I looked through the windshield at the stadium, where young officers were leaving with bright gold bars on their shoulders and whole lives waiting beyond the gates.
“That we would remember the dead,” I said.
“That we would live well enough to make coming home mean something.
And that if one of us ever found another, we would know we hadn’t carried it alone.”
Emma nodded slowly.
“You carried it alone anyway.”
“For a while.”
“Not anymore.”
She settled into the passenger seat and placed her new officer’s cap on the dashboard beside my bent commissioning program.
I started the Freightliner.
The engine coughed, shuddered, and finally caught.
“Breakfast?” I asked.
“After you tell me everything.”
“That could take a few miles.”
“We have a truck.”
I pulled away from the stadium with my daughter beside me, the old leather band resting against the steering wheel.
For the first time in twenty-seven years, it did not feel like a weight.
It felt like a promise being kept.
