My brother laughed when my shirt caught above my scars, then told the other soldiers, “Keep those covered. Nobody needs to see that.” I couldn’t pull the cloth down fast enough. Then our colonel stepped inside and asked my brother a question he’d never bothered to ask me.
I’d worked too hard to get there to have my own brother make me afraid of changing clothes.
He knew that, too.
Before my transfer, Dakota had told me to keep our relationship out of things.
“Don’t expect me to carry you, Cassie.”
I hadn’t asked him to.
At Fort Eustis, I kept our conversations short and called him by his surname when we were working.
He used my first name whenever somebody else was close enough to hear.
Usually before a joke.
The first time I reached for a radio case, he shifted it toward Akash.
“She can check attendance.”
My fingers stayed underneath the handle until he pulled it away.
I had to open my hand.
The case went past me, close enough to knock my leg, while somebody asked whether I needed a lighter duty.
“Let me take the next one,” I said.
Dakota glanced around before answering.
“You heard her. She’s volunteering.”
That got a laugh.
He made me ask.
Then, when I asked, he made asking the joke.
During equipment checks, he stood close enough to see my hands and waited for something to go wrong.
If I paused, he reached past me.
If I finished, he checked it again.
“Just making SURE,” he said when I moved aside.
Akash started doing it, too.
He’d take an instruction I’d already followed and repeat it slowly, with his face turned toward Dakota.
I kept working.
Sometimes I pictured telling my brother exactly what he sounded like, but he always had somebody beside him.
And I couldn’t stand another audience.
Once, I caught him alone after training and asked him to stop.
He pushed his tongue against his cheek before he answered.
“Stop what?”
“The little comments.”
“You can’t fall apart over this stuff.”
“I’m asking you something.”
“And I’m helping you.”
He said HELPING again when I didn’t move, as though I’d failed to hear the word.
I went around him.
By the following week, I was changing after the others whenever I could manage it.
That meant standing around in clothes that needed washing, or rushing when someone called us back.
Dakota complained about that, too.
“Always waiting on you.”
There wasn’t a correct way to do it.
The afternoon it happened, I had to get my sweatshirt off before the next check.
Most of the others were still there.
I turned away and pulled it over my head, but my undershirt caught inside it.
My arms were up.
The fabric wouldn’t come free.
Behind me, Dakota stopped halfway through something he was saying.
Then he laughed.
I pulled harder, and the collar scraped across my nose before I got it clear.
My undershirt dropped.
Too late.
“What the hell happened there?” Akash said.
I held the sweatshirt against my stomach and tried to find its sleeves.
Dakota leaned sideways as though he could still see through the fabric.
“Keep those covered. Nobody needs to see that.”
I couldn’t look at him.
My brother had seen the scars before, at home, years earlier.
He knew I kept them covered.
He also knew that if anybody asked, our mother called it an accident and changed the subject.
That was all he’d ever needed.
“Was that the accident?” he said.
The way he put it made somebody laugh again.
I pushed an arm into the sweatshirt, although I’d just taken it off and still needed to change.
“Leave it, Dakota.”
“What? They asked.”
“You answered.”
He held his palms out toward the others.
“Apparently we’re not allowed to TALK.”
Akash bent closer to my brother and said something I couldn’t catch.
Dakota made him repeat it.
“Did she pick a fight with a wire fence?”
I got my hand through the cuff.
There was a little square of laundry tissue stuck inside it.
I rubbed it between my fingers because I couldn’t get hold of anything else without shaking.
My brother looked straight at me.
“Come on. You can take a joke.”
I tried to pull the sweatshirt over my head again.
The neck opening folded under itself, and I couldn’t find it.
That made them laugh harder.
“Look, now she’s stuck.”
My throat hurt from trying to keep the sound in.
I lowered myself against the lockers because my knees wouldn’t hold straight, and the sweatshirt landed across my lap.
Tears dropped onto it.
I rubbed at them with the cuff, which only pushed the laundry tissue across my cheek.
Nobody moved closer.
I heard Akash say, “Oh, seriously?”
Then Dakota said my name in the voice he used when he wanted me to stop embarrassing him.
“Cassie.”
I kept my head down.
“Cassie, get UP.”
The laughter carried on around his words until another voice came from the entrance.
“What happened?”
I knew Colonel Stewart’s voice before I lifted my head.
He stood inside the room, with his hand still beside the handle.
Dakota moved away from me.
“Nothing, sir. We were getting changed.”
