Cooper caught me in the parking lot, throwing his arms around me in a way that told me he finally understood the “Great Pact.” He whispered that he had written a paper on the Iron Ten case study without ever knowing it was his own sister.
I flew back to my station in San Diego and stopped answering the phone for a while, needing the silence to define my own boundaries. Garrett sent a letter months later, a stiff and formal apology where he admitted he had used his ego to drown out my achievements.
It wasn’t a perfect ending, but it was a beginning of something more honest. In December, I stood on the deck of my very own destroyer, the USS Roosevelt, and officially took command.
My mother was there, and so was Cooper, and even Garrett sat in the back, finally keeping his mouth shut. I looked out at the Pacific and felt my father’s presence in the salt spray.
I was the Captain now, and I was still drawing the lines that brought people home. That was the only pact that ever mattered.
