placed a folded blanket across the seat for me.
The team leader handed me the seat belt and waited until I had fastened it below my stomach.
My mother stood beside the open door.
“Where are they taking you?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I cannot tell you that either.”
Her face tightened as she heard the same boundary she had dismissed for years.
Before the door closed, my father called from the porch.
“You think those people care about you more than we do?”
I looked at the soldier holding the door, the blanket placed across my knees, and the box secured so David’s photographs would not slide during the drive.
“I think they understand the difference between duty and ownership,” I said.
The door shut.
As the convoy pulled away, I watched the mailbox pass the window and felt the first clean break between
I did not feel victorious.
I felt exhausted.
By the time we reached the temporary quarters arranged for me, the adrenaline had drained from my body and left my hands shaking.
The apartment was plain: a small kitchen, a couch, a bedroom, and a table beside a window.
Someone had stocked the refrigerator with bottled water, eggs, fruit, and the kind of ginger tea I had been drinking for morning sickness.
Those ordinary things nearly broke me more than the funeral had.
David used to stock the refrigerator before every one of my returns, even if he had only been home a few hours himself.
He never gave speeches about taking care of me.
He checked the tires, filled the gas tank, washed my coffee mug, and made sure there was food I