The colonel looked at my sweatshirt, then at the faces around me.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Akash straightened so quickly his heel struck a locker.
Nobody laughed at that.
I tried to stand, but the sweatshirt slipped beneath my palm.
Colonel Stewart came toward me.
“Stay where you are a moment.”
His face had changed when he saw mine.
He looked older from that close, with deep lines beside his mouth and gray along his beard.
Dakota started talking before the colonel could ask anything else.
“She’s my sister, sir. She gets upset.”
The colonel turned toward him.
“Your sister.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that was you laughing?”
Dakota rubbed his thumb along the seam of his trousers.
“We didn’t mean anything by it.”
I wanted him to stop saying WE.
He’d said my name so easily when everybody was laughing.
Now he kept looking toward Akash.
Colonel Stewart crouched enough to bring his face level with mine.
“Can you stand?”
I nodded, and he offered his hand.
My fingers slipped against his palm before I got my feet underneath me.
Dakota began again.
“It happened before she joined, sir. A family thing.”
“Who told you how she got them?”
“Our mother said there was an accident.”
The colonel waited.
Dakota added, “Seven years ago. She was visiting relatives.”
My sweatshirt was twisted between my hands.
Colonel Stewart looked at me, and I couldn’t give him permission or ask him to stop.
I could barely breathe through my nose.
Then he faced my brother.
“You’ve been telling these men you know her.”
Dakota opened his mouth.
The colonel raised his hand.
“LET HER KEEP HER DIGNITY.”
The words stopped my brother before anything came out.
Then Colonel Stewart lowered his hand and said, “When we reached her, she asked us to count the children before we moved her.”
The locker door
“Three children,” I said. “There were three.”
“All accounted for,” Colonel Stewart said. “That’s what we told you.”
I put my sweatshirt on the bench. Then I pulled my undershirt down over my waistband with both hands.
Dakota looked from him to me.
“What children?”
The colonel waited for me to answer. I couldn’t get past the fact that he’d remembered the count.
Seven years. I was twenty-four now. He still said it the same way.
“Do you want somewhere private?” he said.
“Just a minute.”
That Friday, I had meant to finish the equipment check, change, and meet my cousin Melanie outside. She was driving us home for the weekend.
Getting through a Friday. Apparently I’d aimed too high.
I opened my locker for my bag.
Dakota pushed the door shut before I could reach inside.
“Let’s not make this bigger.”
His palm stayed against the metal. Colonel Stewart looked at it, and Dakota took his hand away.
I opened the locker again.
“I need my phone.”
“You can talk to Mom later.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Akash bent to pick up a shirt that hadn’t fallen. He straightened with nothing in his hand.
The colonel moved back enough to give me room.
“You don’t owe this room your history,” he said.
Dakota nodded at that. He’d found a sentence he liked and was preparing to move into it.
“Exactly. It’s personal. We should deal with it at home.”
I took my phone out of my bag.
My brother stood between me and the doorway, ready to escort me out of the room where he’d made me cry.
“She shouldn’t be doing the next check,” he said.
The sweatshirt cuff
Before my transfer, Dakota had folded this same sweatshirt at our mother’s house while I packed.
He folded badly. Sleeves everywhere, confidence untouched.
“Don’t make them adjust everything for you,” he said.
“I haven’t asked anybody to adjust anything.”
Mom stood beside my bag.
“He means give yourself time.”
Dakota tucked the sweatshirt in.
“Exactly.”
Back in the changing room, the cuff was damp where I’d wiped my face.
I picked the laundry tissue off it and put it in the bin. I wanted one thing in that room to go where it belonged.
Colonel Stewart asked whether I needed medical attention.
“No, sir.”
“Do you need a few minutes?”
“Yes.”
Dakota nodded again, as though he’d arranged those minutes.
He was twenty-seven, three years older than me. At home, that entitled him to the front seat. Here, he’d stretched it to include my hands, my work, and apparently my ability to remain upright.
My phone lit up.
Melanie: Still on for the ride? I can wait.
I typed, Yes. Running late.
Then I erased Running late. That sounded like I’d misplaced my shoes.
Something happened. I’ll explain outside.
Dakota leaned toward the screen.
“Who’s that?”
“Melanie.”
“Tell her I’ll take you.”
I put the phone against my leg.
Colonel Stewart asked who was responsible for the equipment detail that afternoon.
“I am, sir,” Dakota said.
He’d been given the job of assigning the carries and keeping us moving through the checks. He liked standing beside the cases with everybody waiting for him to point.
