I dropped to all fours behind the table, but by the time I landed, the gunfire had already stopped. I heard people running and screaming, a cacophony of panic all around me.

Maxwell yelled, “Hold your fire, you fucking moron!”

I saw my purse beside me, a huge leather bag, its wide mouth gaping open. I had to get to Trey. And yet my purse mattered. It mattered because I had daughters. Trey had daughters. Why these two thoughts came together, I had no idea, but my wise hand understood. My hand reached out, and then Coral’s white envelope was in it. I saw Kelly’s name and her address in Gadsden written in Coral’s crabbed, dark hand. The envelope felt thick with photos. My wise hand folded it away into my bag.

Then I crawled toward my husband.

To my left a chalk-faced citizen had pulled his own gun out of his jacket and was swiveling it from Kelly Wilkerson’s body to our ex-soldiers, its wobbling black gaze passing over Trey, then me as he turned.

“Holster your goddamn gun before I put you down!” Maxwell yelled, Mills chiming in, “We’re security! It’s safe now!”

I crawled to Trey. Leaned over him. His eyes were wide, still meeting mine. His mouth jerked open, sucking at the air. Just past him Kelly Wilkerson lay in a twisted heap of crimson, the blood still spreading, staining more and more of her white dress. Her eyes met mine as well, no longer holding anger. No longer holding anything.

“Trey,” I said.

“I’m cold,” he told me. He choked, and red blood, the first of his I’d seen, came trickling out the corner of his mouth.

I grasped his shoulders, leaned down close, my hair tumbling around his face. His breath pulled in and out, raspy and desperate. Should I turn him over? I could put my hands over the holes, try to keep the wet, red life from pumping out of him. But his hands clutched feebly at my arms.

“Bree?” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby. It’s okay. I’m here with you. I’m with you, do you understand?” I said, and God, I meant it. I leaned down to kiss his dear, dear face. “Hold on.”

His grasp failed. His fingers fell away. He said, “I’m so, so sorry.”

“We’ll work it out. I love you,” I said. Again I meant it. Both of these things were true. Then I told him, “You’re going to be all right.”

Even as I said the words, I knew. I knew I was a liar.

27

Bree only talked about it once.

Not Trey. Marshall and Bree talked about Trey all the time, keeping his memory alive for his children, same way they both told Betsy stories for Cara.