“You’re breaking up with me,” she said.

Gideon didn’t say anything for a moment. He had come to break up with her. He reminded her that he’d already been absent for two of the six months since they’d been seeing each other, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d be away this time. Not that he hadn’t warned her when they’d started seeing each other. Their first night together in Central Park, he told her bluntly that his work wasn’t compatible with being in a long-term relationship, and that he’d resigned himself to living his life alone. Miriam had accepted it then, and she accepted it now, without self-pity, and with a grace that made Gideon miss her before he’d even left the apartment. Her only regret, she said, was that she had allowed herself to fall in love with him.

“Good luck trying to save the world, Gideon. You’ll do great.”

Trying to save the world.

Said with not even a hint of irony. As absurd as it sounded, Gideon sincerely felt that he was trying to save the world. Or at least save as many lives as he could. A naive project, maybe, but one that required the freedom to leave on a moment’s notice and to stay away for long periods. And so he had ended his relationship with Miriam Pierce as he had with so many other women, without any words of consolation other than to say that he was sorry.

As he left the apartment, she closed the door behind him. He heard the lock snick closed behind him.

Gideon stood for a moment, unable to move, rooted there by a sudden and deep loneliness that descended over him like a shadow. He raised his fist to knock on her door, ready to tell Miriam that he’d changed his mind, but he stopped himself. This breakup felt like more than just another casualty of Gideon’s outsize ambition to save the world. Standing there, he realized that his decision to keep the people who cared about him at arm’s length came at a steeper price than he’d ever acknowledged, even to himself.

Twenty minutes later, he was sitting on his neatly made bed, taking off his shoes and lying back on the hard pillow, his n He±€†ecktie still tight and perfectly knotted. As he lay staring at the ceiling, Gideon felt drained and vaguely restless. He looked around the room. He’d been living here for nearly two years, and yet there were no family photos on the wall, no artwork, nothing that would tell you anything about the individual who lived here. It could just as well have been a hotel room, or some rent-by-the-month apartment in a strange city.

He found himself walking to the spare bedroom and looking in the nearly empty closet. In the back of the closet lay the container with the words FOR MY BOYS written in thick marker across the top. Inside was a smaller, older box, its sides worn and creased with age. He took the box back to his bedroom and set it in the middle of the bed.

He stared at the box for a long time before he finally opened it.

Inside were several small stacks of photographs, each held together by a brittle rubber band. The first set showed his father as a boy and as a very young man. Gideon’s father—only a teenager, his hair slicked back— grinning as he stood next to an early 1960s Chevy. What struck Gideon was that he’d never seen his father smile like that. A big, fat, shit-eating grin. The few times his father had smiled, it was usually hard, grudging, and slightly bitter.

The next set were photos of his father and mother. Again, they just looked so . . . happy. Gideon couldn’t quite fathom it, his father in a tux with a cockeyed boutonniere, his mother laughing, her head thrown back, showing off her throat. Another picture showed her pressed up against his father, who held her like he was protecting her from all the ugliness of the world. He’d never seen them look happy like that. Especially not together. Not once.

The second sheaf of pictures were Marine Corps photos. On top was a young man, posing proudly in his dress uniform. It looked like it had been taken right after basic training. Behind that were more pictures from his time as a marine, one of them showing his father arm in arm with Uncle Earl, whom Gideon suddenly realized had probably taken most of these photographs. Gideon checked the inscriptions on the back as he worked his way slowly through them. Mostly early 1965. The first few were taken in the United States, then later pictures were obviously in Vietnam. But he continued to be the same grinning kid in picture after picture.

Until the last picture. Gideon barely recognized the boy. It was the same boy . . . and yet, it wasn’t. It wasn’t just that he was unshaven, or that his uniform was worn and covered with mud, or that his left leg and torso were wrapped in bandages. It was something in the boy’s eyes—a darkness that Gideon recognized all too well.

It was that dark, distant expression—anger buried under a hard, dead-eyed veneer. The young private carried an M-60 machine gun across his stomach, his hands cradling it with the same soft, loving familiarity that his father always used when holding his guns.

This is the man I knew, Gideon thought.

It was the last photograph in the stack. He flipped it over. 1966. In a year, he’d gone from a grinning kid to . . . this.

Now the bed was empty, except for a small blue rectangular case. It resembled a jeweler’s case for a diamond necklace. Only, this case was embossed with the seal of the United States of America.

Gideon opened it. Insidwid±€†e was a small star-shaped medal attached to a pale blue ribbon.

He knew what it was, knew immediately, and yet he couldn’t believe it.

Folded on top of the medal was a yellowed piece of paper. He unfolded it and read it once, then a second time, then a third.

When he was done reading, he picked up his phone and dialed the last number he had for Tillman. A man answered, but the line was so full of static that the answering voice was inaudible.

“Tillman?” Gideon said. “Tillman, can you hear me?”

The man’s voice was lost in the noise, but Gideon was so excited that he couldn’t wait to share with his brother what he’d found.

“I opened the box Dad left us.”

There was more crackling.

“Listen to this,” he said, not knowing if he was reading to his brother, to a stranger, or to an empty line. “At the top, it says ‘citation.’ Then it says this:

“Rank and Organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, First Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division (Rein.). Place and Date: Thua Thien Province, Vietnam. March 10, 1966. Entered service at: Washington, D.C. Born: 13 September 1945, Staunton, Virginia. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and courage at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. In the course of a routine patrol, Pfc. Davis’s platoon was ambushed by a company-sized force of NVA regulars. Eleven marines were killed and three of the five survivors wounded. Pfc. Davis ordered Pfc. Earl Parker to retreat with the surviving members of the platoon, remaining behind to lay down cover fire. A superior and judicious marksman, Pfc. Davis killed the enemy company commander, three sergeants, a machine gunner, and a mortar team before his ammunition was exhausted and his position was rushed by the remaining enemy forces. Armed with only his sidearm and a grenade, Pfc. Davis engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat, killing all five enemy soldiers, while sustaining a bayonet wound, a gunshot wound, multiple shrapnel wounds, and a broken ankle. He then crossed two kilometers of steep and muddy terrain, eventually reaching his base at dawn. Through his efforts, Pfc. Davis saved the surviving members of his platoon from certain destruction by a well-trained and numerically superior force. Pfc. Davis’s extensive injuries required nearly a year of convalescence. His courageous initiative and heroic spirit of self-sacrifice reflect the noblest traditions of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service.”