It is a glorious Friday in early October, the leaves golden on the trees, the sky a crisp, bright blue. John is closing his ledger, straightening his desk, about to call it a day so he can get home in time for a quick supper and then head out to see Harry’s football game. Harry is just a sophomore, but he’s already receiving for the varsity team, and tonight is their second home game of the season. It does John good to watch his son out there on the field, watching the fluid motion of his arms, legs, the determined square of his chin. John secretly thinks that Harry embodies the best qualities of his older brothers: Jack’s dogged determination, Chase’s ease and grace. But he would never tell Harry as much, and keeps pushing him for more more more.

Just two weeks before, they had received a letter from Jack that said, I hope you get this letter from me before you get the telegram from the War Dept. I was wounded at St Mihiel, but don’t worry a bit, it was only a slight wound (in my arm, and I didn’t lose my arm) and I’ll be right as rain in no time. I’m at the hospital now near Paris but expect to rejoin my Regiment in a matter of days. Don’t worry a bit about me.

“Oh, how could they send him back to the front when he’s been wounded?” Wilma had said, pressing her knuckles to her mouth. But, overall, she’d taken it better than John had expected. Everyone at church had heard, of course, and that Sunday a line formed at the Mickelsons’ pew, each person consoling and encouraging, telling John and Wilma how proud they were of the boys. Wilma had shaken hands, accepted kisses on the cheek, hugs, pats on the shoulder. “If there’s anything we can do, Wilma—just ask!” the women had said earnestly. John had been proud of the way his wife met their eyes, the very picture of the sad, brave mother.

It was, in truth, a load off their minds to know that Jack was safely in the hospital for a time, away from the front. He’d been in danger all summer. John had nearly laughed with glee, reading that the wound had been a minor one. “What luck, what luck!” he’d exclaimed, waltzing Wilma around the kitchen, until she, too, miraculously, laughed.

“Perhaps that’s the worst that will happen to him!” he had told Florence, who gave him a sad smile.

“I do hope so,” she’d said, softly.