Then he put his head down on his father’s chest and sobbed.
I put my arm around my son.
And I held him.
And across the room, by the window, Cole Carter, sixteen years old, covered his face with his hands. Denise held him while he cried.
The funeral was at Camp Nelson National Cemetery. Twenty miles south of Lexington. A veterans’ cemetery. Rows and rows of white headstones on rolling green hills.
It was small. Me. Nathan. Denise and Cole. Sergeant Hollis and two other men from the 101st who drove up from Tennessee. Greg’s sponsor from AA, a gentle old man named Walt, who’d been sober for thirty-one years. Two guys from the auto parts store.
And Marguerite. The social worker from the ICU. She came on her day off.
An honor guard folded the flag over the casket. Thirteen folds. Slow and careful. Like a prayer.
