Prologue
January 2012—Atlanta, Georgia
“He doesn’t looklike a Joe,” Alice said, staring at her squalling son, whose face scrunched in fury and pale skin grew blotchy from crying. She pushed her still-damp dark hair behind her ear and tried to get more comfortable on the hospital bed.
“That was my brother’s name,” Jim said stubbornly. He reached out and touched the baby’s clenched fist, which seemed to set off another round of wails. He jerked his meaty hand away, and his dark, caterpillar brows stitched together ominously. The muscles of his chest rippled as he crossed his arms.
Alice tried to place the baby to her breast, shushing and soothing him, hoping that the nurses wouldn’t come into the room and try to talk her into feeding him formula again. Her milk would come in just fine. She knew it would. If he would justlatch on, for heaven’s sake.
“I promised my mom I’d name my son after my brother,” her new husband pressed on. His gray eyes took on the flinty look that she’d already learned to fear.
Alice refrained from mentioning that the baby wasn’t actually his son. Both of them were very bent on pretending otherwise. It was best for everyone if Marshall’s memory was left with his body—blown to bits in the desert of Afghanistan. Jim had married her out of an obligation to his dead best friend, and claimed Marshall’s son as his own, determined to raise him right. Alice was grateful for his help, even if she didn’t have his love, or want it. Alice had tried to care for the man, but it was hard to love a man as unpredictable as Jim.
Especially after having been loved by someone as tender and thoughtful as Marshall.
“Did you hear me, Alice? I promised my mom,” Jim said again. Afghanistan hadn’t been kind to Jim, taking both his brother and his best friend.
“Yeah, I know you promised,” Alice agreed, looking down at her son’s face as he mouthed at her nipple, never quite taking it in before he started screaming again. “But…but look at him. He’s just not a Joe.”
“You got a better name in mind?” Jim asked, his voice implying that whatever she suggested, it better be good or else.
“Neil,” she said, whispering the name that had rung through her like a bell the moment she took the baby into her arms. “Neil Joseph,” she added quickly. “For your brother.”
Jim chewed his bottom lip, but then he nodded once, and Alice relaxed, relieved that was the end of it for now. She smiled up at her husband, and he smiled back, tense and insincere but good enough. At least there wouldn’t be a row.
For his part, Neil screamed even louder.
January 2012—Scottsville, Kentucky
Joshua stood bythe creek on his family’s land in his hometown of Scottsville, Kentucky. He shoved his gloved hands into his coat pockets and studied the winter-gray sky reflecting in the ripples in the dark water. All around him the woods creaked and rustled. A squirrel chomped on a nut, eyeing Joshua suspiciously.
The creek was deep and wide, bubbling over rocks and fallen limbs carelessly. When he was a boy, he’d played in it every day, digging on its banks, jumping in up to his hips, skipping over the rocks from muddy shore to muddy shore. It had been his favorite place on earth.
He still loved it, but it had been over a month since he’d come out to the creek. Not because he’d forgotten about any of it, but because he was making an active attempt to hurt less. Somehow he’d convinced himself that if he avoided the place where he’d carefully emptied the container of ashes—all that had been left of Neil after the cremation—maybe he wouldn’t feel cut to the quick.
Avoidance hadn’t worked, though. So, here he was.
“Hey, Neil,” he said, rocking on his heels. “I miss you.”
The creek burbled and rushed. Like life itself, it was nonstop and joyful in its lack of empathy. On it went, sluicing over gravelly bottoms and slipping through woods and fields. Onward, never a glance back, just forward into forever.
“My new baby brother was born today. Remember how I told you my mom was pregnant? He arrived. They named him Sam.”
He was quiet for a second, trying to feel Neil there with him, wanting some kind of connection, but he got nothing at all.
“You’re really gone, huh?” he asked.
The wind blew around him, ruffling his hair, but it didn’t feel anything like Neil.
“Where’d you go?” he murmured. Off with the water into the great unknown. It’s part of why he’d cast his remains into the creek, wasn’t it? To release him. Set him free. So why did he keep coming back to the creek looking for something he’d never find?
Joshua listened harder. “Where does the river take you? Where did you end up?” Then he smirked. “I know, I know. I can hear you telling me that you didn’tend upanywhere, that youdied, and any ideas I have to the contrary are just hopes and wishful thinking. You’d say I’m better off accepting reality and moving on.”
Joshua ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. The squirrel decided this human wasn’t quite sane, talking to himself this way, and skittered into the woods and then up a high tree. “I might be better off, Neil. But I just can’t believe that.” He stared up at the clouds covering the sky. The water rushed at his feet. “I don’twantto believe that.”
The grief fell on him again, heavy and useless. He made a big show of shaking it off, clapping his hands together and saying, “So, anyway, since we last talked, things have really kind of sucked. Paul is bugging me to sell my Grandpa Roger’s lumber company, come back to Nashville, and live with him. He says I need to finish my degree, pick up where I left off when you…” He swallowed hard. “When you died. But I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. Nashville isn’t for me. And Mom and Dad aren’t capable of running Stouder Lumber. They never have been. Dad’s more into the farm, and Mom’s got her career as a teacher. It’s on me to keep Grandpa Roger’s legacy alive. Just like it’s on me to keep yours alive, too.”
Joshua sat down on the cold ground and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Why’d you do that, Neil? Put all of that responsibility in my hands? I’m only twenty-two years old, and it’s too much.” Puffing cloudy breath, he squeezed his eyes tight, thinking of all the questions Neil’s lawyer still had for him. “How old were you when all of that fell intoyourhands? That’s not something we ever discussed.”
