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year, Margaret came home one day with a young woman on her dogcart. This woman, another volunteer from the hospital, had fallen ill, and Margaret was determined to move her out of that place of men. Andrew did not approve, but his wife could not be stopped. The volunteer nurse got better, and as soon as she was able, urged by a calling deeper than Andrew had seen in a woman so young, returned to the place that had sickened her. He begged his wife not to follow, but she did. Soon after that, Margaret became ill. Given her age, her fever proved calamitous.
    Sadie looked down at the cold meat on her plate. It had all been such a pointless sacrifice. And for what? What god had taken the offering? It was not even likely the nurse had appreciated what her mother had given. Now her mother was dead. James was dead. Samuel, remembered by a loveless widow, had not fared much better. This war had destroyed families, and it was a shame, even for the imperfect ones like her own.
    â€œI need to see the hospital for myself,” she said.
    â€œThere is not much to see there now.”
    â€œI need to meet the nurse.”
    â€œShe is no longer in the city.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI looked for her.”
    â€œI need to go there.”
    â€œIt will not bring her back, Sadie.”
    She turned from him, her hair brushing the wall. Sweat rode the groove of her nose and met her upper lip.
    â€œVery well,” he said. “We will go together.”
    The two of them ventured out on the dogcart the next morning. Her father allowed a man on a mule to pass, and he raised a hand in gratitude. Two others climbed down from their horses to help a boy who’d fallen. Even though the war was over, the pall of tragedy remained. Women walked arm in arm, eyes cast down. An empty sleeve dangled at a man’s side. A waif begged for food. The town had awakened to an awareness of its mortality, and it moved with relief. But in her mind, the people of York needed a reminder of all that was wrong in the country. Their marked optimism struck her as false, a contrivance built up by minds eager to forget. Even her own mother. A casualty of war. These people could not see it. No rift this deep could heal. Sadie longed for simpler times, when her mother had rousted the embers of the fire to make bread and dusted the tools in the shop with a careful swipe of her rag, then woke up the next day to do the same thing all over again. This burgeoning web of sufferers, these people attempting to put their lives back together as quickly as they’d rebuilt the train station mystified her. She could barely see three feet ahead. Earlier that day, she’d tripped on a crack in the road, her shoe crushing a forgotten handkerchief.
    The halting cart jolted her and she shook her head as her father extended a hand to help her down. They strode onto the grounds of Penn Common, her father’s arm hooked through hers. Mother, help me to understand. Did you want to take them all with you? The corridors had recently been emptied and few patients remained, but Sadie imagined what her mother had seen: wasted faces like shriveled vegetables, thickets of beards, foul bedpans. She tried to understand the motivations of those women: cooking, washing, changing bandages as the men murmured gratitude through ruined faces. Her mother had rescued that sick nurse from a canyon of convalescents, an act for which she had given her life. A pain struck Sadie in her stomach. She needed to spit.
    â€œYour mother was a new person when she was here,” her father said, passing her a handkerchief.
    â€œI’ve had enough,” she told him.
    Her mother was buried on a rise of land behind the Presbyterian church. Sadie stood quietly in the soft dirt, not praying but remembering.
    For several nights, she could not sleep. To pluck out that ill nurse, save her, yet sacrifice her own life. Which was the greater need, one’s own or another’s? This