“And your sister’s assignment?”
“Attendance.”
“Was that her assigned task all week?”
“She’s been settling in.”
My brother could fit a whole accusation inside a helpful expression.
I had spent the week learning the equipment layout after training. The case nearest the door held the set I was supposed to check that afternoon. I’d asked to take it before Dakota decided I would count people again.
I could still do that check. My face could look like this, and I could do it.
“Let me finish my work,” I said.
Dakota looked at the colonel instead of me.
“Mom usually knows when she needs to stop.”
My phone lit up a second time.
Mom was calling.
The case beside the door
I let the call ring out.
“Put the phone away,” Dakota said. “You’re holding everybody up.”
Colonel Stewart turned toward him.
“I’ve held them here.”
“Yes, sir. I meant before.”
I went toward the case. Dakota reached its handle first.
That small movement nearly did more to me than the laughter. My hand stopped in the same place it had stopped all week.
I could picture myself opening it for him again.
“Leave it,” I said.
“You don’t need to prove anything.”
“I need to do the check.”
Akash stood beside the case with his arms down. Usually, by then, he’d have picked it up for my brother.
Dakota lifted it onto the bench himself.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
He moved aside, then stayed close enough that I would’ve had to work around his elbow.
The colonel said, “Give her room.”
Dakota took half a step. A generous landlord.
I opened the case and laid the parts in order.
My fingers shook when I fitted the first connection. I set it down, pressed my hands against my thighs, and tried again.
Dakota made a sound through his nose.
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You made a sound.”
“Cassie, do the check.”
I could hear the others breathing. Somebody’s boot scraped the floor, and I started the sequence again because I’d lost my place.
That pleased him. He leaned toward Akash.
“That’s why I check behind her.”
I stopped with the handset in my palm.
“Have you found an error?”
“Right now?”
“This week.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Name one.”
He looked at the colonel.
“Sir, she’s putting me in a position here.”
I wanted to hit him with the attendance sheet. It would’ve been the first useful thing I’d done with it all week.
Instead, I placed the handset back in the case.
“Name one thing you had to correct.”
Dakota reached past me and turned the set.
“You’ve got an audience. You’re upset. This isn’t going to help.”
His hand covered the connection I’d been about to check.
I moved it away.
He pulled back as though I’d shoved him.
“There. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Colonel Stewart stepped closer.
“Enough. Hands off the equipment.”
Both of us stepped back.
The case stayed open between us. I hadn’t finished. Dakota hadn’t named an error. But anybody walking in would’ve found me crying beside a job I couldn’t complete.
I hated how neat he’d made it.
“She’s better at home than she is here,” he said. “She doesn’t have to act like this with us.”
My phone started again inside my bag.
Dakota pointed toward it.
“That’s our mother. She’ll tell you.”
The colonel looked at me.
“You can answer it privately.”
I almost did. Mom would hear my voice and know something was wrong. She’d ask where I was. She’d tell Dakota to leave me alone.
I took the phone out.
Before I answered, Dakota said, “Don’t scare her.”
He’d been laughing less than ten minutes earlier. Now he was the family spokesman for delicate feelings.
I answered and put the phone to my ear.
“Mom?”
“I’ve been trying you,” she said. “Dakota says you’re having trouble.”
I turned toward him.
He put his own phone in his pocket.
Mom on the phone
“I’m not having trouble with the work,” I said.
Mom paused.
“Are you crying?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Cassie.”
That was all it took. The little drop in her voice.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye, angry at myself for needing her so badly in front of him.
“What did he tell you?”
“That there was an upset during changing.”
“An upset.”
“He said somebody made a comment.”
“Dakota made it.”
My brother held out his hand for the phone.
I turned away.
“He laughed at my back. Then he told everybody to keep looking at me.”
“I didn’t tell them that,” he said.
Mom heard him.
“Are you both there?”
“The colonel’s here, too.”
“Oh, honey. Why did you involve him?”
I shut my eyes.
“He walked in.”
“Well, don’t let this become something it doesn’t have to be.”
The phone was hot against my ear. I wanted to put it back in my bag and pretend the call hadn’t connected.
Dakota held out his hand again.
“Let me explain.”
I stepped away from him.
Mom said, “Your brother knows you. He can tell when you’re pushing yourself.”
“He doesn’t know what happened.”
“That’s private.”
“He just laughed about it in front of everybody.”
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
For one second, I could stand straighter.
Then she said, “But you know what he’s like with the boys.”
