April 4, 2026
Kim couldn’t stop thinking about Ron Drummond.
She opened the shop at 9:00, just like every other day. Made coffee in the back room. Straightened the yarn baskets that didn’t need straightening. Moved three books from one display to another. Half an hour later she’d given up pretending to work and pulled out her phone.
Master Sergeant Ronald Drummond.
The first result was an obituary for his wife, Grace, 2015. Cancer. Another obituary for his son, James Drummond, from 2007. Killed in action, Iraq. Staff Sergeant, US Army, survived by his father Ronald. No mention of children. No grandchildren.
The news feed beside the search results was the usual. Another protest somewhere. Another argument. Another community coming apart by one controversy or another.
Kim read a short article about Ron from a VFW newsletter in Pennsylvania. Another piece about Korean War veterans, his name in a list of local servicemen. Not much. Just fragments of a long life.
But it was enough.
Korea. Vietnam. A dead wife. A dead son. A brother who died asking him to see the 250th.
Only reason I’ve got left, he’d said.
Kim set her phone down and looked around the empty shop.
The flags were still on the counter. She couldn’t quite bring herself to put them in a drawer or stuff them in the storage closet with the Christmas decorations.
They just sat there. Folded. Waiting.
The bell chimed.
Kim looked up, hoping it would be Ron and the girl again. Instead it was Mrs. Durfee, the high school band director, carrying a stack of sheet music.
“Morning, Kim.”
“Morning.”
“These came to the school by mistake. I think they’re for the choir at First Baptist? The director’s name is on the label.”
“I’ll make sure she gets them.”
Mrs. Durfee seemed to notice the flags, but didn’t say anything. Just studied them for a moment, then back at Kim.
“Everything okay?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
Kim nodded, and Mrs. Durfee studied her face, but seemed to decide not to push.
“Okay. Well. See you Sunday maybe? Book club?”
“Maybe.”
Mrs. Durfee left. The bell chimed. And the shop was quiet.
Kim picked up her phone and again found herself scrolling back through the search results. Looking. But not sure for what.
There. A photo.
Black and white, grainy. A newspaper clipping someone had scanned and uploaded to an ancestry site. LOCAL BROTHERS SERVE IN VIETNAM. Two young men in Army uniforms, standing side by side, both grinning at the camera.
Ronald Drummond. Charles Drummond.
Ron and Charlie.
Ron couldn’t have been more than thirty. Charlie maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Both lean and strong and alive.
Kim zoomed in on Ron’s face. He had the same eyes. Even in the faded photo, even across sixty years, she could see it. That kindness. That certainty.
She wondered what it cost him to keep that look in his eyes after everything he’d lost. Her phone buzzed.
A text from her sister: How’s my sis? How’s book biz?
Kim set the phone down without answering.
***
Frank Crapo came in just before lunch.
He was seventy-something, Vietnam vet, ran the Pax River Daily mostly by himself these days. Came in once a week for coffee and whatever mystery novel Kim recommended. He had been bald for so long, his friends joked his hair had forgotten its old address.
“Morning, Frank.”
“Kim.” He walked to the coffee station she kept by the register, poured himself a cup. “You look tired.”
“Well, thanks,” she said, smiling.
“Wasn’t a compliment. Just an observation.” He took a sip, winced. “This is terrible.”
“Then stop drinking it.”
“Can’t. It’s free.” He set the cup down and spotted the flags on the counter. “Taking them down for good?”
“Thinking about it.”
“Because of the boo birds?”
“You heard.”
“Small town.” Frank picked up one of the flags. Held it the way Ron had. “People have opinions. Town is complaining about everything these days. Flags. The new gas station. The new neighborhood. The school bond vote. Doesn’t mean you have to fold.”
“I can’t afford to lose anyone, Frank. I need customers.”
“What am I? Chopped liver? I’m a customer too, and I say leave them up.” Frank set down the flag. “You meet the new guy at Meadow View yet? Master Sergeant, Korea and Vietnam?”
Kim’s head snapped up. “You know him?”
“Know of him. Bill Hayes at the VFW mentioned him last night. Transferred in a few weeks ago from Pennsylvania. Ninety-one years old. Outlived everybody.”
“He came in yesterday. With a girl.”
“Annie McDonald. Carol’s daughter.”
“Carol?”
“Director at Meadow View. You’d like her. Smart. No-nonsense.” Frank picked up his coffee again. “She volunteers. Spends a lot of time with him.”
Kim thought about the obituaries. The dead wife, the dead son. “His brother died a few years ago,” she said.
Frank nodded. “Heard that too. COVID.”
“You know what the Sergeant told me?” Kim asked.
“What’s that?”
“He wants to make it to July 4. America’s 250th. His brother made him promise before he died.”
“That’s three months away,” Frank said.
“I know,” she said.
“He won’t make it.”
“I know that too,” she whispered.
Frank finished his coffee and set the cup in the trash. Then he picked up the used novel he’d been eyeing on the shelf and came back to the counter.
“Maybe he will,” Frank said. “Guys like that. They’re stubborn.”
“Stubborn only gets you so far.”
“Sometimes it gets you far enough.”
Frank paid, took his book, and started for the door.
“Frank?” Kim stopped him. “Ever meet his brother? Charlie Drummond?”
Frank paused. “Not really. Different unit, but we overlapped in ’68. Heard stories. Good soldier. Good man.” He left it at that.
Kim let him.
Frank left. The bell chimed. The shop was sleepy once more.
* * *
Kim was alone again with the photo still open on her phone.
Ron and Charlie. Two brothers in uniform. Both of them made it home. Both survived the war. But only one of them made it to 2026.
See the 250th for both of us, Charlie had said.
Kim eyed the flags on her counter. Then at the empty brackets on the wall. Then out the window toward Meadow View, three blocks away across the bridge.
She picked up both flags.
Walked to the brackets on the wall.
Hung them back up.
Stepped back.
Just two small flags in a bookstore in a divided town.
But it was a start.
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