“The psychiatrist who discharged me told me it was normal that I’d put on so much weight. Sixty pounds in eight weeks,” he said, his voice low. “He said it was normal that my brain would be damaged from the shock but that would get better. But some days now, I’m so confused, I can’t even follow basic instructions. I can’t remember anything new. I have to write everything down. I can’t even add two and two. So no, sis. I don’t think it was worth it.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“The hatred that drove those Germans wasn’t some tidy thing you can put a period after and move on from. I saw the inside of one camp. Just one out of nearly a thousand of those hellholes, and even five years later my mind is so scarred there’s some moments I don’t even know what continent I’m on. I let those doctors give me brain damage, Lizzie—just in the hopes that I’d feel myself again. And those hospitals are full of veterans just like me, all of us so—” he pointed to his head, shaking his fists beside his head with palpable, painful frustration “—so shaken by what we saw that we might never be the same.”

Henry slid off his chair and stretched to his full height, cracking his neck in the process. He glanced down at me, his expression dark.

“You need to understand that these men on Sauerkraut Hill aren’t harmless. No one is safe while they’re in this country. Not you, not Calvin, not anyone else in this town.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, though,” I whispered. “The government wants them here.”

“I can’t control that and neither can you. But those people are the kind of evil you can’t even begin to comprehend. You can’t take stupid risks like leave the back door open. The devil himself is living two blocks away.”

He stared at me until I nodded. Then he forced a smile and took a step toward the house.

“I guess I’m finally tired enough for bed. Good night, sis.”

“Good night, Henry,” I said, and as he started to walk away, I blurted, “I love you.”

He threw a glance over his shoulder as he muttered, “Love you too.”

I’d held back my tears while Henry told me his story, but now that I was alone, I let myself cry. It wasn’t just the details Henry shared about the camps; it was the thought of him in those hospitals all alone with his pain, too ashamed to even admit how much he was hurting.