Lodi's brother is on his second tour. People seem to be shooting at him less and less these days. This is not really as comforting as he thought it might be when he was praying that people would shoot at him less. He has learned to say hello, and he has learned to say thank you, and he has learned to say stop in Arabic. He spends a lot of time in armored vehicles that could do with more armoring. He has gotten over his motion sickness. When he is at work, his feet hurt.
     He talks to Lodi whenever he can, which is not often. He talks to his parents, too, but he seems to prefer talking to Lodi. "Lodi," he says, "I miss you."
     "You're the only one who calls me that," she says. "Why do you call me that?"
     There are a couple dozen other questions she has but she refuses to ask them.
     "Do you miss Nico?" he says.
     "Not in the least," she says. "Not even a little."
     He tells her that he was out on patrol one day and saw a little boy who had collected shell casings. The little boy held them in his palms and was looking at them. Lodi's brother knelt in front of the boy and looked, too.
     He made a gesture, like, may I? and the little boy made a gesture of agreement. He took the shell casings from the boy and set them up against the wall in a triangle, like a bowling alley, and he looked around for a small, round rock. When he found one, he walked a few paces from the wall and dug a line in the dirt with his boot. Then he did a little underhand toss that rolled the rock at the shell casings. A few fell over but not all of them. He walked back and set up the casings again, walked back to the line, and motioned for the boy to come over to him. Then he taught the boy to bowl. "I guess he was eight or nine. Hell, I don't know, though. Maybe 12. I can never tell."


     Lodi drops the flaming pack into the spill, and watches a blue flame appear, and cross the bar, and titter and stumble and wither and wave. Diana has turned away to look out the window. Her back is aflutter with light.

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