“This was all farmland,” he told her as he turned onto a winding road with homes spaced wide enough for some decent elbow room, for sloping lawns, shady trees.

“It must’ve been beautiful. All fields and rolling hills.”

“People have to live somewhere. And they didn’t crowd them in, so that’s something. We got some work out here during the boom. People adding on, remodeling.”

She leaned forward. “Is that—”

“Yeah, the old Ryder farmhouse. The developer was smart enough not to tear it down, to put some money into it—and I bet he got plenty out of it.”

“It’s beautiful, the stonework, the gingerbread. And it’s big. Pretty gardens and trees. They must’ve added on that solarium, but it’s well done. It’s a nice spot.” She looked at him as they drove past, turned again. “Have you ever been inside?”

“We did some work in it about three years ago. Updated the kitchen, two baths, added on a bonus room over the garage. And that sunroom you liked.”

“How did it feel?”

“At the time? Like a job. A good one. Now?” He shrugged. “I guess I get what Mom was talking about. Maybe we should’ve paid more attention to this part of us, had more respect for it. My grandfather pretty much hated the farm, and it was clear he didn’t get along with his old man, so I never thought much of it.”

He turned yet again, onto a narrow gravel lane.

“Is this private property?”

“Maybe. Might be Park Service. We’ll deal with it if we have to.”

“They fought here? North and South, boys and men.”

“All over hell and back,” Ryder confirmed. “See there?”

She saw the little pond he’d spoken of, its water dark and deep in the lowering light. Cattails crowded around it with their brown velvet heads, and ferns green with summer formed a verdant carpet.

Beyond it, before the trees thickened, stood a low stone wall. The sort, she thought, Billy Ryder might have built. Headstones tilted in its center. Hope counted sixteen—small markers, pocked by time and weather, some tipped in the rough ground.

“It looks lonely. Sad and lonely.”

“I don’t think dead’s a party.”

He parked, got out with the dog scrambling behind him. When Hope simply sat, he walked around, opened her door as the rest of the family convoy pulled up.

“He’s here or he’s not. Either way, we are.”

She nodded, stepped out beside him.

It felt less lonely with people, with voices. With boys running and dogs sniffing. Still, she felt unsteady enough to reach for Ryder’s hand, to be grateful when he linked his fingers with hers.

More than sixteen, she realized as they approached. Some of the markers were hardly more than a stone set flush with the ground.