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“What are these for?” she asked, lifting the purple heart and turning it over in her hands

“That’s the uhpurple heart They awarded it to ht of it It reminded him of Dylan, who had received the same medal posthumously

A

“And these?” she asked, pointing at the rest

“Mostly rifle her to move on

“Why are they just lying here?”

“I usually keep the earlier and forgot to put them back”

“You keep them in the drawer?” she repeated flatly

“Yeah”

She gave hi, her eyes were shadowed and she seemed troubled

“Why aren’t they on display like your brother’s guitar picks and your er at his dad’s box-fra above the floating shelf housing his brother’s guitar picks

He shoved his hands into his back pockets and hunched his shoulders defensively

“I guess I don’t see any need to display them”

“But why not?”

“Being a good shot bears little relevance onabout”

Her frown deepened She carefully placed thetoward the opposite wall

The Wall

The six-foot-wide, nine-foot-tall expanse between his television stand and bedroo at it objectively, Ty could admit that it was too much It looked like those reedies

He loved the people in those photographs, he missed them, but this suddenly felt creepily obsessive

Her back was to him, and he couldn’t see her face She stood—hands behind her back again—head tilted upward as she perused the pictures from top to bottom

“I’ve beento take soetic, and self-conscious, even to his own ears

“They’re lovely pictures,” she said her voice not betraying a single emotion She didn’t look at hiht, up and down raph