Across the table, Minor ate slowly and methodically, still learning how to manage fork and knife with his non-dominant hand. Johnny MacIntyre sat next to him, and Minor occasionally glanced in his direction as if dropping a cue. Johnny, who’d gone through life with a crippled arm, offered casual and discreet assistance with cutting meat or buttering bread, never breaking conversation or drawing attention. Keeping Minor’s pride intact.

Family isn’t blood. It’s who you bleed for.

Emil patted Kennet’s back. Trudy put her head on his shoulder. Little peppered him with questions, wanting anecdotes and first-hand accounts of battles. Kennet tried, but he was rapidly running out of gas.

“Hey, that’s enough for tonight, buddy,” Minor said to Little. “Kennet’s getting tired. Remember when I came home and couldn’t talk for long?”

“Sorry,” Little mumbled, his ears red.

“He’s just excited to have his brother back,” Emil said.

Kennet smiled. “For sure. We got lots of time, Little.”

Astrid excused herself and took Xandro upstairs for a bath. When she was gone, the light in the kitchen seemed dimmer. The hum of family chatter swelled and diminished in Kennet’s ears. He stared through his people, feeling neither bad nor good. He was just here.

He was home.

“You poor thing,” Marta said, taking his plate. “Go put your head down. Sleep the day away tomorrow. We won’t bother you.”

Kennet trudged upstairs, intent on bed, but the door to the attic stairs was tantalizingly ajar. He moved closer and heard splashing sounds. Astrid’s voice echoing off tile.

He went up. Time doubled back on itself and for a moment he was twelve, bringing towels to Marta. A boy who’d gone nowhere and done nothing yet. No pins for him in the big world map on the wall.

“Asta?” he called, emerging into the sloping space of the attic.

“In here.”

She sat on the bathroom floor, a forearm resting on the tub’s ledge, the other hand drawing circles in the soapy water. Xandro sat in a nest of rolled-up towels, chubby and slick, batting and splashing with both palms.

“Hello, you,” Astrid said.

“Hello, you.” Kennet slid his back down the wall and sat.

“Good to be home?”

“It’s all kinds of things.”

“Mm.” She put her cheek on her outstretched arm.

“How are you holding up?”

“Better now that I’m here.”

“Marta said you divorced your mother, so to speak.”

“I did. It was long overdue. It had never gotten any better between us.”

“Not even after you married Zé?”

“No. Nor when Xandro was born. If a grandchild didn’t make her happy, then what would? When Zé was killed, we found out his will included an annuity for Mother. Enough to keep her in comfort the rest of her life. And I left.”

“And here you are.”