"Mom, can I go with John to the department store?" Beverly asked, holding up a blouse on a hanger. "I want to exchange this blouse before our trip tomorrow."

She stood in the doorway of the girls' bedroom in their 900-square-foot house in Mishawaka, Indiana. The seven-member Gilvin family was getting ready to head "down home to Kentucky," as they put it, to visit relatives on Aunt Beulah's farm.

"Oh, Bevie, don't do that now," Bev's mom, Betty, said. "We're getting everything ready. You don't need a new blouse anyway."

"But I don't want to wear this white one down at the farm," Bev said with a level of concern only a ninth-grade girl could attach to her wardrobe. Little sisters Connie and Gail, twelve and ten years old, respectively, listened from the door-way. "She just wants to go driving with that boy," Connie whispered. Gail nodded.

"Well, you've got plenty of clothes," their mother said.

"Can't I trade this for something new?" Bev pressed. "It's our vacation. I want to wear the right thing."

The day had been full of rushing around. Betty had packed for all five daughters, of whom Bev was second oldest. Darkness had fallen over the leafy northern Indiana city, and suitcases lined the walls of the tiny home, ready to be shoe-horned into the wood-paneled family station wagon for the next day's journey. From the living room, sounds of voices on television drifted in as their father, Russell, finally got off his feet for a bit.

"Are you all packed up?" Betty asked.

"I think so. Yes." Bev could sense a weakening in her mother's resistance.

"Then go ask Daddy."

Bev's eyes gleamed. She paused before walking toward the living room, gathering her thoughts, her eyes reflecting the words she was about to say.

Everyone knew Bev was clever and highly intelligent and not a schemer. Her sisters considered her the kindest and most playful sister. Her giggle was infectious and smart, not silly. It emanated from a warm heart that loved to laugh. She spent a lot of time with her younger sisters — playing make-believe school in the basement and volleyball in the park, and roller-skating and bike riding on the sidewalks around their house.

Measured in birthday invitations, Bev was the most popular outside the home as well. On Valentine's Day a month earlier, she had received fl owers from a number of boys at school. Few were brave enough to come calling to the house, but Bev's sisters knew she was the focus of special attention from boys.

Bev was at the head of her class academically as well, her report card a tribute to the first letter of the alphabet. When not socializing or playing, she sat in the house and read dense books with no pictures in them and sometimes Latin primers. She had recently won the highest honor given in eighth grade, the Daughters of the American Revolution award, for being the student with the best academic performance, best citizenship, and most well-rounded personality. The family had gathered at the school to watch the presentation, her sisters giddy with excitement, Russell and Betty taking lots of pictures. Nobody in the family had received such an award before, but it seemed obvious that it would go to Bev.

Bev also served as crossing guard at the school, a conspicuous honor given to only the most responsible students. Every day, she left class early, put on her patrol belt, and helped children safely cross the street after school. It made her proud that she had been entrusted with the lives of her younger schoolmates.

Tonight, Bev's well-known tenacity was on display. Her sisters were right. She was indeed hoping to spend a few moments with John Thornton before heading to Kentucky for spring break. She barely knew him — he was seventeen and a senior in high school, and she was fourteen. John had asked her to a dance, prodded by his best friend, Chuck, who was dating Bev's older sister, Sue. Bev's parents agreed she could go to the dance, and John began dropping by the house to get to know her. In truth, Chuck had pressured him into it.

"You can't ask a girl to a dance and then ignore her for two months," Chuck scolded John. That made sense to John. If he didn't get to know Bev, what would they talk about at the dance?

Normally, the Gilvin and Thornton families would never have associated. They shared no friends, no church, no clubs, and little cultural background. The Gilvins were transplanted Southerners. Russell had moved the family from Kentucky to Indiana after World War II in search of a better job and now drove a truck for one of the factories that had sprung up in the Midwest after the war. The Gilvins' modest home, with a simple porch out back and a tiny awning over the front door, could barely contain their growing family. Four girls shared one bedroom. Three-year-old April slept in her parents' room. If someone sneezed at night, everyone said, "Bless you."

The Thorntons resided on the opposite side of town — and on the opposite side of the social spectrum. Their two-story home faced the St. Joseph River on a new, well-to-do street in Mishawaka. John's dad was a proud Notre Dame graduate, a politician and businessman who partnered with the Chicago mafia and ran an illegal casino behind a false wall in Mishawaka's most upscale restaurant, the Lincoln Highway Inn. When his political party was in office, he wielded great power locally, running the license bureau. Political cartoons of him appeared in the local newspaper's opinion pages, and reporters knew better than to dig too deeply into his affairs. The Thorntons were big fish in a small pond and often made the ninety-minute trip to socialize with Chicago's elite. Mrs. Thornton kept weekly appointments at the bridge club and beauty parlor. Their calendar was full and so was their bank account.

When John turned sixteen, his father took him to the auto dealership on Highway 31 in nearby Niles, Michigan.

"Pick out a car," he said, waving his hand toward the lot.

John, newly licensed, chose a sporty, cream-colored '62 Corvair, and his father purchased it outright.

Russell and Betty naturally had not allowed Bev and John to go out alone, protective as they were of their daughters. Russell was gentle and gregarious, a natural salesman and an easy friend, but he was not so friendly to teenage boys interested in taking his daughters around town without supervision. John and Bev had already failed to get his permission to go for ice cream without Chuck and Sue. In John's first visit to the Gilvin house, Russell had seemed standoffish, powerful, and mysterious. It didn't hurt that he had the muscles of a dock worker from driving heavy trucks before the advent of power steering. John got the distinct impression that if he caught him crossways, Russell might chase him around the side of the house with a baseball bat or maybe one of those Kentucky long-barrel shotguns.

Still, John had been courageous enough to call on Bev again, and even with limited interactions, puppy love was blooming between them like the dogwood trees along the boulevard. Now, on the night before the family's spring break trip, Bev approached her father in the living room, heart more hopeful than when she began. Blue television light radiated against the drapes and against his hands, resting on the arms of his chair.

"Daddy?" Bev said. She never faked sincerity. Even when asking with a purpose,...