There it was. The boys. Grown men who could carry equipment and follow orders until there was something unpleasant to answer for. Then my mother could reduce them to an age at which nobody should expect much.
“Mom, I asked him to stop last week.”
“I know.”
My hand dropped from my face.
“You knew?”
“He called me. He was worried you were taking things to heart.”
Dakota looked down.
I had gone to him alone. I’d waited until nobody could hear because he’d told me family didn’t belong at work.
Then he’d called home and put his version there before I arrived.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’d had a lot to adjust to.”
“What did you tell him to do?”
“Cassie.”
I waited.
“I said not to let you get in over your head.”
I sat on the bench.
The colonel moved the open case away from my knee. Nobody else moved.
Mom kept talking.
“I didn’t mean this. You know I didn’t mean for anybody to laugh. But he was trying to give you jobs you could manage while you found your feet.”
“I can manage the other jobs.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Dakota looked up at that.
I took the phone away from my ear. I couldn’t have her voice inside my head and my brother’s face in front of me.
“Put it on speaker,” he said. “Let her explain.”
Mom’s voice came through the earpiece, small and busy.
I pressed the speaker button and set the phone beside my thigh.
“You’re on speaker. Everybody can hear.”
“Well, I don’t know why we need everybody.”
“You asked why I was crying.”
“I was asking because I’m worried.”
Dakota stepped toward the phone.
“Mom, I told her to sit out the check. That’s all.”
“Then sit it out, Cassie. Come home with your brother. We can sort it out here.”
I had spent all week trying not to call her. Not because I didn’t want her. Because I wanted to be able to tell her I’d handled it.
Now she was asking him to bring me home.
“Melanie’s taking me,” I said.
“Melanie doesn’t need to hear all this.”
My cousin’s message still sat above the call.
I can wait.
I looked at those three words until I could read them without the letters running together.
Then Mom said, “Dakota, bring her things.”
My bag in his hand
Dakota reached into my locker.
My bag came out by one strap. The strap caught on the hook, and he pulled harder instead of lifting it free.
“Leave that.”
“Cassie, we’re done here.”
The room had gone quiet enough for the phone to carry every word.
Mom said, “Don’t fight him over a bag.”
I stood.
“He doesn’t get to pack me up.”
Dakota put the bag on the bench beside the radio case.
“Fine. Pack it yourself.”
He faced the colonel.
“Sir, I’d like to get her out of here before this gets any worse. I can finish the check afterward.”
Colonel Stewart looked at me.
“Do you want to leave?”
I opened my mouth.
Home meant my own shower. A room where I could pull a shirt over my head without first checking who stood behind me.
Home also meant Dakota driving. Mom waiting at the door. Both of them telling the story until the part where he’d laughed became the part where I’d cried.
“I want to finish,” I said.
Dakota rubbed both hands over his face.
“You’re making it impossible to help you.”
I reached for the case.
He put the lid down.
“Not like this.”
The click of the latches went straight through me. That was my job shut away again, and this time I’d failed to do it in front of the colonel.
I stepped back.
Dakota picked up my bag once more.
For a second, I let him hold it.
I wanted him to take me away. I hated him, and I wanted my brother to take me somewhere nobody was looking.
He mistook that second for permission.
“She needs a different group, sir. Away from me. I’ve tried, but she takes everything personally.”
Mom said, “That might be best.”
The colonel didn’t answer him.
Akash shifted beside the lockers.
“Sir, can the rest of us get back?”
My brother nodded toward him.
“See? Everybody’s waiting because of this.”
I looked around the room. The same men who’d waited while I fought my sweatshirt now wanted the delay charged to me.
“Because of what?” I said.
Dakota put my bag into my hands.
“Because you can’t let anything go.”
I held it against my stomach.
My first fix had been to work harder. My second had been to ask him privately. Now I’d tried doing the job in front of somebody who could make him stop interrupting, and I’d still ended up with my bag packed.
Colonel Stewart took a step toward the door.
“Everyone stays until we’re clear about what happened here.”
Dakota’s mouth opened.
“Sir, respectfully, you know something from years ago. I know what she’s like now.”
Mom said, “He does see more of her than we do.”
That was the worst of it.
She’d never seen me do this work. She hadn’t asked whether I’d passed my training. She’d heard me cry, and she’d handed my place to him.
I set my bag on the floor.
My phone screen dimmed beside the closed case. I touched it before the call could slip out of reach.
“Mom, stay on.”
Then I turned toward the colonel.
“Please don’t tell them I’m brave.”
