Captain Vance would be proud of the way you’ve kept it.”

“David worked hard for every board in it,” I said.

I got my checkbook from the hall table and wrote him a check for eighteen hundred dollars.

Thomas took the check, tipped his hat, and started loading his paint cans and ladders back into the truck.

By one in the afternoon, Clara was fast asleep in her crib upstairs.

I went into the quiet living room carrying a small square transit case that had stayed locked in the basement safe since November.

I unlatched the case on the dining table and took out the framed photograph of David from three years ago at Fort Belvoir.