“Your father’s invited some people from post. Colonel Brandt and his wife. The Ashfords. A few others. It’s important for his work, so please. Be pleasant.”
Colonel Brandt was a brigade commander. He was also, as it happened, on the board that would be reviewing my packet for promotion to major that spring.
My father knew that. I found out later that was why he’d invited him.
By three o’clock, my backyard was full of people.
My father stood at my grandfather’s grill in an apron that said GRILL SERGEANT. My mother moved through the guests with a tray of deviled eggs. Chloe sat in a lawn chair in the shade with her feet up on a cooler, and people kept coming over to touch her belly and ask when she was due.
I stood by the fence in jeans and a T-shirt and watched it all.
It was a nice party. I’ll give them that.
It was a nice party at my house, with my grill, on my lawn, with my grandfather’s pine trees throwing long shadows across the grass. And every single person there thought it belonged to my parents.
I heard my mother say it. Twice.
“Oh, we’ve been so lucky with this house. Richard’s father left it to the family.”
The family.
I heard my father say it too. He had Colonel Brandt by the grill, and he was waving his tongs at the back porch.
“My dad built that porch himself. Summer of ’78. I helped him set the posts.”
My father was twelve in 1978. He’d spent that summer at a baseball camp in Denver. I know, because my grandfather told me. “Built the whole thing myself,” he’d said. “Your dad was too busy hitting balls to hold a level.”
