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unfamiliar woe. Not like a spoiled kid who couldn’t get his way—more like a kid who desperately wanted
     to express himself clearly but was unable.
    Bruce, who normally didn’t give in to such antics, was perplexed. Finally, he tried to drag James to a new exhibit, and the
     child still resisted. There was something eerie about this, something that Bruce could not fathom.
    And so they revisited the World War II planes twice, three times, and a trip to the museum that was supposed to last an hour
     turned into three.
    “I don’t wanna go,” brooded James.
    “Yes, but we can’t stay here forever,” replied Bruce. “What about some lunch?”
    James shook his head.
    “Ice cream?”
    The only way that Bruce could get him out of that hangar was to promise to take him to a working airfield where they could
     watch the planes take off. “We’ll go to Addison Airport,” he said, which was on the grounds of the museum and where there
     were Cessnas and corporate jets coming and going all the time. No lure of food or treats would budge James. Just the promise
     of live takeoffs.
    When they got back home, he spoke to Andrea about it, tried to explain why it was unsettling, but only managed to sound as
     if he was complaining about the difficulty of handling James. Of course that wasn’t the point, but he didn’t know what the
     point was.
    Now, three months later, on Memorial Day, they went back to the air museum. Again James was all but spinning with excitement.
     Like a puppy, he pulled Bruce. Outside, they ran into an old guy who said, “That little boy sure is excited. Well, I get excited
     every time I come here, too. During World War Two I flew an airplane just like one they have inside.”
    It turned out the old guy was Charles R. Bond Jr., who flew a P-40 with the Flying Tigers. He gave James a gift, an Angel
     pin, and went off to keep another appointment. It was an odd encounter; Charles clearly recognized a kindred spirit in James.
    This time Bruce had a camera, as if he might capture on film some wisp of whatever James was experiencing, and he took pictures
     of his son standing and pointing at the WW II aircraft. But the child’s intensity was not something that could be caught on
     film—an excitement so fervid that Bruce realized you had to be there to feel it.
    They went back to Becky’s house, where everyone was busy fixing up for the party. The theme was “Thomas the Tank Engine.”
     The kids all splashed around in an inflatable pool, and there was a piñata in the front of the house, with Andrea keeping
     watch to see that no one fractured anyone else’s skull. The bizarre museum experience folded quietly into the happy memories
     of the trip.
    And it was a splendid trip; it revived the exhausted Bruce and Andrea. On the last morning before they returned to Lafayette,
     Bruce and James and Andrea lay out in the sun at the Amerisuite pool, and in that small moment, with the family together and
     quiet, it felt like a mini vacation.
    On the drive back to Louisiana, they stopped in Shreveport again for lunch, but this time they went to McDonald’s. There was
     an indoor play center, and James was given five minutes to play. Bruce had to climb in and pull him out after ten minutes.
    As he drove away, Bruce thought, it wasn’t like the museum. The jungle gym was a toy, and James behaved like a child with
     a toy. The Cavanaugh had been different—there had been no playfulness there.
    Up until now, neither parent had made a connection between James’s obsessive fascination with airplanes and his bad dreams.
     Clearly there was a great contrast. James took to airplanes with such pure gusto, such tireless enthusiasm, that it didn’t
     seem possible that the terrible dreams had anything to do with his love of airplanes. One was deeply disturbing—terrifying.
     The other was a wholesome delight. It didn’t seem possible that something so enjoyable could have anything to do with something
     so