The men scrambled to their feet, and indeed, it was better than getting a bicycle at Christmas because it had taken months for the mail to catch up with them. A crowd formed around the unfortunate soldier who’d made the announcement and who carried the letters in a canvas bag slung over his shoulders like Santa’s sack.

“Lipton. Taylor. Guth. Malarky. Powell. Guarnere. Muck. Martin. Talbert.” The soldier read off names as he pulled envelopes from the bag. Tom’s heart leapt when he heard his name, wondering if it was from Margaret. And then he remembered that Margaret would have written to William. Not to him. However, four letters written by his mother had arrived, and he looked forward to reading them when he returned to his bunk.

“What the hell do we do with these?” Tom half heard the soldier’s question, but he turned. The man was holding out some letters to him. “You were William’s best friend, weren’t you? Do you want these?”

Letters. Letters for William. They had to be from Margaret. Because his family would have been informed that he’d died.

“I’ll take them,” he said with nonchalance, even though all he wanted to do was look down at the handwriting.

He returned to his bunk and set the ones from his mother down.

Yes—yes! The others were from Margaret. There were only three of them, but he saw her handwriting and he held them to his chest, bending over at the joy of holding a piece of her once again. Not hearing from her had been like a drought. He wanted to rip into them, but that wasn’t how he would have treated her, and it wasn’t how he would treat her letters. She deserved delicacy, and he was careful to open them by slipping his knife through the seal.

He put them in order of their dates.

Dearest William,

Gladys and Oliver

Sweet baby Joanna

Dottie and George bought a house…

The welding foreman is an angry little man.

A hurricane. The first one I’ve experienced.

Dottie used her house to shelter people who’d lost theirs.

A fire. Saved a woman’s life.

They were full of the tidbits of her life in Brooklyn and at the Navy Yard and he rushed through them because he knew he’d have the time to savor them later, as they’d all been given passes for the day. He had thought about going to Reims, but he didn’t need to go meet French girls when he had the only one he wanted here.

But there was something about the letters that pierced him sharper than a bayonet.

Winters had hinted that Tom might be up for yet another promotion—sergeant. Three stripes. More responsibility. He was earning promotions faster than any other man in his family had, as far as he knew.