I looked at him for a long moment.
Not as a commander.
As a daughter.
I waited for the smallest crack in his face. A regret. A tremor. Something that meant the man who taught me to ride a bike, who stood rigid at my mother’s funeral because grief embarrassed him, was still somewhere behind that stare.
There was nothing.
Elaine set down her glass and said softly, “Richard, maybe she just needs time to adjust.”
That was her gift. She could stab you and then offer the bandage.
I nodded once.
“Understood, sir.”
His jaw tightened at the word sir, but he did not stop me as I walked upstairs. I packed the same duffel bag I had carried through three deployments. Jeans. Two shirts. My Navy jacket. My medals in a small velvet case. A framed photo of my mother, Sarah Holbrook, smiling at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay with wind in her hair.
