The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer

to Congressman Osborne. He did not point out to her that despite the
war there wasn’t a woman sitting in the Senate, and there were only two women
in Congress.
    In November,
Florentyna wrote to her father to tell him something she imagined he hadn’t
heard. FDR had won a fourth term. She w&ted months for his reply.
    And then the
telegram came.
    Miss Tredgold
could not extract the missive before the child spotted the sinall buff
envelope. The governess immediately carried the telegram to Mrs. Rosnovski in
the drawing room with a trembling Florentyna following in her wake, holding on
to her skirt, with Eleanor a pace behind them.
    Zaphia tore the
envelope open with nervous fingers, read the contents, and burst into
hysterical tears. “No, no,” Florentyna cried, “it can’t be true, Marna. Tell me
he’s only missing,” and snatched the telegram from her speechless mother to
read the contents. It read: “DEMOB PAPERS ISSUED. HOME
SOONEST. LOVE ABEL.”
    Florentyna let
out a whoop of joy and jumped on the back of Miss Tredgold, who fell into a
chair that normally she would never have sat in. E’leanor, as if aware the
usual codes could be broken, also jumped on the chair and started licking both
of them while Zaphia burst out laughing.
    Miss Tredgold
could not convince Florentyna that soonest might turn out to take some time
since the army conducted a rigid system in deciding who should come home first,
awarding points to those who had served the longest or had been wounded in
battle. Florentyna remained optimistic, but the weeks passed slowly.
    One evening, when
she was returning home clutching yet another Brownie badge, this time for
lifesaving, she spotted a light shining through a small window that had not
been lit for over three yeiirs. She forgot her lifesaving achievement
immediately, ran all the way down the street, and had nearly beaten the door
down before Miss Tredgold came to answer it. She dashed upstairs to her
father’s study, where she found him deep in conversation with her mother. She
threw her arms around him and would not let go until finally he pushed her back
to take a careful look at his ten-year-old daughter.
    “You’re so much
more beautiful than your photographs.”
    “And you’re in
one piece, Papa.”
    “Yes, and I
won’t be going away again.”
    “Not without me,
you won’t,” said Florentyna, and clung on to him once more.
    For the next few
days, she pestered her father to tell her stories of the war. Had he met
General Eisenhower? No. General Patton’! Yes, for about ten minutes. General
Bradley? Yes. Had he seen any Germans? No, but on one occasion he had helped to
rescue wounded soldiers that had been ambushed by the enemy at Remagen.
    “And what
happened...?”
    “Enough,
enough, young lady. You’re worse than a staff sergeant on drill
parade.”
    Florentyna was
so excited by her father’s homecoming that she was an hour late for bed that
night and still didn’t sleep. Miss Tredgold reminded her how lucky she was that
her Papa had returned without injury or disfigurement, unlike so many fathers
of the children in her class.
    When Florentyna
heard that Edward Winchester’s father had lost an arm at somewhere called
Bastogne, she tried to tell him how sorry ihe was.
    Abel quickly
returned to the routine of his work. No one recognized him when he first strode
into the Chicago Baron: he had lost so much weight and looked so thin that the
duty manager asked him who he was. The first decision Abel had to make was to
order five new suits from Brooks Brothers because none of his pre-war clothes
fitted him.
    George Novak, as
far as Abel could deduce from the annual reports he had been through, had kept
the Group on an even keel in his absence, even if he had taken no great strides
forward. It was also from George that he learned that Henry Osborne ‘ had been re-elected to Congress for a fifth term. He asked
his secretary to call Washington.
    “Congratulations,
Henry. Consider