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attempt
any kind of conversation, so he kept looking at her. She seemed so sad.
    Why are you sad, I wonder?
    Since the war the whole world seemed to be full of women with
sad eyes. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he thought she was far too pretty
to be unmarried.
    “My name is Robert Markham,” he said after a moment because it
seemed the next most socially appropriate thing to do.
    “Yes,” she said, watching him closely, apparently looking for
some indication that she’d let him have too much to drink. “So I’m told. And
you’re sometimes called Robbie, I believe.”
    Robert frowned slightly. Incredibly, he thought she might be
teasing him ever so slightly, and he found it...pleasant.
    “Well, not...lately. How is it you know...who I am when I don’t
know you...at all?”
    “I went through your pockets,” she said matter-of-factly. “I
found the Confederate military card inside your Bible. But three ladies who live
here in the town actually identified you—Mrs. Kinnard, Mrs. Russell. And Mrs.
Justice, of course. She’s the one who calls you Robbie.”
    Robert drew a long breath in a feeble attempt to distance
himself from the pain, but it only made his head hurt worse. Mrs. Kinnard. He
certainly remembered that Mrs. Kinnard had identified him, and it was good that
she had been correct in her identification. Mrs. Kinnard, as he recalled, was
never wrong about anything. He nearly smiled at the thought that he might have
had to assume whatever name she’d given him because no one had the audacity to
contradict her. She would undoubtedly be the angry whisperer outside the door.
It was no wonder this young woman had felt such a pressing need to stay out of
sight.
    He looked around the room, certain now of where he was at
least, without having to be told.
    Home .
    In his own bed. It was so strange, and yet somehow not strange
at all. It was the noise in the household that was so alien to him. Men’s
voices—accented voices and the heavy tread of their boots. Barked military
orders and the quick, disciplined responses to them. What he didn’t hear was his
brother Samuel’s constant racket; or his sister, Maria, playing “Aura Lee” on
the pianoforte in the parlor; or his father and his friends laughing together in
the dining room over brandy and cigars.
    And he didn’t hear his mother singing the second verse of her
favorite hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” as she went about her daily chores.
Always the second verse.

    Fear not, I am with thee,
    O be not dismayed;
    For I am Thy God,
    And will still give the aid...

    He had never had her kind of faith, and for a long time he had
lost all hope that the words of that particular hymn might be true.

    I’ll comfort thee, help thee,
    And cause thee to stand...
    And what about now? Did he believe them now?
    He had thought he was prepared for the shame of returning, but
he wasn’t prepared at all for the overwhelming sense of loss. That was far
beyond what he had expected, the direct result, he supposed, of having been so
certain that he would never see his home again. And yet here he was, despite his
vagueness as to precisely how he’d gotten here, and that was the most he could
say for the situation.
    Mrs. Russell suddenly came to mind—and her son, James Darson
Russell. He tried to remember...something. Jimmy had died in the war; he was
sure of that, and yet the memory seemed all wrong somehow. He frowned with the
effort it took to try to sort out what was real and what was not.
    Jimmy had been several years younger than he, but he had had
the self-assurance not often seen in a boy his age. Most likely it had come from
having had to become the head of the household after his father’s death. His
mother and his sister had needed him, and he’d accepted that responsibility like
the man he was years from being.
    Robert smiled slightly as another memory came into his mind.
Jimmy had been confident and self-possessed—until he’d gotten anywhere