Next to every veteran’s name, Arvid had drawn a crisp zero in the payment column.

On page forty-two, just under the entry from November three years earlier, I wrote the date in clear black ink.

November twenty-third, 2024.

Beneath the date, I printed three names across the clean blue lines.

Dale Miller.

First Cavalry Division.

Served in Desert Storm and Iraq.

Kurt Ostrowski.