August 1944 - France. An American plane crashes near the small village of Verdeil in Burgundy. Nearly 70 years later a journalist, Helene Marchal, hears of the event. But there is more to it: she finds a copy of a letter her grandfather wrote to the parents of the pilot who lost his life. She comes to understand that the house she has just inherited would have been destroyed had the aviator not sacrificed his life, by deciding to steer the plane away from the house. Her mother was four years old at the time, and was at home. If first lieutenant John Philip Garreau had bailed out with his...