"Meet my husband, Tom," Marcy said proudly. Tom smiled.

"So you're here to pick up the boys, huh? They're good kids. We've enjoyed having them."

"Thank you," said Fritz. "I am their uncle, Fritz Bhaer, and this is my friend, Josephine March."

"It's nice to meet you both." Tom shook hands with Fritz and Jo.

Marcy started a fresh pot of coffee. Tom, Fritz, and Jo all sat at the table. Marcy soon joined them.

"So tell me, how did the two of you meet?" she asked her visitors.

"I was working as a nanny, and he lived next door to my employer," said Jo. "I met him at the park when he was there with Adam and Daniel."

"Tom and I met on the first day of kindergarten." Marcy smiled, reminiscing. "We played together that day at playtime, and that afternoon, I found out he'd just moved in right next door to me. We've been together ever since then."

"That sounds so nice," said Jo. "The boy who lives next door to me fell in love with me too, but I didn't feel the same way." She took a sip of coffee. "We first met when we were fifteen. We were friends all through high school. We even went to the senior prom together."

Jo gazed at the cup in her hand as memories of Teddy flooded her mind.

"It sounds like you must have been very close," Marcy commented.

"Oh, we were!" Jo glanced guiltily at Fritz, wondering how all the talk of Teddy was affecting him. She saw that he had a slight smile on his face. "I still think of him as a dear friend, but that's all he'll ever be. He had such a hard time accepting it that I had to go away for awhile."

Fritz's smile widened, and Jo saw that his eyes were twinkling.

"And so that was what brought you to New York, was it not, Josephine?"

"Exactly." If I'd stayed in Concord, I never would have found the ring, so I would have missed it all. I never would have lived through the war, never would have met and married Dieter, never would have borne his children.

Yet, what would have happened to him on the scaffold?"

She couldn't bear to think about it.

Marcy smiled.

"Sometimes endings lead to new beginnings."

The drive home was mostly silent. Jo was deep in thought. Would she ever return to that other life? If so, would it be as Martina or as someone else?

Glancing over at Fritz in the driver's seat, thinking of Adam and Daniel asleep in the back seat, Jo considered how easy it would be to imagine Fritz as Dieter, Adam and Daniel as Paul and Freddy.

She had to swallow a huge lump in her throat.

At last they arrived at Fritz's apartment. Fritz lifted Adam to carry him inside, and Jo lifted Daniel. As she carried the little boy inside, she buried her nose in his hair, catching a whiff of the fresh scent, as she'd done so many times before with Paul and Freddy. When they reached the bedroom, Fritz lay Adam in his twin bed while Jo lay Daniel in his. Then the adults stood there a moment, watching the children sleep.

"You truly care for the boys," Fritz remarked as they left the bedroom and continued down the hall toward the kitchen.

"Of course I do," Jo replied. "Why shouldn't I?"

Fritz fetched a couple of drinks from the refrigerator, handed one to Jo, and they moved into the living room and sat on the sofa together.

"It seems more than just as a friend," he said thoughtfully. "When I saw you with Daniel just now, I felt like I was watching a mother with her son."

Jo felt her heart begin to pound in her chest. Did he sense something was amiss?

She looked up into his penetrating gaze.

"Good practice for when I have my own kids, I guess." She gave a shaky laugh.

He didn't smile.

She returned home to find Beth sitting on the sofa, in a daze.

"How was your trip?" she asked her sister, sitting beside her. Mrs. March was working in the kitchen, outside hearing range.

"Oh, Jo, it was magic!" Beth gushed. "The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Jonas spread out the quilt he'd brought, and we rubbed suntan lotion all over each other. That was so nice, the sensation of his hands on my back, rubbing the lotion in. Have you ever had a guy rub suntan lotion on your back at the beach?"

"Just Teddy, the few times I went to the beach with him."

"Wasn't that awesome?"

"It was nice." Jo was thinking, not of Teddy's ministrations, but of Dieter's caresses. Dieter, my love, where are you now? Are you still alive?

If so, he'd be more than a hundred years old, but she couldn't bear to think otherwise.

"We lay there for a couple of hours, just soaking up the sun. Then Jonas was afraid I might get sunburned, so we sat in the shade, talking. He told me all these funny stories about his brothers and sisters. It must be so interesting, growing up in a big family!"

"I'd imagine so," Jo mused.

Beth sighed.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Amy had lived. Do you?"

"I've thought about it a few times."

"I talked to him about that, too. I feel like I can talk about anything with him!" Beth giggled. "Have you ever been in love before, Jo?"

"Um...no." Not as myself, as Jo.

"Well, I think I might be falling in love with Jonas. I've never felt this way about a boy before. It's all so new and exciting!"

Beth's eyes were aglow. Never before had Jo seen her so...alive.

"Has he said anything about it to you?" Jo asked.

"He told me I was very special and that he's never before felt for a girl the way he feels for me."

Jo felt her heart begin to pound again.

"How far have you gone with him, Bethy?"

Beth frowned.

"Why, just to New Hampshire."

Jo sighed. Beth was so innocent!

"No, I mean, how much more have you done with him besides just kissing?"

Beth's face blushed a deep scarlet.

"Th-that's all," she stammered. "Just kissing."

Jo felt bad that she'd made her sister so uncomfortable.

"You be careful, Beth. I'm not saying stop seeing him. Just be very careful."

Beth nodded, clearly not completely understanding.

Jo didn't get much sleep that night. She was deeply concerned about her sister. It was obvious that Beth cared deeply for Jonas, but how did he feel about her? It would be so easy for him to take advantage of Beth. Jo knew Jonas was no cad, but did he like Beth for herself, or did he see her merely as a way of hanging onto his lost twin?

And what of Fritz? Did he now think her unbalanced or obsessed or, worst of all, did she fear she may be a danger to his nephews?

She didn't hear from him for several days, and when she did, he sounded upbeat and happy.

She knew she'd never forget the day they started construction of the wall. The sun beat down on her head as she and a couple of friends struggled to finish their ice cream before it melted, watching as the barbed wire was stretched across.

Freddy wasn't with them. He'd reached an age where he no longer wanted to associate with his younger sister in public.

Later, she asked him why there had to be a wall. He was hanging by his knees from the lowest branch of the tree in the back yard. She was sitting on the ground underneath him, eating an apple.

"It's to keep the people in the east from going over to the west," he told her, smug in his superior knowledge. "The Communists are tired of people escaping to the west for more freedom and better jobs, so they're building a wall so they can't anymore."

Summer was waning; the new school year would start soon, just as she was on the brink of leaving childhood behind. In just a few short years, her body would change and become that of a woman.

"But we know some people in the east!" she cried. "Does this mean we'll never see them again?"

"That's right." He swung his body up so that he was sitting on the branch. Papa constantly worried he'd break his neck someday.

She shuddered as a sudden chill went through her.