Wes laid a single flower on the polished wood and stood a moment with his hand on it, the way he’d seen soldiers do.

Ira and Abe followed.

Romy set down a card she had drawn that morning without telling me, folded crooked, a picture of a house with too many windows and a stick figure marked Grandpa Ames though she had never seen his face.

And Delphie, who was four and did not understand any of it, put down a dandelion she had picked from the edge of the drive because it was yellow and she had wanted to.

“Bye, Grandpa,” she said, to a man she had never met, who had loved her anyway.