A gully and steep hills. Hell of a strange terrain on which to build a town. Houses perched on the hills at the mouth of the straits of Carquinez.

Drove under the freeway and parked at the foot of the stone steps.

No railing and it was a long way up. I hadn't called to say that I was coming. Didn't even know their names. The man who had been in Luke's unit and the local girl he had married. One of the girls from the hills above town, the Veterans had said. They remembered that but not the name of the soldier she had married.

These days I too remember in fragments.

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