The Top Gun's Return

You don't have to tell me about adapting, she thought as the lightness and optimism inside her suddenly congealed into a cold, gray lump of anger, and tears peppered her eyes. I know what it means to have the man you love, your husband and the father of your child, go away and then come back…go away and then come back. Go away and then not come back. I've had to go from being a dependent wife and stay-at- home mom to being a single parent and breadwinner. From a woman who deferred to my husband in every little thing to one who now, on a daily basis, holds the lives of the tiniest, sickest babies in my hands. Don't tell me what it is to adapt!

'Hey, now you're cookin',' Tristan said.

Blinking back the tears, Jessie glanced at the speedometer and saw that the needle was hovering around 140. Muttering a word her momma wouldn't have approved of, she eased up on the gas pedal while beside her Tris chuckled softly.

They left the autobahn behind sooner than she'd expected and quickly wound down through woods and hillsides dotted with grazing sheep and into a deep river valley bordered on both sides by vineyards. Now the road followed the river's twisting, looping path, criss-crossing it on medieval-looking bridges, passing through towns of picture- book yellow and white half-timbered houses on narrow, brick-paved streets. The houses all had roofs of slate tiles laid like fish scales, and some were decorated with carved wood or patterns in contrasting brick and stone. Here and there, climbing up walls or creeping across arches, Jess saw the pale-green tendrils of new grapevines.

She wished now that she didn't have to be the one driving. She wanted to be free to look and look and look. Instead, she had to content herself with glimpses snatched from bridge crossings and high points in the road, of the river and its traffic of stately white riverboats and great cargo barges. Vineyards covered both sides of the valley, from gently rolling plains to mountainsides so steep they seemed inaccessible except to mountain goats and eagles. And here and there, high on one of those mountains, above the slate rooftops of a town-and she would have missed them entirely if Tristan hadn't pointed them out for her-the ruins of medieval castles.

In one of those towns, one even smaller than all the rest, huddled on a spit of land that barely missed being an island where the river looped back upon itself, he instructed her to stop. She pulled into a parking area next to what appeared to have been a train station but was now a grassy park that meandered along the riverbank among new- leafed trees.

'Are you sure this is it?' Jessie asked, peering through the windows, searching signs attached to the quaint- looking hotels and restaurants that fronted on the river for the village's name. She'd been too busy reading warnings of rapidly decreasing speed limits to have noticed on the way into town.

'Has to be,' said Tristan. He didn't bother to consult the road map that was spread across his lap; they already knew the town they'd come to find wasn't on it. No surprise-it was so small, he'd told her, it didn't have a single store, much less a post office. 'That was Traben-Trarbach back there, and Dad said Wolf was on a piece of land where the river makes a loop. This must be it. Come on-let's see if we can find somebody to ask.'

She turned off the engine and opened the car door. The coolness of the breeze surprised her-the bright April sunshine and intense blue sky were misleading-and she reached into the back seat for her coat. As she belted it around her-the same borrowed raincoat that had felt so inadequate in New York City-she watched Tristan maneuver himself and his cane out of the car, then shrug into his own jacket. He was wearing some of the clothes she'd bought for him-black cargo pants, a heather-toned turtleneck pullover bulky enough to camouflage his painful thinness. The jacket was sleek black leather. With the silver peppering his dark hair and a bit of a shadow on his jaws, he looked lean and dark and dangerous, and, Jessie thought, quite European. Sammi June would approve.

For herself, looking at him gave her a queer little kick under her ribs, and her pulse quickened. He looks so different, she thought, for maybe the thousandth time. He'd always been so open, so carefree, the quintessential American flyboy, wholesome and uncomplicated as apples. Now he looked…mysterious. Forbidding…exciting. Damned attractive, but…so very different.

She snagged her pocketbook from the back seat and hooked it over her shoulder and locked the car. She was pocketing the keys when she caught a glimpse of something that drove every disquieting thought from her mind-for a moment, anyway.

'Tris,' she cried, 'look-is that-are those…'

Tristan had already started toward the row of hotels and restaurants across the street. He turned to see what she was pointing at, then changed direction and came around the car to join her. 'Those? What, you've never seen swans before?'

Too awed to answer, Jessie was edging closer to the riverbank, where, in the shallows just offshore, two huge white birds were nibbling and nuzzling among the reeds. She could see others now, too, on the river, gliding in graceful formation.

'Not like this, I haven't,' she whispered as Tristan came up beside her. 'I thought they were just in theme parks and zoos.' She glanced at him and saw that he was grinning at her, amused at her naivete, so mature himself, so superior-the old Tris. And the old Jessie might have felt embarrassed, young and a bit silly, but the Jessie she was now gave him a jab with her elbow and said, 'And don't you try to tell me you have, either, mister. Aren't they the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?'

It was a moment before he answered, in a strangely thickened voice, 'Not the most beautiful, no…'

She glanced at him and met his gaze for barely an instant before he turned. The naked hunger in his eyes shocked her.

Shaken, now, and jangling inside, she followed him across the parking lot. At that hour-late morning-in the middle of the week, there were no other people about, and since it was obviously too early in the season for tourists, Jessie wondered whether any of the business establishments that catered to them would even be open. Tris, however, appeared to have no such doubts. He chose the closest one, a small Gasthaus of yellow and white stucco decorated with carved half timbers, and a sign in front that was artistically hand-painted with heavily laden grapevines and crossed wineglasses. He stomped confidently up the steps to the front door and turned the handle.

The heavy wooden door opened onto dimness and silence. That is, until a voice, friendly but cracked and hoarse-a smoker's voice-called out to them in German.

Jessie's heart sank, but once again Tris wasn't the least bit deterred. 'Ah,' he said, catching Jessie's hand as he veered toward the voice, 'yes, hello.'

The owner of the voice, a middle-aged man with very little hair and great pouches under his eyes, came out from behind a high counter, stubbing out what appeared to be a hand-rolled cigarette on the way. Obviously accustomed to tourists of all nationalities, the man switched to slow and careful English.

'Yes. Please. Come in. May I help you?'

Jessie was surprised when Tris, instead of asking the directions they'd come for, took a stool at the counter and ordered them both glasses of wine.

'It's a courtesy,' he murmured in an aside to her while their host was busy opening a bottle and filling their glasses-unusual little glasses with etched leaves on the bowl and stubby, twisty green stems. 'Besides, this is what the place is known for. According to Dad, it's all it's known for. Can't very well visit without sampling the local product, can we?'

Jessie had never been that fond of wine, but she discovered she actually liked this one, a white wine somewhat on the sweet side. Since she was thirsty and it had been several hours since breakfast, she drained her glass rather quickly. Their host, who turned out to be a naturally gregarious fellow and obviously hungry for company, promptly refilled it before he went back to chatting amiably with Tris.

He told them his name was Sigfrid, and when Tris returned the favor along with a brisk handshake, beamed and said, 'Ah-Bauer. You must be German, then, yes?'

When Tris explained that his father had grown up in that very town, and asked if Sigfrid might have known him, the Gasthaus keeper reluctantly shook his head and explained that he himself was from Traben-Trarbach, all of ten kilometers down the road, and had only taken over the Gasthaus from his wife's family twenty years or so ago. He readily gave them directions to the town's only cemetery, though, and urged them to visit the Kloster while they were there.

'Kloster?' Jessie whispered when Sigfrid had slipped away with their Euros to make