“My sister called me a leech at Thanksgiving in front of my brother-in-law’s commander because I drove an old Honda, never talked about my job, and looked like the easiest person at the table to dismiss—right up until the colonel pushed back his chair and made the whole room understand they had been wrong about me for years”

“Amanda, Colonel O’Neal grabbed my arm at your parents’ dinner table and told me to shut my mouth. He said she outranks everyone in the room. He’s a full colonel. He doesn’t say things like that. He doesn’t stand up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and physically grab his own soldier unless he has a very good reason.”

Amanda stirred the soup. She didn’t respond.

Jake pressed.

“I’ve been asking around. Nobody will tell me anything specific, but the way people react when I mention her name, it’s not the reaction you get when someone’s filing reports in a cubicle.”

“So what are you saying? She’s some kind of secret agent?”

“I’m saying we don’t know what she does. And maybe we should have respected that instead of calling her a leech.”

Amanda turned off the burner. She stared at the pot for a long time.

Then she said, “She should have told us.”

“She can’t tell us. That’s the whole point.”

Amanda picked up Mason from his high chair and left the kitchen without another word.

In January, my father started making his own inquiries.