SUZANNE

My father’s name was Sam Ryan and I had adored him my whole life.

On the day of our trip, I trudged up his driveway in the semi-blackness of pre-dawn, my calves screaming in protest at the steep climb in spite of the number of hours I spent weekly in spin and Pilates classes.

Dad had insisted I be there at “zero-dark-thirty.” Yeah, Army-speak spilled from his lips regularly, even though seventy years had passed since his drill sergeant—somebody named Miller, I think—had barked that phrase at him. I got an “As you were” occasionally too.

The driveway leveled off, but even before I saw him, the comfortable fragrance of Old Spice reached me from where he stood on the front porch and caressed me like a warm hug. He walked slowly toward me, his appearance still impressive. Despite his years, he held himself proudly erect, having lost only half an inch or so of his former six-foot-two height.

He reached the edge of the top step and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he posed there, waiting as the early morning sun crept over the fence that lined his driveway and peeped through the new leaves of the crape myrtles. In seconds, the rays strengthened and found his thick white hair, brushing it with soft gold and transforming it into a halo around his still-handsome face.

His Tyrone Power face, according to Mother. I saw it, too, from the old movies I watched with her. Dad’s eyes glowed with the same warm brown, and in the pictures I saw of him as a young man, his hair gleamed coal black in the sun. For my money, however, his gorgeous face looked more like George Clooney, especially as they both aged.

He paused on the top step after refusing my offer to help him down. Regardless of the minor stroke he’d suffered ten years earlier, his fierce independence continued to dominate his spirit. Damned stubbornness, I called it. Funny. Even though I’d been adopted, he used those same words to describe me too.

The one bit of help he’d accepted was for driving. Oh, he hadn’t wanted to. He fought it kicking and screaming. But after the second time in six months old Elmer Henderson hauled him out of the ditch—during a snowstorm, for goodness sake, when he’d shivered alone for hours because he forgot to charge the cell phone I’d given him—his good friend, Judge Tom Bennett, convinced him to hand over his keys. He did it. But he wasn’t happy about it.

Fortunately, I lived close by, and after Mother died, Dad lived independently with my help and a few services from the community. Meals on Wheels did most of the cooking, but I became Dad’s primary caretaker, his shopper, chauffeur, property manager, and friend, with the help of my grown son, Stephen, who also lived on our street. Steve excelled in the “friend” category and he loved taking his own sons to spend time with their great-granddad.

I watched Dad descend the stairs, leaning on his cane, one slow step at a time. Excitement filled his face. He tried to hide it, but he couldn’t fool me. He loved adventures. And we were headed for a doozy.

He’d received the invitation close to a year earlier, four months before Mother died, and to her delight, made up his mind to attend right away. She knew she couldn’t go with him. Her cancer was too advanced by then. So she convinced me to put the trip on my calendar and to cajole him into attending if he waffled at the last minute.

But he hadn’t. So there we were, the day of the trip, preparing to fly overseas to attend the seventieth anniversary celebration of V-E Day—the end of World War II in Europe. We’d join several of his former Army buddies from K Company in the 353rd Regiment of the 89th Infantry Division at Le Havre, France, where the former soldiers first touched the European mainland on their way to join the war. From there, the old “Rolling W,” as the 89th Infantry was called, would reprise its trek across Europe—France, Luxembourg, and Germany, all the way to Zwickau, close to the Czech border—and culminate with a huge party on May 9, 2015. Other Divisions planned celebrations too, Dad told me, so the gathering included all military who helped defeat Hitler. And, surprising to me, even German citizens.

At precisely half past six in the morning on May 1, 2015, I backed Dad’s Buick Park Avenue onto Frederick Street in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where we had lived since the early fifties, and we were on our way. A union man all his adult life, “Buy American” governed his purchases, so I drove the 2005 model, the last year of the Park Avenue in the United States before its manufacturing moved to Shanghai.

Commuter traffic was light so early in the day, and we reached Paul Mack Boulevard in record time. Our route wound through the base of the Appalachian Mountains and, for a while, he stared in silence. Then he tapped the window with the crook of his cane. “Those hills,” he said, “remind me of the ones we crossed in Germany. We scaled the first range just north of the Black Forest and the second, the Erzgebirge, after we crossed the Rhine River. Close to Zwickau.”

“Tell me about it, Dad,” I said. He’d always been reluctant to talk about his stint in combat, although I’d asked him countless times. True to form, he let my request hang and continued to stare at the landscape. I waited. His chin sank into his chest and a faint “harrumph” reached me from the second button on his freshly laundered shirt. Even with Mother gone, he remained fastidious about his appearance—shaved every day, selected a clean shirt from the top of the stack placed in his middle drawer twice a week by Emma, the housekeeper, and had his shoes shined and his hair cut every Wednesday two blocks from his house. Like clockwork.

Silence followed and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

But after a long pause the words began, slowly at first, trickling out in snatched thoughts and broken phrases before gaining momentum. His narrative bloomed in rich detail and his voice grew stronger. He sat straighter in his seat and I swear, when I glanced at him, his face looked more youthful, as if his body had retreated in time to match his younger-man recollections. His descriptions painted vivid pictures of a brutal time in our world’s history.

And I hung on every word, fascinated.