking from naps with the aplomb of seasoned overseas military travelers, Megan James had not slept at all. She hated being the only person awake. Isolation brought thoughts of…well…ending things.

          Megan’s reverie was interrupted as the stewardess greeted each passenger with a hot morning towel. The stewardess paused as Megan pried her fingers loose from her death grip on the armrests and squirmed to ease the ache in her shoulders.

         “I’ve noticed you never got out of your seat,” said the stewardess. She smiled at the frightened young woman. “Apparently, you’ve been holding the plane up single-handedly this whole nine-hour flight from McGuire Air Force Base? You must ache all over.”

“I guess it was my vigilance, alone, that’s kept this plane safely in the air,” Megan tried to joke. “If these sleeping passengers only knew what a debt they owe me.”

The stewardess met her satire with a pat on the shoulder. “Good Girl. We’re almost there. Here’s a magazine to take your mind off landing.” She moved to the next passenger.

The date on the magazine was August 1974. Its well-thumbed pages fell open to the controversial cease-fire from the war in Vietnam flanked by photos of student riots and flag burning. Riot mentality sickened Megan, but she didn’t want to read about the ashes of Vietnam either. She slid the magazine into the seat pocket. She would learn about military life soon enough, and she wanted to keep an open mind.

What on earth am I doing here? I guess it was either take this job or slit my wrists--maybe both. Put any kind of face on it you want, though, you’re still running away. And now there‘s no going back. 

A ho-hum bustle identified the crowd as experienced travelers--mostly military men with families who moved every three years. Teens exchanged addresses with new friends made on the plane, youngsters played in the aisles, and long-time teachers chatted amiably as they returned for another fall semester. The pilot interrupted tired passengers with his announcement, “We’ve finally been cleared to land. Please return to your seat, put away carry-on items, and buckle up.”

But as the plane dove steeply through the clouds, bumping along with confidence and touching down to the applause of its passengers, Megan, a stranger to those on the plane, to Germany, and to herself, wondered what this new job held in store for her. It had been a long-held dream to do it together, and now… You can’t live a dream alone, she thought, but she caught herself drifting to the negative side, and forced away the idea for the hundredth time. With the rollout and taxi to the terminal, she noted among her peers a last sigh for an ended vacation, a last primp to the hair, a last stretch to the muscles, and the clicks from seat belts unfastened simultaneously.

Jet-lagged passengers waited to exit the plane and gathered in lines for passport control. Though Megan had no foreign language skill, a picture of a suitcase adorned every sign and passengers were funneled in the same direction as though the plane had been the only one arriving at dawn. Bags began bumping their way around the luggage carousel. Megan strained to see her hot pink Samsonite. The set had been a gift from her mother when she was hired for this overseas job. She’d never had luggage before. In fact, she had never traveled out of her home state of California before, and certainly she’d never before been on a plane.

She felt unsure why she had run away to Germany, and panic was setting in. “What on earth have I gotten myself into?” she whispered to herself. Everyone else seemed so casual about the whole international thing, while she wished there was a plane going right back home. But that would mean flying again--a frightening prospect. And home was no longer waiting for her, anyway. The person who’d made it home was gone.

           People at the front of the crowd began hooting with laughter, and Megan strained to see what was going on. A pretty young woman was grabbing all her dainty underwear and clothes from a section of misbehaving baggage belt that had mangled one of her suitcases.

          Megan gasped, as the blonde dove again and again at the belt, snatching up her belongings and dropping them into her luggage cart. Young men scurried to help, but they could not resist waving the lacy underwear like flags so their fellow soldiers could see.

How awful! How embarrassing for that poor girl! Forgetting her natural shyness, Megan dived into the fray to help. She gathered an armload of sweaters and slacks, dropped them into the blonde’s cart, and returned for another load.

          When it seemed that most everything had been recovered, the blonde spoke out loudly with a lazy southern drawl, “Now don’t any of y’all little soldier boys keep anything for a souvenir. I’ll be in this foreign country all year, and I won’t be able to shop for more frilly things over here in Germany. Now ‘fess up, please do.”

She flashed an unembarrassed smile that melted nearby observers. A small group of young GIs conferred, and one was pushed forward, sheepishly handing over a ruffled, lacy pair of panties to the blonde. Thanking him profusely, she kissed him on the cheek, and the crowd roared its approval.

Megan noticed the low cut bodice under the woman’s flapping coat. This person was not at all upset by the attention. Feeling embarrassed and vulnerable, Megan turned to her own suitcases, snatched them off the baggage belt, and swung them onto her cart. There was a vanity case under one bag. From its color, it could only have come from one place. She hurried with her cart over to the blonde and offered it shyly.

“Why, thanks, honey,” the younger woman said. “What a way to greet Germany--by losing my drawers.” She laughed and stuck out her hand. “I’m Lila,” she announced with husky force that denoted confidence. “What’s your name?”

            Megan looked around, wondering if anyone would think she knew this brazen woman. But she couldn’t ignore the proffered hand without being rude, and that was against her inner need to please others. So, with mixed feelings, she timidly offered her own hand. “Megan,” she said. “Do you think you found all your things?” She felt awkward at conversation.

            “Most of it.” Lila laughed loudly. “I saw one teen-aged kid slip some panties into his coat pocket, but I didn’t want to make a fuss and embarrass him. His hormones are raging, and I’ll bet he gets more mileage out of those skivvies than I ever will. He’ll be the hit of his class with his‘trophy.’”

Megan didn’t know what to say. She had never met anyone so open about such private things. She would have died of embarrassment had it been her own lingerie so exposed. Yet this young woman had carried off the disaster with ease and even now was returning the smiles of other amused passengers and patting her blonde curls into place.

Megan felt grudging admiration for one with such confidence, but became uncomfortable again as Lila bumped through customs with her open bag, piles of clothes and a disarming smile, saying, “I think y‘all might want to fix that luggage belt thingy next time you get a lil’ minute.” The customs officials didn’t speak English, but it was obvious what had happened as they moved Lila through the line with barely-concealed smirks. They offered a piece of rope. Megan lost sight of the young woman in the forward push of the crowd.

Outside the customs area, through frosted double doors, a mob of military personnel held up names and destinations on cardboard placards. Megan stood still, bewildered, not sure what to do next.  After a few moments, she heard someone a few yards away bellow out in a commanding voice, “Anyone else for Bamberg?”

Megan straggled up to a sturdily built female sergeant. “My orders said ‘Bamberg,’ but my friends at home couldn’t find it on the map of Germany. They claimed it must be a typographical error and Hamburg was where I was going. Is there really a Bamberg?”

           “Yes Ma’am,” said the sergeant, choking back her laughter. “There’s a Bamberg all right. Though some folks say there shouldn’t be one. It’s a small outpost, way out at the end of the food chain, but right at the edge of the Border. Are you my last teacher?”

“I guess so,” said Megan. She was engulfed in a bear hug from Lila.

           “Why Honey, you didn’t tell me you were going to Bamberg too. We’re going to have a great ol’ time. Kentucky men were rednecks and unadulterated morons, and I’ve had a steady progression of them. I have much higher hopes for some of those cute officers my mom said would lounge around any military base. I can’t wait for them to sweep me off my feet.”

            Megan cringed, wondering what she should say to such a woman.