Mary Ashley had been born in Junction City, as had her parents. The only member of her family who had known Europe was her grandfather, who had come from the small Romanian village of Voronet.
Mary had planned a trip abroad when she received her master’s degree, but that summer she met Edward Ashley, and the European trip turned into a three-day honeymoon at Waterville, fifty-five miles from Junction City, where Edward was taking care of a critical heart patient.
“We really must travel next year,” Mary said to Edward shortly after they were married. “I’m dying to see Rome and Paris and Romania.”
“So am I. It’s a date. Next summer.”
But that following summer Beth was born, and Edward was caught up in his work at the Geary Community Hospital. Two years later, Tim was born. Mary had gotten her Ph.D. and gone back to teaching at Kansas State University, and somehow the years had melted away. Except for brief trips to Chicago, Atlanta, and Denver, Mary had never been out of the state of Kansas.
One day, she promised herself. One day…
Mary gathered her notes together and glanced out the window. Frost had painted the window a winter gray, and it was beginning to snow again. She put on her lined leather coat and a red woolen scarf and headed toward the Vattier Street entrance, where she had parked her car.
The campus was huge, 315 acres dotted with eighty-seven buildings, including laboratories, theaters, and chapels, amid a rustic setting of trees and grass. From a distance, the brown limestone buildings of the university, with their turrets, re sembled ancient castles ready to repel enemy hordes. As Mary passed Denison Hall, a stranger with a Nikon camera was walking toward her. He aimed the camera at the building and pressed the shutter. Mary was in the foreground of the picture. I should have got out of his way, she thought. I’ve spoiled his picture.
One hour later, the photograph was on its way to Washington, D.C.
Every town has its own distinctive rhythm, a life pulse that springs from the people and the land. Junction City, in Geary County, is a farm community, population 20,381, 130 miles west of Kansas City, priding itself on being the geographical center of the continental United States. It has a newspaper—The Daily Union—a radio station, and a television station. The downtown shopping area consists of a series of scattered stores and gas stations along Sixth Street and on Washington. There is a J. C. Penney’s, the First National Bank, a Domino Pizza, Flower Jeweler’s, and a Woolworth’s. There are fast-food chains, a bus station, a menswear shop, and a liquor store—the type of establishments that are duplicated in hundreds of small towns across the United States. But the residents of Junction City love it for its bucolic peace and tranquillity. On weekdays, at least. Weekends, Junction City becomes the rest-and-recreation center for the soldiers at nearby Fort Riley.
Mary Ashley stopped to shop for dinner at Dillon’s Market on her way home and then headed north toward Old Milford Road, a lovely residential area overlooking a lake. Oak and elm trees lined the left side of the road, while on the right side were beautiful houses variously made of stone, brick, or wood.
The Ashleys lived in a two-story stone house set in the middle of gently rolling hills. It had been bought by Dr. Edward Ashley and his bride thirteen years earlier. It consisted of a large living room, dining room, library, breakfast room, and kitchen downstairs, and a master suite and two additional bedrooms upstairs.
“It’s awfully large for just two people,” Mary Ashley had protested.
Edward had taken her into his arms and held her close. “Who said it’s going to be for only two people?”
When Mary arrived home from the university, Tim and Beth were waiting to greet her.
“Guess what?” Tim said. “We’re going to have our pictures in the paper!”
“Help me put away the groceries,” Mary said. “What paper?”
“The man didn’t say, but he took our pictures and he said we’d hear from him.”
Mary stopped and turned to look at her son. “Did this man say why?”