The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Fire Away

LEO FENDER COULDN’T CRY.

He tried. He stepped on his own foot, grinding the heel of one polished loafer into the toe of the other, wincing at the pain, but wincing wasn’t the same as crying, and even if it was, they would still be the wrong kind of tears. Physical pain wasn’t anything like what he was feeling now.

This was so much worse.

It didn’t make sense. He’d cried a hundred times since that day. He’d cried himself to sleep almost every night. He teared up at the most random times: clearing the plates at dinner, putting his clean socks back in the dresser, watering the daylilies—the ones they’d planted together—along the front porch. But now, when it was called for, when everyone was surely expecting him to, he couldn’t, and it made him angry at himself.

Gareth was crying. His brother’s eyes had been swollen for hours, a slow but steady procession like the drip of a melting icicle, earning him no end of sympathetic pats and pouting frowns, not to mention a piece of chocolate from their neighbor Mrs. Tinsley, who insisted it would make him feel better. Not that Leo wanted anyone’s sympathy or their chocolate. He just couldn’t stomach the thought that someone else was hurting worse than him—or that he wasn’t hurting enough. Cousins and nieces and colleagues and friends were all shedding tears. The tissue box sitting by the guest book was nearly empty. Even the sky itself was in mourning, the rain battering the stained glass windows. But Leo, dressed in his scratchy suit and clip-on tie, couldn’t summon a drop. He dug his nails into his arm until they nearly broke skin. Nothing.

Even staring at the picture of her that had been placed on the altar didn’t prompt the tears to come. The photo, taken the year before while they were on vacation, long hair and a wistful smile, her searching gold eyes staring across the Grand Canyon, which she was seeing for the first time. The picture, enlarged and placed on a stand, took the place of a coffin or an urn. Grace Fender had been too close to ground zero when the missile struck, practically vaporizing everything nearby. No physical remains—just a million reminders.

Leo fiddled with his watch, tempted to press the button that would summon her. That would play the video of her sitting on the porch, bringing her back to him, if only for a moment. He longed to hear her voice. I see you there, my little lion.

“How are you holding up?”

Leo glanced up to see his father standing in front of him, dressed in an almost identical suit to Leo’s, save for the fact that his tie required a knot. His father owned a million ties. A new one every Christmas, mostly from the kids because they didn’t know what else to get him. Leo shrugged. “People keep asking me that,” he said.