General Vance stepped close enough that nobody else could hear us, his silver temples glinting in the dull light. “Captain Rossi,” he said quietly, “did your family make it in for the service?”
My throat closed up and all I managed was the smallest, most pathetic shake of my head. His face changed to an expression of recognition, the look of a man who had seen many battlefields and knew what abandonment looked like. He put his hand on my shoulder once and told me I wasn’t alone, but it only made me feel embarrassed.
By the time I got back to our house on post, the sky had gone that flat white color it gets before a heavy rain. The entryway was crowded with flowers, and Mia’s yellow rain boots were still by the door with one fallen sideways on the rug. I moved through the rooms like I was trespassing in my own life, eventually sitting on the edge of Mia’s bed.