The screen door creaked open.

“I’m Richard Hayes,” Richard said. His voice came out rough. “Walter’s son.”

Nobody moved. Claire stood up so fast her chair scraped the floor, her face pale.

Samuel Brooks looked at Richard for a long moment. Then he stepped aside.

“Come on in. You’d better sit down.”

On the kitchen table lay an open letter, yellowed and fragile, beside a spiral notebook. On the mantel across the room stood a single framed photograph: a skinny young soldier with a big grin, a gold watch on his wrist.

“Only picture of my daddy I’ve ever had,” Samuel said quietly. “I’ve looked at that watch every day of my life. Then this morning a stranger knocked on my door holding it in her hand.”

He slid the letter across the table.

“Go ahead. Your father kept it safe for fifty-eight years. You’ve got as much right to read it as anybody.”

Richard picked it up with trembling fingers. The pencil was faded, but every word was still there.

Hey there, little one. Your mama says you kick like a Tennessee mule, so I figure you’re a boy. But if you’re a girl who kicks, I’ll love you just the same. I’m writing this by flashlight, and the fella next to me is snoring like a freight train, so forgive the handwriting. I can’t wait to meet you. I’m going to teach you to fish and to sing, though your mama says I should leave the singing to somebody else. If I don’t make it home, don’t you be sad for long. Find Sergeant Walt Hayes. He’s the best man I know. He’ll tell you who your daddy was. Love, Dad.

Richard set it down very carefully.

“My mama couldn’t talk about him,” Samuel said. “Not once in forty years. I grew up with a photograph and a name, and that’s all. I spent my whole life waiting for somebody to tell me who he was.”

He swallowed hard.

“I think I saw your father once. Summer I was four. There was a car parked across the road for the longest time, and a man sitting inside it. He was crying. I waved at him, and he drove away.” Samuel shook his head. “I used to tell myself it was my daddy’s ghost, come to check on me.”

Richard pressed a hand over his eyes.

Claire pushed the spiral notebook toward Samuel.

“He never forgot you,” she said. “Not for one day. He spent his last week telling me every single thing he could remember about your father. How he sang. What made him laugh. The name he carved on the inside of his helmet. It’s all in there. He wanted to tell you himself on Saturday.”

Her voice broke.

“He ran out of time by two days.”

For a long time, the only sound in the kitchen was the wind chimes on the porch.

Then Claire turned to Richard.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I gave him my word. I’ll drive back tomorrow and turn myself in to the police.”

Richard didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Samuel stood up slowly. He picked the gold watch up off the table, looked at it one last time, and held it out across the table to Richard.

“Your daddy wore this for fifty-eight years,” he said. “That’s a lot longer than mine ever got to. I figure that makes it as much his as it is mine.”

He pressed it toward Richard.

“Take it home, son. That’s what you drove all this way for, isn’t it?”

Richard looked down at the watch. The watch he’d wanted since he was eight years old, sitting on his father’s knee.

Slowly, he reached out his hand.