Dorothy Garlock Read Online Free PDF

Now, they communicated with their
     eyes. Unlike the soldier on the train, no pity shone in his father’s eyes, only unease and disdain.
    “I suppose I could have picked a cooler day to come home,” Cole offered.
    “Could have.”
    “Did Jason have—”
    “Are you ready to go?” his father asked stiffly, cutting him off.
    “I suppose so.”
    Robert Ambrose bent down, picked up his son’s suitcase, turned on his heel, and walked impatiently from the depot. As Cole
     followed slowly behind, his thoughts raced with all of the words he’d wished he had heard:
How was your trip? I’ve got your room all made up just like it was when you left. I bet you’re tired so we’ll have an early
     supper so you can get some rest
. Instead, the only sound he could hear was their footfalls as they made their way to the pickup truck. In that moment Cole
     realized how wrong he had been.
    Nothing had changed… nothing at all.

Chapter Three
    T HE TRUCK LEFT the depot with Cole leaning against the passenger door, staring out at the town he had called home for his first eighteen
     years. Located along a flat plain that dropped toward the Mississippi River in the west, Victory was mainly a farming community.
     The rich black earth offered up a bounty of crops, mostly corn and beans, to those who were willing to work for them. Cows
     and pigs were raised in abundance before being shipped northward to Chicago for slaughter.
    But things had begun to change; farming was no longer the only occupation that drew people to Victory. After the lean years
     of the Great Depression, new businesses and homes had sprung up as easily as spring crops. Change had come to Victory, and
     along with it new families, each of them willing to do what was necessary to build their own American dream. As the truck
     drove down Main Street, Cole watched as a steady stream of businesses, the bakery, barber shop, bank, and Ambrose Hardware
     among them, stood as a testament to the town’s growth.
    Tall elm, oak, and maple trees dotted the land, their leafy branches spread far and wide. The sweet scent of wild coneflowers,
     prairie dock, and cut grass wafted over the town in summer. The creeks and rivers were full of fish, the woods stocked with
     wild game. While both the heat of summer and cold of winter could be brutal, there were plenty of days in between that were
     as pretty as any picture.
    On this day, these sights, sounds, and colors of summer were all tinted a bright red, white, and blue; crisp, clean flags
     and banners hung from nearly every business awning, every porch, and every flagpole. Posters promoting the danger of waste,
     the virtue of savings bonds, and clear pictures of the enemy flashed by in the storefronts the pickup passed. Victory was
     truly representative of the American heartland, united to fight the war, regardless of the cost. It had been the same in Chicago;
     an America attacked was a nation now alert, ready to defend all that it so cherished.
    For all of this beauty, Cole knew that Victory was made all the greater by the town’s inhabitants. The people who lived on
     and worked the land were a hearty and God-fearing lot. From the men who gathered every morning at Marge’s Diner over coffee
     and cigarettes to the women who organized church socials, the bonds of support between the people of Victory were as strong
     as iron. Lifelong friendships abounded. The sentiment of “love thy neighbor” had never rung truer. His father had always felt
     an intense pride to be among them.
    To Robert Ambrose, Victory was the perfect, ideal America.
    Cole had heard the story more times than he could count; how his father’s business had played an important role in the creation
     of that ideal. When he had first opened Ambrose Hardware, it had been a mighty struggle just to make ends meet. He’d been
     a young husband and new father and had had to do it all alone, without anyone save his wife to help him or provide support,
     and had