The Road Home by Michael Thomas Ford

Mars in his son’s face, Burke hadn’t thought about what happened between them in a long time.
    He closed the door on the past and brought himself back to the present. The eggs on his plate were now an unappetizing scramble; the toast, soggy with butter. Burke picked up a piece of bacon, took one bite, and dropped the strip on top of the eggs. He was no longer hungry. Pushing the tray away, he lay back and closed his eyes. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the face of Mars Janks out of his head.

CHAPTER 6
    â€œY our father tells me you’re a history buff.”
    Burke closed Watership Down and set it on his lap. He had finished the Merrick novel earlier in the day and, after discovering that his father’s house was not equipped with wireless Internet service and the only phone jacks were in the kitchen and his father’s office, had grudgingly begun reading about the rabbits of the Sandleford warren. To his surprise, he found himself caught up in the story and was slightly annoyed that Lucy was interrupting at a crucial juncture.
    â€œHe would like me to be,” he told Lucy, who was standing in the doorway with a large book in her hands. “Actually, I am,” he admitted. “Just not as big a one as he would like.”
    Lucy nodded. “I’ve heard about the great schism,” she said, laughing. “Or, as your father puts it, about how you threw away a teaching career for the life of an artist.”
    â€œNever mind that I’ve made a living as a photographer for almost twenty years now,” said Burke. “He still hates it that I’m not standing in front of a bunch of bored, pimple-faced kids, discussing the Trail of Tears.”
    Lucy didn’t remark on this statement. Whether this was out of politeness or an unwillingness to get between Burke and his father, Burke was unsure. Instead, she approached the bed and held out the book. “Jerry was a history teacher,” she said. “This was his life’s work.”
    Burke took the book and looked at it. “ Sons of the Green Mountain Boys: The Vermont Militia in the Civil War, ” he read. “By Gerald McHenry Grant. Impressive. I have to admit, when I think of the Civil War, I don’t immediately think about Vermont.”
    â€œMost people don’t,” said Lucy. “Not even most Vermonters. Jerry was always fascinated by the lesser-known aspects of the war. This was the main reason we moved here, so he could do research for the book.”
    Burke opened the book and flipped through the pages. It was filled with photographs, maps, and a seemingly endless parade of footnotes. “This is impressive,” he told Lucy. “It must have taken him years.”
    Lucy nodded. “He worked on it every chance he got,” she said.
    Burke, turning to the front of the book, glanced at the book’s copyright information. “This came out only two years ago,” he said, surprised. “I thought your husband died five—” He stopped, realizing he might have said something insensitive.
    â€œHe did,” said Lucy. “I finished it for him. Really it was already done. Jerry was meticulous about his research, and he’d written almost all of the text before his memory got too bad. I just had to pull it all together from the notes he left.” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “He was terrified that he would forget about it before it was finished,” she said. “After all those years of research, he couldn’t bear the thought of the book dying with him. I think it’s what kept him going as long as he did.”
    â€œSo he never saw it like this,” Burke remarked, running his hand over one of the pages.
    Lucy shook her head. “No. But he knew it was going to be a book, and that’s what mattered to him. I promised him I would do it.”
    â€œYou could have let it go,” Burke remarked