Chương 7
Rebecca looked at Chloe.
“You’re younger than I expected.”
“I’m ten.”
“I heard.”
“From the video?”
“From the entire country.”
Denise placed one hand on the table. “We did not authorize that recording.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You were looking at her when you said it.”
“I’m looking at the person my father gave his flag to.”
Chloe studied Rebecca’s face. Her eyes were brown, not hazel. Her fingernails had been bitten down almost to the quick.
“Did you know he was sick?” Chloe asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Rebecca inhaled slowly.
“Chloe,” Denise said.
“No. It’s all right.” Rebecca folded her glasses and placed them on the folder. “I didn’t know where he was.”
“He was at Parkview.”
“I know that now.”
“He said he didn’t have family.”
“I know that too.”
“Was he lying?”
Rebecca looked at General Hale. “He did that.”
Hale did not argue.
Rebecca opened the folder and removed a photograph.
Mr. Arthur stood beside a yellow bicycle, one hand steadying the seat while a girl of about eight sat on it with both feet on the ground. He looked younger but not young. His hair was dark. His smile was wide enough to seem unfamiliar.
“That’s me,” Rebecca said. “He taught me to ride in a parking lot behind a bowling alley because our street was too steep.”
Chloe picked up the photograph carefully.
“He looks different.”
“He was different.”
“Better?”
“Sometimes.”
Rebecca took out a second photograph. In this one, Arthur wore a dress uniform. Rebecca, older now, stood beside him in a white graduation gown. There was a space between them wide enough for another person.
“He came late,” Rebecca said. “The ceremony was almost over. He had been drinking.”
General Hale lowered his eyes.
Rebecca’s voice remained even. “He could lead a convoy through an attack. He could not sit through his daughter’s graduation sober.”
Chloe returned the photograph.
“He didn’t drink at the hospital.”
“He was dying.”
“He was still funny.”
“He could be.”
“He liked oatmeal-raisin cookies.”
“He hated raisins.”
Chloe stared at her.
Rebecca almost smiled, but the expression collapsed before it formed.
“He used to pick them out of bread and leave them on the side of his plate.”
“He ate mine.”
“I believe you.”
“You think I’m lying.”
“No. I think people do things near the end that they wouldn’t do when they imagine they have endless time.”
The conference room door opened. A hospital communications director leaned in.
“General, the press area is ready whenever—”
“There will be no press area,” Denise said.
The woman looked at Hale.
He said, “Cancel it.”
“We have three local stations and a national crew already set up.”
“Then tell them the family declined.”
Rebecca’s head turned. “Which family?”
The communications director disappeared and closed the door.
Hale sat down.
“I asked them to hold a statement because misinformation was spreading.”
“You mean the part where the Army became the family he never had?” Rebecca asked.
“No statement used those words.”
“The video did the work for you.”
“I did not release the video.”
“But you knelt in front of a child and handed her a flag in a hallway full of phones.”
“I believed the area had been secured.”
Rebecca gave a short laugh without humor. “You believed a hospital hallway in 2026 had no phones.”
Hale accepted that too.
Chloe took Mr. Arthur’s letter from her backpack and slid it across the table.
Rebecca looked at the words COOKIE GIRL.
Her face changed before she opened it.
She read silently. At the line containing her name, she pressed one hand flat on the paper.
“What does he mean?” Chloe asked. “Where did the flag belong?”
Rebecca folded the letter.
“With my mother.”
“But she died.”
“Twenty-three years ago.”
“Was it her flag?”
“No. It was his. He flew it outside our house every holiday. My mother hated how he folded it.”
“He folded it wrong?”
“She said he made every corner so tight it looked angry.”
Chloe glanced toward the tote.
“Why would he be afraid to send it?”
Rebecca reached for her glasses, then left them on the table.
“After my mother died, he disappeared for almost a year. He was drinking. He lost his apartment. I found him and got him into treatment. He left after nine days.”
“You stopped helping?”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened.
“I kept helping for six years.”
“Then what?”
“I had a baby.”
Chloe waited.
“My son was three months old. My father came to the house drunk. He picked up the baby after I told him not to.”
“Did he drop him?”
“No.”
“Did he hurt him?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“Chloe,” Denise said.
Rebecca raised one hand. “It’s all right. No, he didn’t hurt him. But I was afraid he might. I told him he could come back after he got sober and stayed sober.”
“Did he?”
“For a while. Then he called me from a police station in Ohio and asked for money.”
“Did you send it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he come back?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Chloe frowned. “You should know.”
“So should you,” Denise said gently. “About your dad.”
The words caught Chloe by surprise.
Denise looked immediately sorry, but did not take them back.
Rebecca studied Chloe more carefully.
“Your father left?”
“He moved.”
“He left,” Denise said.
Chloe pulled at the cuff of her cardigan. “He calls.”
“Sometimes,” Denise said.
Rebecca looked down at Mr. Arthur’s letter.
“My father called too.”
The general shifted in his chair. “Colonel Reed entered veterans’ transitional housing in March. He left in June after an argument with the program director. He was admitted here three weeks ago after collapsing near a bus terminal.”
“You knew this?” Rebecca asked.
“I learned it yesterday.”
“You found me in four hours.”
“The Army had older personnel records.”
“The hospital had my name.”
May you like
A legal-services representative seated near the wall cleared her throat. Until then, Chloe had forgotten she was there.
“The emergency contact listed in Mr. Reed’s chart was inactive. Staff attempted the number provided.”
