When I came back down, Elaine had already begun wiping the counter, humming under her breath. My father stood near the doorway.
“You’re being dramatic, Avery,” he said.
I paused with my hand on the knob.
“No,” I said. “I’m obeying orders.”
For the first time that night, he looked uncertain.
But he still did not move.
Rain hit the porch as I stepped outside. The house behind me glowed warm and golden, the kind of home strangers might pass and envy. They would never know that inside, a father had just traded his daughter’s dignity for a younger woman’s approval.
I drove out of Arlington before midnight, wipers beating hard against the windshield. My phone stayed silent in the passenger seat. No call. No text. Not even one last command.
Somewhere near Fredericksburg, I pulled into a diner lit by a half-flickering sign. I ordered black coffee and sat by the window, watching the American flag outside snap in the storm. I had saluted that flag a thousand times, but I had never felt more homeless beneath it.
A waitress named Carol noticed the duffel at my feet.
