He remembers the heat, the first summer in Norfolk, the summer of '69. He remembers the way it felt as it radiated from the steel decks, rising so fast that it pulled the breath out of his lungs. He remembers bringing it home on his uniform like the smell of paint and fuel oil. He remembers the withering lindens on the median strip of Military Boulevard, watching them through the shimmer as they struggled for life and air. He remembers those days at Virginia Beach, when the heat pushed them to the edge of the sea like a ribbon of survivors running from the flames.

And he remembers the day they arrived, young, frightened, as if the possibility of going to war was nothing compared to the certainty of calling this place home. They were lost on those miracle miles, returning helplessly again and again to a Pontiac dealership like hikers circling in unvarying woods. They drove past shopping centers, garden-apartment complexes, bungalows with brown lawns, all of them locked tight against the hot air like shelters sealed against biologic attack. They did not need to ask each other How will we survive here? They were sure they would not. Each time they completed a fruitless circle he could feel the accusation rise—this, out of all the alternatives, this is the choice you made. This is Norfolk.

They drove in silence, no longer entirely sure of what they were looking for. They kept believing one of those strips of tar and concrete would lead to a downtown, something familiar like a white meeting house with maples and elms, a regular town with a friendly spot to drink iced tea and gather their wits. They'd planned this—kept thinking on the long drive down to Cape Charles that even when they arrived in