Excerpt from Rebellion by Molly Patterson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I saw just how quiet when we buried Karol the next day. The funeral was at the same little country church where we'd married, and the coffin was laid down in a grave near my parents'. There were other Baumanns: a brother who'd died when I was too young to remember him and a sister I'd never known. The other graves had familiar last names, every one of them German. Karol would be the only Wisniewski there.

The coffin wobbled a little going into the ground, but then it settled and the silence that followed nearly undid me. For ten seconds it seemed no one moved or even breathed. There wasn't even any wind to stir the last leaves on the trees. Then our preacher recited the psalm about the Lord keeping you from harm and watching your coming and going, and we all turned and went back to the cars, all but four or five of the men, who would stay to fill in the earth with shovels. One of them was George Hughes.

At the hospital, after the doctor told me about Karol, while we were waiting for Theo to go collect my sisters, George had been the one to sit with me. He didn't try to hold my hand or pat my shoulder. Once he said, "I wish Lydie had come," and I understood that he meant he didn't know how to comfort me, but his wife—my closest friend—would. Several minutes passed, and I watched the doctors and nurses passing in and out of the rooms down the long hall, and then I thought of how my husband was lying dead behind one of those doors, and I broke out in a sob so violent it felt like vomiting. George put a hand on my back then, and at the same time he took out a handkerchief from his pants pocket. It was clean and freshly pressed, and his producing it then felt like a bit of magic.

Excerpted from Rebellion by Molly Patterson. Copyright © 2017 byMolly Patterson. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.