***
Once, while they were still married, the two of them had made one long holiday out of their last summer in Europe, on their own for the first time since the kids had arrived. With no itinerary, they had driven south through the Swiss Alps into Tuscan Italy, then crossed the country to see both Vienna and Florence. Finally, they turned north and west for France, just loafing along on the return trip in the sultry August heat.
Fletcher had quit the Army and been mustered out at his base in Baden Baden, in Germany. The twins, who were nine years old that year, were home in the states with their grandparents, and for the first time in a decade, Mr. and Mrs. Bolt didn’t have a single thing to tie them down, at least for awhile. It was, to all intents and purposes, their first real vacatio
