"Why, she's my stepdaughter and she lives right here!" said Ike. "And who might you be?"
The young man smiled. "I am sorry. I should have introduced myself first. My name is Frederick Anton Reiker, and your stepdaughter saved my life six years ago."
Ike's eyes narrowed. "Patty saved your life? How?"
Pearl heard them talking and came in, carrying Sammy.
"Hello, ma'am," said Anton.
Pearl gasped.
"I would like to see Patty, if she is available," Anton continued. "I have just arrived from Jenkinsville, Arkansas. Someone there told me her mother had remarried and moved the family here to Walton's Mountain."
"Who told you that?" Pearl snapped.
"A kind young man named Freddy Dowd. Is Patty here?"
"Here I am." Patty appeared, on crutches. Sharon was with her.
Anton's eyes widened. "P.B.?"
"Anton? Is it really you?"
He beamed. "It's me. You've certainly grown to be a beautiful woman, P.B. How did you hurt your foot?"
Patty grimaced. "Playing ball."
"It was my fault," said Sharon. "I threw the ball to her, and she stepped in a hole trying to find it."
"It was not your fault," Patty argued. "You had no way of knowing that hole was there."
Ike switched the sign on the door from 'Open' to 'Closed.' "I think we'd better step into the parlor and discuss this."
Sammy started crying, and Pearl took him into the bedroom to change his diaper while Ike led Anton and the girls into the parlor. "Please, have a seat," he told Anton.
"Thank you." Anton sat down on the couch, and Patty and Sharon sat beside him while Ike sat in a chair facing the group.
"Now, please tell me how you met Patty and how she saved your life."
"It was during the war." Anton's voice was soft, and he couldn't meet the older man's eyes. "Some other soldiers and I were captured and taken prisoner while trying to get out of France. We were flown here to a camp in Jenkinsville. Patty and I met when we were taken into her father's store to buy supplies. Later, I escaped from the camp and was planning to jump a train when I met up with her and she took me to the apartment above her garage. I hid there until I got concerned that I was endangering the safety of her family. Then I left."
Ike listened in rapt attention, his mouth slightly agape. When Anton finished speaking, he looked at Patty.
"Is he telling the truth?"
Patty nodded. Pearl entered the parlor and sat in the chair beside her husband's.
"Is he asleep?" Ike asked her. She nodded, then glared at Anton.
"You're that Nazi boy from the prison camp, aren't you?"
"I am sorry if I have upset you," said Anton. "I did not mean to cause you distress. I only wanted to see your daughter again, and to tell her how much I appreciate everything she did for me."
"He seems a decent sort of chap," said Ike. "I think we should hear him out. What I can't understand is how Patty could have got involved in something like that. She would have been - what? Only about twelve?"
"Old enough to know he was my friend, and he cared about me." Patty was near tears. Sharon kept glancing between her mother and sister.
"I think I kind of remember, a little bit," she said at last. "I know there was a big fuss going on and Patty got in a lot of trouble, but I didn't understand what it was all about."
"I'm sure it was a big part of what sent your Daddy to an early grave." Pearl's eyes bored into those of her older daughter. "You killed him, Patty!"
"I'm sure it wasn't all your fault." Ike patted Patty's knee, then turned to his wife. "Let me see if I have this right. Patty hid an escaped prisoner above your garage for a while, and then he left. How did you and her father find out about it?"
"He was wearing Harry's shirt when he was shot," said Pearl. "The men from the FBI were able to trace it back to him because it had his initials on it."
Unable to believe his ears, Ike looked at Anton. "You were shot? Where?"
"New York. I recovered in the hospital and was then sent back to the prison camp. When the war ended, I was sent back home. I finished medical school and went into practice, but I never forgot Patty. My grandfather died six months ago and left me a lot of money. I decided to return to the United States and look for my dear friend. I was hoping she would be happy to see me again."
Tears were streaming down Patty's cheeks as she reached for him, and he pulled her into a close embrace.