Three names
Colonel Stewart stopped.
“I wasn’t going to make a speech.”
“Good. Because he’ll say I did something stupid and got lucky.”
Dakota looked offended.
“I haven’t said that.”
“You were getting there.”
Mom said my name.
I put my hand beside the phone.
“You can stay. But you have to hear me.”
She didn’t answer.
I turned to Colonel Stewart.
“You remember the count. Do you remember their names?”
“Melanie,” he said. “Kenny. Jazmin.”
Dakota looked at my phone.
“Melanie was there?”
“Yes.”
Our cousin was twenty now. She was waiting outside to drive me home, probably eating the sweets she claimed she bought for both of us.
Mom said, “Cassie, we agreed.”
“No. I asked you not to make the children feel guilty.”
I pulled the sweatshirt into my lap.
“They kept asking if it was because of them. I asked you to tell them it was an accident.”
Dakota stared at me.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
The colonel sat at the other end of the bench.
He’d been visiting a neighbor when the storm hit that afternoon. A tree brought down part of our relatives’ house. He was one of the people who helped get us out.
He hadn’t been my commander then. I’d known him as the man who stayed where I could see him.
“The back way was blocked,” I said. “We had to use the window.”
Mom began crying on the phone.
I kept my hand beside it.
“There was broken glass in the frame. I held my sweatshirt over it so they could get through. Melanie went first. Then Kenny. Jazmin wouldn’t let go of my sleeve.”
Dakota put his hand against a locker.
“Why didn’t somebody tell me?”
Colonel Stewart looked at me, not him.
“Keep going if you want to.”
“After Jazmin was outside, I couldn’t see all three. People kept moving in front of them. I asked for the count before anybody moved me.”
“And we counted,” he said.
I rubbed the cuff between my fingers.
There were things I still couldn’t tell neatly. My own part came in pieces. The children outside came in one piece, and that was the part I wanted.
Mom said, “We were trying to leave it behind.”
“I asked you to stop them blaming themselves. I didn’t ask you to tell Dakota I couldn’t carry a case.”
“I never said you couldn’t.”
“You told him to keep me from getting in over my head.”
“I was frightened for you.”
Dakota bent toward the phone.
“Mom, you could’ve told me.”
I stood up.
“You could’ve asked me.”
Then I moved my bag away from the equipment.
“Now tell them what you actually knew.”
The men beside the lockers
Dakota looked at Colonel Stewart.
“Sir, I didn’t know any of that.”
“She’s speaking to you.”
“I understand. I’m saying I wouldn’t have made the joke if I’d known.”
I kept my hands away from the sweatshirt.
“What did you need to know?”
He looked at the others.
“Cassie, come on. You know what I mean.”
“What would make it all right?”
“Nothing. Obviously. I’m saying I didn’t have the whole story.”
Akash rubbed his palms on his trousers.
Dakota turned toward him.
“We thought it was an old accident. Nobody was laughing at kids getting out of a house.”
“No,” I said. “You were laughing at me.”
He took a step toward me.
“I said I shouldn’t have.”
“You said you wouldn’t have if you’d known.”
“All right. I shouldn’t have. Is that what you need?”
I could’ve let him have that. He was offering just enough apology to reach the door.
I pointed at the case.
“What was wrong with my work?”
He looked down at it.
“This again?”
“You told them you had to check behind me.”
“I was helping.”
“What did you correct?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don’t keep a list.”
“One thing.”
“Cassie, everybody checks everybody. That’s part of the job.”
Akash said, “You told me not to let her carry one alone.”
My brother turned so fast his boot hit my bag.
“Because we were moving them in pairs.”
“You said she’d drop it.”
Dakota looked at him for a long moment.
Akash moved away from the locker.
“You did. Before she got here.”
My throat hurt again.
Before I got there. I’d spent a week trying to disprove something they believed before I’d touched a handle.
Dakota pointed at the case.
“She was shaking just now. Everybody saw that.”
“After we laughed,” Akash said.
My brother’s hand dropped.
Akash looked at me.
“I made the fence joke. He didn’t make me say it.”
“No,” I said. “He made you repeat it.”
Akash’s face changed. He nodded.
“Yes.”
Dakota went toward the phone.
“Mom, this is getting twisted.”
For once, she didn’t answer immediately.
He bent closer.
“Mom?”
“I heard you laughing when you called,” she said.
I looked down at the phone.
He’d called her before she’d called me back. Somewhere between taking his hand off my locker and telling the colonel he knew me, he’d found time.
