“Any luck today?” she asked.

They’d run into roadblock after roadblock trying to persuade various Fayevillians to speak openly about what had happened to the Waters. Thus far, the defunct 1966 almanac had been more forthcoming about what may or may not have transpired that year than any living breathing human had. People didn’t even want to discuss what the weather had been like, or the crop yield. They just went silent and blank. Some seemed ashamed, others depressed, a few defiant. A surprising number seemed amnesiac.

Carlos sighed.

“None to speak of. You?”

Jiminy shook her head.

“No. Though I can’t get my mind off of those photos, especially the self-portrait of my granddad and the shot of Lyn. There’s something so haunting about them,” she said.

“You and your pictures,” Carlos replied.

Jiminy took Polaroids of everyone they spoke to—quickly and without asking permission. It often caused immediate discomfort, but Jiminy couldn’t help herself. Carlos had given up trying to dissuade her. At night, she arranged the photos across her bed in a celluloid lineup.

But it was the album of her grandfather’s decades-old photos that continued to preoccupy her. Carlos had threatened to confiscate it, to force her to focus on activities that might actually advance their case. Jiminy thought of this now, as the sun beat down on them. She felt herself getting overheated.

“Can we get out of here?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Carlos replied.

He stood and pulled her up after him. Just ahead of them, Bo walked out of the library. For a split second, Jiminy simply froze. Then she dropped Carlos’s hand to move toward Bo.

“There you are!” she exclaimed.

“Hi,” Bo said, in a tone that stopped her short of the hug she might have been going for.

He hadn’t meant to sound so curt. Bo had seen the look that crossed Jiminy’s face when she’d spotted him. It had been thrilled and confused and worried all at once. But he’d also seen her holding hands with Carlos, and now he just needed to get away from them. He didn’t want to hate Carlos, or resent Jiminy, or second-guess himself. He wanted to be bigger than all of those emotions.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Jiminy said.

Bo stayed silent.

“I’ve actually gotta check on something in the library,” Carlos interjected as he moved easily past them.

Jiminy kept her eyes trained on Bo.

“I need to talk to you.”

Bo heard the plea in her voice, but didn’t let himself weaken.

“I can’t now, I’ve gotta get somewhere,” he replied.

Jiminy nodded slowly, upset. They both were.

“So you must’ve taken the MCATs,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“I won’t know how I did for a while, but thanks,” he answered.

They stood looking at each other, hamstrung by awkwardness.

“I really miss you,” Jiminy blurted.

She was embarrassed, then resolved.

“I do,” she continued with a shrug. “A lot. I miss being with you. I know you don’t think we can be together in this place, but I just want you to know that I wish things were different. I’m trying to make them different.”

Bo took this in, swallowed, breathed.

“Thanks,” he replied. “But you seem to have moved on pretty well.”

Confusion flashed through her features. Despite himself, Bo felt an urge to lift his hand and trace the outline of her lips. He looked away.

“I really do need to get going,” he said.

“You’ve got the wrong idea,” Jiminy protested. “There’s nothing—”

“I gotta go, J,” Bo interrupted. “It’s okay, it’s all okay.”

He smiled to cover the ache he felt, then moved past her, close enough to smell her coconut hair. He held his breath until he was in the clear.

Chapter 14

Walton hadn’t intended to abuse his ongoing privileges at the hospital to sneak into Travis Brayer’s room. Still, there he found himself, sitting bedside, scribbling in his notebook and looking at his old friend.

As he watched Travis sleep, Walton thought back to the night when he’d been brought the bodies of Edward and Jiminy, and Henry had implored him to treat them with the dignity he’d show any others. Any others who were white, he’d meant.

“There’s no difference,” Henry said.

“Of course there’s a difference,” Walton argued. “And you know the boys won’t like it if I do this. Edward and Jiminy are gone, their people will bury them, that’s it.”

“No,” Henry said fiercely. “This matters.”

“I know you were close,” Walton said, putting his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “I know he was almost like a brother to you—”

“Do you?” Henry interrupted. “Do you really have any idea how close we were?”

Walton looked away, at anywhere but into Henry’s furious, anguished face.

“And Jiminy—” Henry exclaimed, his voice cracking.

This was the moment Walton had decided to agree, to help, to do no further harm. He’d set about cleaning and dressing Edward’s and Jiminy’s wounds, keeping his head bent, aware that Henry was watching silently, tears pouring down his face.

Walton hadn’t quite finished when Lyn came into the room, but he’d at least made them presentable—if it’s even possible to make the bodies of loved ones presentable to people who only want them to be alive.

Considering how Lyn behaved, Walton was relieved that he hadn’t let her see her husband and daughter when they’d been in any worse shape. Henry had been right: this mattered. There was no difference.

He watched Lyn’s excruciating reaction, and how Henry moved instinctively for her, as much to comfort himself as to offer support. She wanted none of him, that much she made clear. Her rejection was absolute. And unthinkable under any other circumstances. When she’d left the room, Henry collapsed against the wall, wracked with shuddering sobs.

Walton hadn’t known what to do. He waited for Henry to collect himself, which took an uncomfortably long time. Then Edward’s brother came to retrieve the bodies, and Henry helped move them out to the car. Henry never said goodbye to Walton that night; he simply came over and wordlessly took Walton’s hand in his.

Less than a year later, at the age of thirty-two, Henry was dead. Walton had seen his body as well, and it had also been too late. He’d been asked to perform an autopsy to help discover what had killed a man so young and seemingly healthy. He found the giant blockage in the main artery close to the heart, wrote “massive pulmonary embolism” in the chart, and sewed up the incision he’d made, with a sense of wonder and loss. Literally seeing the insides of men changed a person’s perspective. Walton thought about this as he stitched up the body. He thought of many things. Of whether this blockage had started as a tiny speck the night Henry had sobbed and raged and been rejected by Lyn. Of whether there was any way to see this death as a blessing. Of what would happen to Willa now; and to their daughter, Margaret, the little girl he’d delivered; and to Lyn, who had emotionally shut herself down even though she technically remained among the living. But most of all, he thought about how much Henry felt like Edward to the touch.

Walton remembered this now, as he stared at Travis Brayer’s sleeping form. He resisted an urge to reach out his hand to feel Travis’s skin. To get a sense of the shape of his muscles and bones, beneath what everyone saw on the surface. He wanted to do this, and he wanted Travis to wake up.

Suddenly, stridently, the phone on the bedside table rang. Startled, Walton picked it up.

“Trav?” a familiar voice asked from the other end.

“No, he’s sleeping,” Walton replied.

“Walton? Is that you?”