As the days of the leave turned over and fell away, Kennet tried to show his face in all the Clayton establishments that had been part of his life. Both to say goodbye aloud, and ask silently to be remembered.

If I don’t come back, remember I was here.

The bait and tackle, the drugstore, the post office, the library. A special trip to the five-and-ten where he’d always bought penny candy from Mrs. Vetter, who’d been his beloved first grade teacher until she got married. You couldn’t throw a stone in Clayton without hitting a fellow whose first crush was on Elizabeth Vetter. Close friends called her “Peach,” and she was high on Major Fiskare’s list of swell dames. Her late husband was a good egg who knew his onions, too.

“Brian Vetter couldn’t do better,” Major always said. After D-Day, he added with a sigh of genuine sadness, “Until he did worse.”

“You be careful,” Mrs. Vetter said, handing over a bag of assorted sweets and reaching to squeeze Kennet’s free fingers.

“Yes, ma’am, I will. You keep an eye on my folks, please?”

She nodded and gave one last pump of their clenched hands. “Goodbye, Kennet.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Vetter.”

Now she put her hand on her hip and tilted her chin. “Call me Peach.”

Pleased from eyebrows to toenails, Kennet grinned back at her. “Goodbye, Peach.”

Kennet went to the cemetery and put holly on the graves of Björn, Beatrice and Ingrid. At mealtimes, he and Minor and Nalle asked Emil for tales they’d heard a thousand times before. They listened as if recording every word for posterity. When the family gathered in front of the fire, Kennet took down the old book of Swedish folk tales and read out loud.

He walked along the river and took mental photographs of his favorite views. Memorizing the light. Preserving how the sun hit the frozen parts of the water and turned them to bars of solid gold. He tried not to put Astrid in each and every picture. But it was hard not to. She was everywhere. And right now, he was feeling everything. Beneath the river’s icy surface, the normally mischievous Fossegrim was playing the most plaintive of laments on his fiddle, making Kennet’s heart hurt and his teeth ache.

He let her memory slide arms around him from behind and bury its face in his neck. He let himself remember. He let himself feel. Soon, he knew, this depth of emotion would be a luxury. And a liability. It was a childish thing he’d need to put away, for it had no place in combat. But for now, alone on the riverbank, he let it fill him with all its terrible beauty.

I’ve had a good life.

I’ve had a life full of gold and light and terrible beauty.

It’s just a little life, but it’s mine.