“By afternoon, even though both sides brought in reinforcements, it was a goddamn slaughter. Somebody screwed up, ordered a part of the Confederate line to withdraw, and that gave the Union the gap they needed. He was part of that, of that advance once the Confederates were down to hundreds, and the Union had the high ground. You know how it was, Mom, fish in a barrel. They picked them off until bodies lay stacked up. He couldn’t do it. He shot, and he killed, thinking of his friend, of his duty. Then he couldn’t do it anymore. He thought of her, of his mother, his dead brother, of the blood and the waste, and he couldn’t do it. He just wanted it over. He wanted her and the life they could have. And when he lowered his weapon, he was shot.”

“He died there,” Hope murmured.

“He fell where he stood. He could see the sky. He thought of her, he kept thinking of her, and took out her picture again. That’s when he knew it was over for him. When he saw the blood, and he finally felt the pain. He thought about her right up to the end, and he thought he saw her, in his head, calling to him—sick, scared, and calling him. He said her name, and that was it.”

He looked down at the coffee in his hand, this time drank deeply. “Jesus.”

“He’s part of you.” Justine wrapped her arms around Ryder, held tight. “Of all of us. He needed someone to tell his story, someone to tell her. It breaks my heart.”

“Stop that.” But Ryder brushed a tear from his mother’s cheek. “It’s hard enough without everybody crying about it.”

“No more tears.” Eliza Ford stood beside Hope, and she smiled.

“Well, holy God.” With Tyrone in his arms, Willy B dropped heavily on the stool beside Clare. “Beg pardon.”

“You found him.”

Ryder wished to God she’d chosen someone else to latch those eyes on. “He’s buried a few miles outside of town, on part of what used to be his family farm. He’s buried with his brothers.”

“He loved his brothers, and when he learned of Joshua’s death, he began to talk of joining the fight. But no, not his grave. It isn’t his grave you found that matters.”

She laid her hand on her heart. “His spirit. He thought of me—thank you for finding that thought, that spirit. He thought of me and I of him as this part ended. I wanted a little stone house, and a family, and every day. But most of all, I wanted my Billy. I wanted his love, and to give him mine. I have it, and I feel it. So much time since I could feel it.”