"This isn't winter," Marina remarked as the girls emerged into the sunshine once again. "It's summer!"
"It's winter, all right." Barbara unlocked the car door on her side. "Christmas is in less than two weeks!"
"I can't even imagine Christmas without snow!" Marina exclaimed.
Barbara laughed. "It never snows here! Hey, you want to go to McDonald's? Their ice cream sundaes are the best!"
"What's McDonald's?"
"It's a really cool place where you can get burgers, fries, milkshakes - just about anything you want!"
"You mean you're already hungry again?"
"Not really. I just want a strawberry sundae." Barbara pulled into a parking space, and the girls got out and went into the restaurant.
Standing in line, Marina surveyed the menu, then frowned. "They don't sell beer here?"
"Of course not! It's McDonald's!"
"They sell it at Weinerwald back home," Marina told her. "Vati - my stepfather - won't let us kids drink it. He says it's not healthy at our age, but Uncle Peter lets our cousins have just a little bit sometimes, but never when Tante Margot is around."
"I think I really do want to go back home with you." Barbara leaned toward Marina and lowered her voice. "Mom would kill me!" She collapsed in a paroxysm of giggles.
"What's so funny?" asked Marina.
"Never mind. What kind are you getting? I want strawberry."
"Um - caramel, maybe." Marina took the dollar bill her grandmother had given her out of her purse and looked at it.
"Oh, put that away. It's my treat." Barbara grinned.
"Really?" Marina gasped.
Barbara shrugged. "Sure. I get five dollars a week allowance, so it's no big deal."
The girls took the sundaes to a booth and sat down. "Barbara?" Marina asked her cousin as she was digging into her ice cream with her spoon.
"Hm?"
"Do you know where my father's buried?"
"'Course I do. It's close to where our great grandparents are buried. We go there every Easter to leave flowers. I'll take you there today, if you want."
"Oh, yes!"
The girls finished their ice cream, and Barbara drove to the cemetery, where Marina followed her down a rocky path that wound through the well-manicured lawn with the stones and markers arranged in perfect symmetry. At last Barbara stopped and nodded toward one of the markers. "That's it."
Marina knelt before it and read its inscription. 'Alfred George Barrington, March 19, 1924 - December 24, 1945. Beloved son, husband, and father.'
"Vater?" A tear escaped Marina's left eye and trickled down her cheek as she brushed a few blades of grass from the marker's surface. Another soon followed.
"I wouldn't cry over him if I were you," said Barbara. "Dad's always said he was a drunk and a lecher."
"Don't call him that!" Marina sprang to her feet and attacked her cousin. "He was my father!"
"Hey" Barbara grabbed her arms. "I was nice enough to drive you all the way here, and you act like this? See if I ever do anything else for you!"
"I'm s-sorry," Marina sniffled as she followed Barbara back to the car. As soon as she was back at her grandparents' home, she flew up the stairs and into her room, where she threw herself across the bed and burst into tears. A few minutes later, she felt the bed sink as someone sat beside her and began to rub her back.
"Want to talk about it, honey?" asked Eunice.
Marina raised her tear-stained face to look into her grandmother's eyes. "Was my father really a drunk and a lecher?"
Eunice heaved a deep sigh as she stood and walked to the dresser, where she picked up a photograph and gazed at it for a moment, then set it back down. "I don't know where I went wrong with that child," she said at last. "We gave him everything, all that money could buy. He never lacked anything at all. We showed him just as much love and affection as we did Clarence, and Clarence turned out just fine, but for Freddy, it was just somehow never enough. We took him to counselors, therapists - even sent him to that strict boarding school - but nothing worked. He was incorrigible."
"When he told us he was getting married, I thought he was too young, but I also hoped that becoming a husband and father would turn him into a responsible individual. I couldn't have been more wrong about that."
"So what Barbara said about him was true, then?"
Eunice didn't respond.
She dozed during the long flight over the Atlantic, and instead of crashing waves and soaring seagulls, there were rolling green pastures and church bells, and the man holding her had Martin's face. Tears of remorse filled her eyes as she thought of how cold she'd been to him since she'd learned the truth. She'd grieved for something that had never really been, and she'd had to go all the way to America to learn that. Yet in the loss of her dream, she'd gained something as well - the knowledge that she'd never truly been alone after all, that the love she'd felt she'd lost had really been there all along.
He was there waiting for her when she got off the airplane in Frankfurt, Clayton and Anna standing with him, melting snow still clinging to all their coats.
She felt as if her feet had wings as she ran to him and gave him a fierce hug, burying her face in the front of his shirt. "Vati! I missed you so much!"
He lifted her chin with his fingers and looked into her face. "Marina? What's wrong? Didn't you have a good time?"
"It's kind of a long story. I'll tell you later, when there's time."
"What happened? Are you all right?" His voice was tight with concern.
"I'm all right. I want you to be my Vati from now on, and never leave me. You won't, will you?"
"Of course not, liebchen." He pulled her close, and she inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. "Were the Barringtons unkind to you?"
"Oh no, not at all. They were very nice."
"But something must have happened to upset you."
"More like just something I found out, but it's all right. I'm over it now - mostly."
"Come along, then. Your mother's anxious to see you again."
As she walked back out to the car with her father and brother and sister, she knew that she was back where she belonged.