Chương 4
“Stop,” Emily said.
Vernon lowered his eyes.
Gloria lifted her chin. “Thank you.”
“I wasn’t protecting you,” Emily told her. “I’m leaving.”
Robert reached for Emily’s arm and stopped short of touching her.
“Will you call me?”
“Not tonight.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you safe?”
The question was late enough to hurt.
“Yes.”
He nodded, then asked, “Are you still in the Navy?”
Emily looked at the identification card’s outline beneath her sweater.
“Yes.”
His mouth parted.
“For now,” she added.
She walked out before he could ask what that meant.
The August evening was warm and smelled faintly of cut grass and car exhaust. Cole’s black sedan waited near the curb, its engine running. The driver stood beside it, watching the hall doors. Emily crossed the parking lot toward her six-year-old hatchback.
Her hands had not stopped shaking.
She sat behind the wheel without starting the engine. Through the windshield, she could see people gathering near the entrance. The veterans’ flag inside shifted whenever the doors opened. A moth struck the parking-lot lamp and fell, then rose again.
Emily placed both hands flat on her thighs.
In for four. Hold for two. Out for six.
The breathing pattern came from a Navy psychologist whose office contained three plastic plants and a wall clock that ticked too loudly. Emily had disliked her at first because she used long silences as if silence itself were treatment. By the sixth appointment, Emily understood that the woman was waiting for answers Emily had spent months outrunning.
The hall doors opened again.
Robert came outside alone.
Emily considered locking the car, then hated herself for considering it.
He walked toward her but stopped several feet away. His blazer hung open. Someone had removed the boutonniere from his lapel, leaving two small holes in the fabric.
She lowered the window three inches.
“I said not tonight.”
“I know.” He placed both hands in his pockets. “Your admiral told me to let you leave.”
“He’s not my admiral.”
Robert gave a distracted nod. “He said you’d say that.”
The old irritation in her father’s voice almost made the moment feel normal.
“Then why are you here?”
“To tell you I’m going back inside.”
“Good.”
“I’m not taking the award. I’m going to thank the committee and send everyone home.”
“That will humiliate Gloria.”
He looked toward the building. “She’ll survive.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” He rocked once on his heels. “I’m not good at this part.”
“What part?”
“The part where being sorry doesn’t make me useful.”
Emily looked down at the steering wheel.
Robert had spent thirty-two years making himself useful. He fixed leaking faucets before anyone reported them. He carried jumper cables, spare fuses, and a military flashlight in his truck. After retirement, he reorganized the veterans’ association records because nobody else could find burial assistance forms. Practical problems comforted him. They ended when solved.
Emily had become a problem with no visible parts.
“I don’t need you to fix tonight,” she said.
“I need to do something.”
“That’s about you.”
He absorbed the sentence without defending himself.
“Yes,” he said.
A group emerged from the hall, saw them, and changed direction. Robert waited until they were out of earshot.
“Were you hurt?”
Emily’s shoulder tightened again.
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“I’m cleared to work.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s what I can answer.”
He looked toward her closed passenger seat, perhaps imagining himself inside the car, perhaps remembering when he had taught her to drive in the high school parking lot. He had corrected her hand position every thirty seconds until she threatened to walk home.
“I believed Gloria,” he said.
“I know.”
“I also believed you would tell me if she was wrong.”
Emily turned toward him.
His face flinched before she spoke.
“You taught me that silence was discipline,” she said. “You taught me officers don’t complain about what duty costs. You taught me not to bring unfinished business home. Then when I came home quiet, you let her translate me.”
Robert closed his eyes.
The parking-lot light gave his skin a tired gray cast. For the first time, Emily noticed a small coffee stain near the cuff of his pale shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She started the engine.
He stepped back.
“I heard you the first time,” she told him.
Then she drove away.
By the time Emily reached her apartment, the first video had been posted.
Her phone lit up while she was climbing the stairs. A former classmate had sent a link without comment. Beneath it appeared messages from three cousins, two officers from her current assignment, Chief Ruiz, and a number she did not recognize. The clip was only twenty-two seconds long. It began with Cole entering and ended just after Gloria whispered, “Lieutenant?”
The person recording had zoomed in on Gloria’s face.
The caption read: STEPMOM TREATS NAVY HERO LIKE A SERVANT—THEN AN ADMIRAL WALKS IN.
Emily stood on the landing while the video played silently in her hand. Her own face looked pale and distant. The salute seemed too polished to belong to someone wearing a damp sweater and holding paper cups.
The view count increased by hundreds while she watched.
She locked the phone and went inside.
Her apartment consisted of one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a living room furnished with items chosen because they could be delivered quickly. The walls were bare except for a framed photograph of the ocean taken from her first ship. She had hung it after the psychologist observed that every room looked temporary.
Emily removed her sweater and examined the wet cuff. The fabric smelled faintly of coffee and the lemon cleanser used on the hall’s tables. She placed it in the washing machine, then stood in her undershirt while the machine filled.
She had forgotten to buy detergent.
May you like
For no reasonable reason, that nearly made her cry.
Instead, she poured a little dish soap into the drawer, immediately remembered why that was a bad idea, and scooped it out with a spoon. A bubble clung to her thumb. She stared at it until it burst.
