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monument would reflect when he was finished. He moved the top sheet of paper aside and bent over the unmarred white paper that remained. Two sides of the memorial would be equally important. He set to work sketching what he was certain would be his favorite portion of the monument.
    Hearing the door to his brothers’ bedroom open, he lifted his gaze. Scratching his backside, Lucian stood in the doorway as naked as the day he was born.
    “You still up?” Lucian asked through an open-mouthed yawn. “It’s gotta be after midnight.”
    “I wanted to finish these sketches.”
    Lucian shook his head. “You think she’s bestowing upon you some honor?” He snorted. “God, you’re so damn gullible. She was tempting you today. She’s not gonna have you make a monument. Why would she ask the town’s coward to make a tribute to its fallen heroes?”
    Clay slipped his fingers between the buttons on his shirt and rubbed his chest. “I don’t know why she asked. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m not even sure I care. I’ll be carving again, and this time, I’ll create something that’s not going into a graveyard.”
    Lucian ambled to the sideboard, dunked the dipper into the bucket of water, lifted it, and poured the water over his dark head. The water fell to his shoulders, then slid down his body to create a small pool on the puncheon floor. “It’s so damned hot tonight I don’t know how you can sit there with all your clothes on.”
    He sauntered to the bedroom door, halted, and glanced over his shoulder. “You’re wasting your time. She won’t come tomorrow.”
    She didn’t come.
    With his fingers wrapped around the paper that he’d rolled into a scroll, Clay sat on the porch. The sun had long since disappeared over the horizon. The stars dotted the blackened sky like minuscule diamonds thrown haphazardly onto velvet. The heat of day faded into the warmth of night.
    She wasn’t going to come.
    He unfolded his body and tapped the paper against his thigh. He inhaled deeply, wanting to smell honeysuckle. He listened to the crickets, wishing their cadence resembled a woman’s voice.
    He walked into the silent house. His brothers had gone to bed earlier, leaving a lone lantern on the table beside the meal Clay hadn’t eaten. He picked up the lantern and went to the room that had once belonged to his parents, the room where Lucian had slept until Clay returned.
    Closing the door, he tossed the scroll onto the bed, then knelt before the oak dresser and set the lantern on the floor. He pulled out the bottom drawer. The scent of gunpowder from long ago wafted out through the opening. He removed a worn and frayed canvas knapsack and carried it to the bed.
    Sitting on the bed, he carefully untied the braids of thin rope that held the flap closed. Lifting the bag, he dumped the envelopes onto the red-and-white quilt his mother had made. Reverently, he picked up an envelope, held it beneath his nose, and inhaled.
    Honeysuckle.
    Slowly he trailed his fingers over the delicate script. During the time the army had held him as a prisoner, when the loneliness had consumed him until he felt it as a gnawing hunger in his gut, these envelopes had sustained him. He pulled them out, smelled them, and touched them.
    He pretended the woman who sent them had written his name instead of another’s across the envelope. Although he never read the letters housed in the envelopes, he knew they contained words of love and longing, perhaps a little loneliness, and a great deal of pride. A wife’s letter to her husband would reflect all those things … and more.
    One by one, he placed the envelopes back into the bag. Reaching across the bed, he picked up the rolled sketches and slid them into the bag before lacing the braided ropes.
    Stretching out on the bed, he stared at the ceiling and wondered if Meg Warner had drifted off to sleep with memories of her husband.
    The bench swing squeaked as Meg pressed her bare toes against the