Sloan was caught up on everything that afternoon, so he went over to the cemetery and pulled the weeds that had popped up around his grandparents’ graves after the rain. When he finished, he sat down on the weathered bench he’d moved from the front porch of his house and stared at their tombstone. ERNEST DALE BAKER, JULY 4, 1933–OCTOBER 31, 1999. MARTHA JANE BAKER, AUGUST 1, 1935–APRIL 1, 2018.

He’d only been two years old when his grandpa died, so he didn’t remember much about him. According to the pictures that were still scattered about the house, Ernest had been a tall, lanky man with a thin face who wore a smile all the time. Sloan glanced over to the tombstone on the other side of his grandparents, where his parents had been laid to rest. Richard and Sarah were their names, and he remembered them, but what came to mind more than their physical appearance was the love and happiness they shared when they would come home from a trip and scoop him up in their arms and hug him.

Tinker jumped up on the bench beside him and laid his head in Sloan’s lap.

“Thank you for not peeing on the spot set aside for me,” Sloan said as he scratched the dog’s ears. “It’s nice to sit here and let the good memories wash over me. That’s something Ginger can never do. She probably doesn’t know where her father is buried or her mother either, or even where her baby’s father has been put in the ground. She can’t even go sit and have good thoughts like I can.”

He thought of his teammates who’d been killed that horrible day. Their families had probably had memorial services, but there hadn’t been much to ship home after the bomb exploded. Maybe they at least had gravesites where their loved ones could go visit them. Someday maybe he’d look them up on the internet and see if he could find the places where they’d been laid. He should visit the places and apologize to each of them. That might bring him closure.

Tinker yipped once, but Sloan figured he was telling a squirrel or a rabbit to get out of his sight. Then a movement to his left took his attention away from the dog and his own thoughts, and there was Ginger not six feet away, walking right toward him.

“Hey, mind if I join you?” Ginger asked.

He picked up the dog and held him in his lap. “Have a seat.”

“Your folks?” she asked.

“Yep.” He nodded.

“Must be nice.”

“It is,” he said. “I was just thinkin’ about you.”

“Really?” she asked. “What about me?”

“When I come here, I think about the good times I had with my parents and my grandparents. You don’t get to do that, so I should be thankful that I can,” he explained.

“I intend to make those kinds of memories you’re talkin’ about with my daughter,” she said.

“So it’s a girl for sure?” he asked.

She pulled something from her pocket and handed it to him. “There’s my baby. She’s due earlier than I thought. The doctor says May 22. I told the sisters that I’d stay at the Banty House until after she’s born.”

Another one of the chains around Sloan’s heart loosened up a notch or two. “It’s great that you are staying. The sisters have gotten attached to you in a big way. Looks like a big baby to me.” He handed the pictures back to her. “I’ve seen a couple of those in the military from the guys who had pregnant wives. I can tell that’s a baby. Some of the ones they showed me looked more like goldfish or sea monkeys. Are you happy that you’re having a daughter?”

“Very,” Ginger said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a boy, and besides, I kind of feel like a boy needs a father even worse than a girl does. Role model and all that.”

“All children do better with both parents, but lots of kids only get one these days. I only had my granny from the time I was seven years old, and she did a good job of being mama, daddy, and granny to me,” Sloan said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Ginger said, “I should be starting back.”

“Why don’t you come on in the house with me and Tinker? I’ve got iced tea already made up,” he offered.

“I’d love to.” She took another look at the picture and put it back in her pocket. “Kate bought an album to put my pictures in, but I wasn’t ready to let go of this one just yet.”

“I can understand that. If I was going to be a father, I’d probably be the same way with the pictures.” He offered her his arm. “The ground is pretty uneven and there’s mud puddles.”

She looped her arm in his. He shortened his stride and slowed his pace to match hers. When they reached his porch, she removed her arm and held on to the banister. “Your yard and home look like something straight out of a magazine,” she said. “A pretty little white house with a picket fence, flowers beds everywhere, and even a porch swing. It’s so beautiful that it doesn’t look real.”

“Thank you.” He felt like a king sitting on a golden throne at her words. “Granny liked for the place to look nice, and I’ve kept it up in her memory.” He opened the door and stood to the side. “Welcome to the Baker house. It’s not as big or fancy as the Banty House, but it’s comfortable.”

“It’s so cozy,” she said, looking around. “You must be related to Connie. She can scare dust right out the door.”

“Granny’s training and then the military added more training on top of that.” He grinned. “I’ll pour us a glass of tea. Sit anywhere and make yourself at home.”

Ginger stood in front of the sofa for several minutes, staring at all the pictures arranged on the wall behind it. “I can’t imagine having relatives like this. Is this your granny and grandpa in the middle?”

“That was taken on the day they got married. She was eighteen and he was nineteen.” Sloan filled two glasses with ice and then poured sweet tea into them. “He was in the army and got deployed right after they married. They didn’t have my dad until a couple of years after he got home. The one on your right is my dad when he graduated from high school. On your left is my mama. They dated from the time they were fourteen, and married about a year after they graduated. All the rest are pictures of me as I grew up.” He carried the tea to the living room and set both glasses on the coffee table. “That one right there”—he pointed—“is when I won grand champion on my steer at the state fair, and that one is my army picture when I graduated from basic training.”

“What’d you do in the army?” She eased down onto the sofa and picked up her glass of tea.

“I was sent to school and trained to defuse bombs.” His mouth went dry when he uttered the words.

“Do you ever get called on to do that now?” she asked. “It sounds pretty dangerous.”

“No. I’ve been declared a washup.” He drank down half of his tea. “There was a big problem in Kuwait, and . . .” The words trailed off as he stared into space.

Had she pressured him to go on, he might have dug his heels in and clammed up, but she just looked into his eyes and waited, giving him time to collect his thoughts. “We weren’t supposed to have liquor or even real beer over there. The country was primarily Muslim and they don’t allow liquor or beer, and when Granny sent jerky to me, it couldn’t be pork. We had to go through classes before we went to be sure we didn’t cause an international incident,” he finally said. “But sometimes the guys would get it in a care package disguised as mouthwash. Put it in a Listerine bottle and no one even thinks to open it and check. Or they could put a few drops of blue food coloring in a bottle of vodka and it’ll pass as Scope.”

“So y’all got drunk when you weren’t on duty?” she asked.

He shrugged, not sure if he wanted to go on but wanting to get it off his chest. The therapist had wanted him to talk about it, but he’d just sat through those sessions with the guilt lying heavy on his shoulders—not saying a single word.

“Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it, then tell me a story about your granny instead.” Ginger laid a hand on his bare arm.

Her touch gave him the courage to go on. “I was the only one who got drunk that night. The rest of the guys weren’t drinking. I’d just gotten a phone call from my granny telling me that my dog, a big old red-boned hound that she got for me when my folks were killed, had gotten hit on the road and killed. I’d had him since I was seven years old. Granny thought that it might help me when my folks died to have a puppy.”

“I’m sorry.” Ginger gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I can’t imagine having a pet and then losing it. But you still had Tinker, right?”

“Tinker showed up after I graduated from high school and left home,” he said. “He was an old dog when he arrived on Granny’s porch step, and she took him in. He’s been a lot of company to me since she passed away.”