A Lasting Impression

this life ending and of coming face-to-face with God—that sent an unrelenting shiver through her. Because she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know why exactly—she only knew she wasn’t. She wanted the peace her mother had somehow found toward the very end.
    Only, she preferred to find it before the final hours of her life.
    “Not yet, sleepyhead.” Sutton gently squeezed Claire’s shoulder, seeing her eyes drift shut again. “Doctor’s orders. It’s not even eight o’clock.”
    With eyes still closed, she frowned. “But I’m so tired, Sutton,” she whispered. “And please, no more checkers. Just let me rest for a minute or two.”
    “Sorry, but I can’t do that.” He nudged her shoulder again. Nothing. So he dipped a damp cloth in water and wrung it out, then pressed it against her cheek.
    She sucked in a breath, eyes going wide.
    “I’m sorry, but you just can’t go to sleep. Not yet.” He smoothed her matted curls. “Does your head still hurt?”
    “It’s pounding . . .” She winced. “Like a drum.”
    “The doctor said you can have a half dose of laudanum. But only after you’ve eaten a few more bites of Cordina’s soup.”
    “Cordina made soup?”
    “Yes, she did, to answer that question for a third time.” He smiled and helped her sit up a little straighter in the bed. Dr. Denard had told Adelicia on the way out that Claire’s memory might be sketchy for the first few hours. Sutton wasn’t surprised, not when remembering his father having treated patients with head injuries. And Claire had hit her head pretty hard. “It’s potato soup. Your favorite. At least that’s what you said thirty minutes ago when you ate some.”
    Claire gave him a look that said she wasn’t sure whether to believe that or not, but apparently she decided not to argue the point.
    Soup bowl in hand, he eased down onto the edge of the bed, ladled a spoonful of soup, and held it to her lips.
    “I can feed myself.” She reached for the spoon, but he pulled it back, shaking his head.
    “There you go again, Miss Laurent, tryin’ to steal my joy.”
    Sighing, she smirked—and opened her mouth. After a couple of bites, she looked up at him, a disconcerting vagueness in her eyes. “Do you ever think about dying, Sutton?”
    He stilled. “Claire, honey, you’re going to be fine. I know you probably feel otherwise right now, after that fall, but—”
    “No . . . I realize that. What I’m asking is if you’ve ever thought about dying.”
    “Everyone thinks about dying. At some time or another.”
    Accepting another bite of soup, she looked up at him, her expression saying that she wanted—and frankly, expected—more of an answer.
    “Yes.” He scooped up a chunk of potato. “I’ve thought about it. Many times. Mostly during the war.”
    “You fought,” she said softly, more a statement of fact than a question.
    “Along with everyone else.”
    “Were you wounded?” She accepted another spoonful.
    “I was shot. In the shoulder. I was lucky, though—the bullet went straight through.”
    The milky smoothness of her forehead crinkled. “Did it hurt?”
    He laughed. “ Yes, just a little.”
    She looked down. “I’m sorry. That was a silly question.”
    But thinking about lying in that church sanctuary, with Mark Holbrook’s blood as well as his own drenching his clothes, and with his father only days in the ground, Sutton’s humor fell away. “Men were dying all around me. I thought I was going to die too.” He dipped the spoon in the bowl again, but she shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. He laid the bowl aside.
    “Were you scared?” she asked, her voice tentative.
    He looked down at her, wondering where all her questions were coming from. But not minding them. “Yes . . . I was scared.”
    “Were you . . . ready?”
    Sutton felt a tug inside him, like someone had looped a cord around his heart and pulled tight. Had he been ready to die was what she was asking. No one had ever asked him that question before. Not even Cara Netta when they’d spoken once, and ever so briefly, about that night.
    He allowed a moment to pass. He had no choice. He couldn’t speak past the thickness in his throat. “Yes,” he whispered. “I was ready. And . . . no.” He fingered the edge of the quilt. “I don’t think there’s a man alive who, once he knows he’s going into battle . . . isn’t forced to face the possibility that he might not come home. And I’d reconciled myself to