Intriguing story that got more interesting as it went. Will Hastie is coming home after being away for a while, and he is home to stay, to help his father run the farm. A big part of his homecoming is his reunion with his next-door neighbors. There was a son and daughter, Rae and Patty, who grew up with Will and felt like his own siblings. Rae died in the war several years back. Will has a hard time contemplating the house without his friend, but finds that he is just as comfortable as ever with Patty and her parents.
At one point Patty shows Will a letter that Rae wrote shortly before he died. Rae indicated that he had something exciting to confide but that he wanted to do it in person. They never found out what that was.
Will has no idea, either, but the idea stays with him strongly enough that he decides to take a "vacation" to France and see if he can unearth anything from the family that Rae stayed with during the war. He finds out something that, to most readers, will not really come as a surprise. But what happens from there on out is more difficult to predict. The results and decisions that come from his discovery are bittersweet in one way, but also satisfying and a generally good ending. ( )