THE NEXT TIME he was at the Moriyamas’ home, helping to mend the fence that ran along the western border, Amarjeet told Harry’s father what had happened at the American Legion meeting. They were nailing together wooden boards, hoisting fence posts into ditches they had dug the day before. He could not talk about it at home, where his uncle might, with a glance or a word, remind him that he had warned Amarjeet this would happen.

Mr. Moriyama was kneeling in the dirt, pushing hard against the wood, making the slats fit into the fence post. Sweat dropped from his forehead into his eyes. He was pushing harder than he had to but remained quiet during Amarjeet’s telling. Amarjeet thought he had not heard him. Suddenly Mr. Moriyama sat back on his haunches. “You did right thing and leave,” he said. “Keep your self-respect. You did right thing not go to restaurant and wait.”

Amarjeet felt the comment like a slap on the face, though Mr. Moriyama had meant to be kind. “Yes,” he said without conviction. Because he hadn’t told Mr. Moriyama what happened after. He had gone to the restaurant. He had to know, for this once and for all time, whether he could trust those fellas or not.

Sam and the others never came. Amarjeet sat by himself for an hour, watching the door, like a dog waiting for his master. That’s what humiliated him most.

AMARJEET BEGAN TO VISIT the Moriyamas regularly, helping them with chores that Harry would have done. Harry’s sisters returned to their husbands, believing their parents to be settled in their grief, and the Moriyamas were glad to have Amarjeet’s company. He helped build an addition to the barn. He helped Mr. Moriyama frame Harry’s Distinguished Service Cross and hang it in the parlor. Mrs. Moriyama fed him Harry’s favorite food. Perhaps they knew how much he had loved their son. It was a relief to be in this bubble, protected from the world by the density of their conjoined grief.

He no longer wanted to leave the farm as he once had. When the Valley gathered for the Armistice Parade, he did not march, he did not even watch from the sidelines. That part of him was in the past. The future rose up before him as a whiteness, as a blankness through which he could not see. What Amarjeet wanted he could not name. He thought he desired to belong to something bigger than himself, to have good work that was not farming, to have children, to love someone again, to not always protect himself from something he could not name.