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It was the 15th of July when our world unraveled. Do you remember, William? Joel? Isaac? Do you remember? Do you remember where we were when it began?

We were on the Westmore’s private property again, lounging by their pond and lazily kicking our feet in the cool water. It was pure sweetness on that summer day. The breeze kissed your hair, William. I know you don’t remember that, but I do, and I always will. You have other’s hair, fine and golden, given to catching every ray of light, only to reflect it in a million different directions. I loved your hair, as I loved all else about you, but I never told you that. Instead, I told you that all the blonde was leaking out your smarts, and you told me I had the face of a cow. I think maybe you were closer to being right, unfortunately.

Isaac was up to his knees in muddy water and the moss-green scum that floated at the shallow end of the pond. He was after frogs again. His hands darted in and out of the water, and his whole body bobbed back and forth, up and down, like a bird searching for a worm–waiting, attacking, waiting, attacking, waiting, attacking. He was focused for an eight-year-old, at least when he wanted to be.

Joel was there, too–remember? We always took Joel with us, and we always got in even more trouble for doing that. He was three, and we weren’t supposed to ever take him past our property. Of course, words don’t stop children who believe the world is theirs to be had. We took turns getting the belt for our rebelliousness, you and I, unless Mother was tired, in which case we both had raw bottoms for a week. It was a sweet pain, because we knew it would never stop us.

When Mother found us at the Westmore’s pond that day, her face was flushed a tomato red. We thought she was angry, so we scrambled up, grabbing socks, shoes and our little brothers. You spoke first to Mother, trying to think of excuses for our being there. There was none, of course, other than we wanted to play where we weren’t supposed to.

Were you as afraid as I was when Mother’s expression finally changed? Her flushed face slowly drained of its color, and she smiled so sadly at your tall tales. She went and took Joel from my arms, banked him on her hip and gave his forehead a gentle kiss.

I knew it was about Father, then. There was something about her that screamed defeat, even as she stood there, tear-free. “Come on, you three. There is someone here to see your brother.” She looked at you, William, and the pain in her eyes was unbearable.

None of us said anything on the way home, not even when a family of quail went running in front of us funnily, their rotund bodies moving side to side atop their tiny legs. And still none of us said anything when we saw the dark-windowed vehicle in the driveway–not even Isaac, who was known for his never-ending curiosity and poorly-timed questions. His face was sullen, his lips pursed.

Father’s uniform was folded neatly and set on the kitchen table beside a half-empty glass of lemonade. I remember how you looked. It was obvious that you wanted to believe his uniform was a sign that he had come home, but the logic of such a thought couldn’t be ignored, once you saw the medal of honor. It was only given to those who died in the line of duty.

A man who none of us had noticed up to that point cleared his throat awkwardly. He was one of them, and he was here to take you away. I wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. He was just doing a job, as you would be soon. “William Matthews?”

You looked up into his face with a calmness I’m sure you didn’t feel. You were tall for a boy of sixteen years, but still not as tall as the bulldog of a man who stared you down with eyes that were both kind and hard. He was in army fatigues that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders and thick neck. You stood straighter and nodded respectfully to him; and in those two simple movements, my brother, the boy, was gone. There would be no more kicking of feet in the Westmore pond, sticking out tongues or telling me I looked like a cow. You were an adult in that moment.

The serviceman led you outside, even as Mother began to weep at the table, one hand on Father’s uniform, the other clinging to Joel’s lanky body. He cried with her, with the confusion of a child.

I watched you from the window above the kitchen sink. I could not cry yet, but I could feel fear, the rush of nervousness in my veins, the green sickness in my stomach.

I saw tired sadness etched deeply into the lines of the serviceman’s face as he read you your citizen rights. There would be no refusal. People never refused anymore, for opposing your call to arms was merely a slow arrival to the same appointment. You could run, flee from your duty, and we would incur the debt and dishonor for it. One person from each household was summoned, and it was your turn now. You didn’t run, didn’t seem scared at all. But it scared me to think of your going–scared me just as much to realize I would be next, should you die. Forgive me. You know I’ve always been craven.

They allowed you three days to pack; this was one extra day than was usual, because you were so young, and so we could mourn for Father.

On the second day, the funeral was held. It was a small procession, filled mostly with tired-looking mothers and their children, both of whom were never drafted to war. Most who were there had never met Father; many had never even met us, but we all shared a common pain.

I cried most when I discovered there was no body, only Father’s uniform. One would think that a lifeless shell couldn’t possibly mean much, but somehow it did.

When it was over, you and I went to a nearby ghost town. There were many ghost towns by then, as you probably remember. There just simply weren’t enough people to fill the businesses or keep the cities alive. The left behind mothers who were forced to work, due to circumstance, kept to the major industries, where the pay was better (even if the hours were not) and the products were most needed.

We sat at a table beneath the ubiquitous yellow ‘M’ that we vaguely remembered from our childhood. I took your hand solemnly. You were as sweaty as I was. It was summer, and we were afraid.

“Are you ready?” I regretted the question immediately and gave you an awkward, apologetic shake of my head. It was a stupid question.

“No,” you told me honestly. And then you smiled. It was a lie, but it calmed me a little nonetheless, because you were my big brother. “Yes.”

“When does your service end?”

“Until the war is over, or until I’m dead.” You laughed uncomfortably. “I guess I better live for quite some time.”

The war had already lasted longer than it should have. Only you, three years my senior, had lived in a time without it, but we had both lived in a time without the draft. Joel would not be so lucky, and Isaac might not remember those days.

Do you remember what you did next, William? I will never forget. You reached up to your neck and began to untie the leather necklace that you had worn for as long as I could remember. It had an arrow-shaped piece of quartz hooked onto it. When we were little, you had convinced me that it was a tiger tooth, though it really looked nothing like bone. A little part of me still thought of it as a tooth.

“Here,” you said as you placed it onto my palm.

Your eyes seemed to say I know it’s not much, but I knew it was almost all you had that meant anything, and so it meant the world to me. I closed my fingers around it tightly, as if worried the wind would blow it away from both of us, in the same way that time was robbing us of this moment and the moments at the Westmore’s pond, to be gone forever, held only in fragile and fading memories. I stared hard at your face, afraid I would forget that, too, in time. The golden hair, the high-arching brows and thin lips, the tiny scar on your chin, where you once fell off a swing and landed face-first in pea gravel. I laughed at you, then, just to be mean, because you had stolen my favorite toy.

We sat in silence for a long time, sharing something that words could not.

When the sun began to set, sending shots of orange red and mustard yellow into the sky, we rose to go home. And though we had sat for so long in silence, when we stood, the spell was broken, and awkwardness made us fidget. Your face was tight with fear and uncertainty, but you tried to hide that. I bottled up my feelings, so I wouldn’t cry and make it worse.

It is another 15th of July, William. We’ve not received an email from you in eight months. We fear for you and hope for you. If we believed in a god, we might pray.

Isaac is thirteen now, and his hair has darkened. He looks exactly like Father, so much so that Mother yells at him for no reason other than to get him out of her sight sometimes. Joel, at eight, is unruly, despite our best efforts to rein him in. His life is half-empty–fatherless and confusing–and he is angry; there are few children his age. Two of them died in the flu season last year. Mother nearly went with them.

How do you manage, William? Do you wake every morning, wishing you were dead, wishing for a swift bullet to the brain? I hope not, and yet, I don’t believe I could blame you if you did. How do you fight in another man’s war, one you cannot possibly understand? So many questions and too few good answers.

I hope you come home soon.