SAMPLE FROM
Germany, Spring of 1945
The American was almost dead when the villagers carried him, suspended between them in a scrap of dirty canvas, to my father’s house.
If he had died that day, from the bullet or from disease, or at any prior instant during which his survival balanced on knife point, my future would have flowed down a far easier path. Thinking how close I came to missing my own life sends my heart into a slow, cold spin in my chest, yet had I been able to look ahead over the bumps and churning twists and seen the gaping, perilous path, would I have found the courage to continue forward? That side of the bridge, I hadn’t the strength or the resilience for such a journey. It was only in the crossing that I gained the fortitude to endure and I thank God for the veil which
