Chapter 12 #3
"She asked why I hadn't done the same for him."
He drew a slow breath.
"I knew explanations and excuses weren’t what she needed to hear, wouldn’t bring Sam back."
He slowly shook his head. “All I could do was apologize."
The sting across his cheek had faded before he'd reached the end of the lane.
The look in Sharon's eyes never had.
He was quiet for a long moment.
"As I was riding away..." His voice dropped even lower. "I happened to glance back."
The memory rose with painful clarity. "She was standing on the porch with one hand resting against her stomach. That's when I realized."
Another silence settled over the room.
"Sam had left behind more than a wife." Wilson swallowed hard. "He also left a child who'd never know its father."
He bowed his head. "And I rode away still carrying all the memories I'd gone there to share."
Silence settled over the schoolroom.
Wilson kept his gaze on the floor. He'd said more in the last few minutes than he had in the past eleven years.
"Wilson." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He looked up.
There were tears glistening in Mercy's eyes. "I'm so sorry."
He managed a weary shake of his head. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
"No." She held his gaze. "But I'm sorry you've carried that alone for so long."
He looked away again.
After a moment she said quietly, "I see now why you refused to participate in the ceremonies."
A humorless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Seemed she'd finally come around to his way of thinking—that he didn't belong among those deserving to be honored. "Then you understand my reasons."
"I do. But I believe you’re completely mistaken."
That brought his gaze back to hers.
She lifted her chin. "I understand why you believe you shouldn't."
He frowned. “But you just said?—"
“I said I understood. I didn’t say I agreed. You've spent eleven years measuring yourself by one moment."
Wilson stared at her but didn't respond.
"One decision." She said it with more emphasis this time.
Still, he said nothing.
"And one outcome you would have given almost anything to change." She took a slow breath. "I understand why that would make accepting an honor feel impossible."
His shoulders eased just a fraction. "Then you do agree."
"I understand your pain." Her voice had turned gentle. "But I don't think that's the same thing."
Wilson searched her face, uncertain where she was leading.
She didn't rush to explain.
Instead, she asked quietly, "May I ask you something?"
He nodded.
"When Sam stayed behind to save you..." She paused. "Who was depending on him?"
Wilson didn't have to think. "Among our men? No one."
"And when you were searching for Sam..."
The answer came before she'd even finished. "Fourteen men."
The words settled over him.
He'd never thought about it that way.
All these years he'd measured himself against what Sam had done. He'd never stopped to measure the two situations against each other.
He wasn't convinced. But for the first time...
He wasn't altogether certain he'd been asking himself the right question.
Mercy crossed to the worktable and rested her fingertips on the stacks of newspapers. "You know how hard I’ve pushed to make sure every family in Hawthorn is represented here? Even when it appeared the building was going to burst at the seams.”
Wilson nodded, uncertain what that had to do with anything.
“Well, I have a little confession to make and I hope you won’t be too upset with me when you hear it.”
Now he was intrigued.
“Despite how hard I fought, I was never truly worried I’d have to leave someone out, because I had a fallback plan.”
He leaned back. “Did you now?”
She nodded and he almost grinned at her smug expression.
“Because you see, as wonderful as they are, the heart of this exhibit is not the mementos, heirlooms and keepsakes. You could strip all of that away and you know what you’d have left?”
He knew her well enough by now to know the answer. “The stories.”
She smiled as if he were the star pupil in one of her classes. “That’s right. It’s the stories that truly matter. And there’s more than enough room in here for everyone’s stories with space left over.”
He wanted to ask her what that had to do with their prior discussion, but instead he waited. Mercy wasn't finished. She'd never wandered this far from the point without meaning to lead him somewhere.
"Stories are the things no official record could ever capture." A quiet smile touched her lips.
"The way someone laughed."
"The way another stood steady when everyone else was frightened."
"The quiet kindnesses."
"The sacrifices no one asked them to make."
She glanced toward the exhibit hall. "Those are the things people remember long after dates and battles have faded."
Wilson found himself looking at her, the hint of understanding taking hold.
"You've been carrying those things about Sam for over a decade."
He didn't answer.
"They aren't simply memories anymore." She paused. "They're his story."
Silence settled between them once again.
Wilson looked from Mercy to the stacks of newspapers. To Colonel Briggs' collection. To everything she'd spent months trying to preserve.
For the first time...
He wondered whether the things he'd been carrying all these years had never really belonged to him alone.
Wilson remained silent, his thoughts still tangled around everything she'd said.
After a long moment Mercy asked quietly, "May I ask you one more thing?"
He gave a small nod.
"You said you wanted Sharon to know what kind of soldier Sam had been."
"I did."
"And you wanted her to know the things about his service he'd never have told her himself."
"Yes."
She studied him for a moment. "Then why didn't you?"
Wilson frowned. "I told you."
She waited.
"I tried." His gaze drifted toward the window once more. "She didn't want to hear any of it."
Mercy was quiet. Then she said softly, "Do you remember something you said to me last week when I told you the story about what happened when I was a little girl?"
Wilson looked back at her as he searched his memory. He’d said a number of things.
She answered her own question. "You said you couldn't imagine what it was like for the widow, hearing that her husband wasn't coming home."
The words came back to him with startling clarity. "I remember."
"You were right."
She let the silence settle before continuing. "She couldn't hear anything else that day."
Wilson looked down at the floor. For years he'd remembered Sharon's anger. The kind of anger that could make a sweet, gentle homemaker slap a visitor in the face with such force.
The accusation.
He'd never once stopped to think what that moment had been like for her.
Mercy's voice remained gentle.
"That doesn't mean she wouldn't have wanted to hear those things another day."
Wilson didn't answer. He wasn't sure he could. Because for the first time in eleven years...
He found himself wondering whether he'd mistaken one terrible afternoon for the end of the story.