“I was trying to calm things down,” he said.
“You said she’d got herself stuck in her shirt.”
His face went red.
“You thought it was funny, too.”
Mom made a sound I hadn’t heard from her before.
Then she said, “Yes.”
I sat down because my legs had started doing it again.
She said, “Cassie, I laughed. I didn’t know you were on the floor.”
“You knew he was laughing at me.”
“Yes.”
Dakota straightened.
“So don’t put all of this on me.”
Mom was crying hard enough that we could hear her trying to stop.
“I’m not. I’m telling her what I did.”
Colonel Stewart stayed beside the bench. He hadn’t supplied my brother with a single word to hide behind.
Dakota spread his hands.
“What do you want me to say? I thought she’d be better off starting with something easy. I didn’t want everybody thinking she was only here because of me.”
Nobody answered.
He looked at Akash, then at the men behind him.
“That’s a fair thing to worry about.”
Akash shook his head.
“She never said that.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Neither did we.”
Dakota turned back toward me.
“You could’ve told me what you wanted.”
“I did.”
“You asked for a case.”
“Yes.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
I stood and took the case handle. This time, nobody reached for it.
“I want my assignment back.”
Dakota looked at the colonel.
“I can supervise the check, sir. We can get this finished.”
“No,” Colonel Stewart said. “Your part in directing this detail is finished. You won’t assign or check her work.”
Dakota stood straight.
“Sir, that makes it look like I can’t be trusted with my own sister.”
The colonel let him hear what he’d said.
My brother’s eyes filled.
He turned toward me.
“Don’t do this in front of everybody.”
I almost looked away. That old habit still worked. He was embarrassed, so I should help him hide.
I kept looking at him.
“They were here for the joke.”
He pulled at the seam of his trousers.
“I’m sorry, Cassie.”
I waited.
“I shouldn’t have laughed. I shouldn’t have let them.”
Akash moved his head.
Dakota corrected himself.
“I shouldn’t have encouraged them.”
“And my work?”
He looked at the case in my hand.
“I didn’t find anything wrong with it.”
I kept hold of the handle.
He faced the others.
“She didn’t fail a check. I shouldn’t have told you she needed watching.”
Mom said, “Cassie, I’m sorry.”
“You need to say it to him, too.”
She took a breath.
“Dakota, don’t use me as the reason again. I was wrong to tell you to hold her back.”
My brother wiped his face with his palm.
Nobody pretended not to see.
He tried once more before he moved.
“I was looking out for you.”
“You weren’t looking.”
The handle
The case was heavier when I carried it alone.
I put it down carefully and opened the latches. My hands still shook. I didn’t hide them under the bench this time.
Colonel Stewart stood far enough away for me to work.
Akash stayed by the door.
“Do you want somebody on the other end?” he said.
“For the check, yes.”
He waited until I gave him the handset.
Dakota stepped forward out of habit. Then he stopped.
I fitted the connection he’d covered with his hand. I checked the power, then continued through the sequence I’d practiced after everybody else went home.
Once, I lost my place.
I went back to the last step I could confirm and started from there. Nobody died of waiting. My brother looked as though he might, but he managed.
Akash gave the response.
I finished the check.
“Again,” I said.
He looked toward Dakota before he could stop himself.
Then he looked back at me.
“Ready.”
We did it again.
The colonel checked the result, then nodded.
“Complete.”
I put the handset back where it belonged.
Dakota had lost the equipment detail. He wasn’t directing the carries anymore. He didn’t get to inspect my work or turn my request into a performance for his friends.
The other men picked up the remaining cases. Nobody asked him which ones.
He stood beside the bench while I closed mine.
Mom was still on the phone.
I picked it up.
“I’m going with Melanie.”
“All right.”
“And I’m not coming over tonight.”
There was a pause.
“Will you call me?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here.”
I ended the call before she could ask me to make her feel better.
My brother reached for my bag.
I took it first.
He stepped aside.
Outside, Melanie stood by her car with the passenger door open. She held a packet of sweets folded almost flat.
“I saved you some,” she said.
“How many?”
She looked into the packet.
“An insulting number.”
I laughed, and then I cried so hard I couldn’t get my bag off my shoulder.
She took the strap.
“Come here.”
I held on to her beside the car. She didn’t ask who was watching. She didn’t tell me my face was a mess, although she had plenty of evidence.
When I could speak, I told her what Dakota had said.
She pulled back.
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I finished my check.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Good.”
Colonel Stewart came through the doorway while she was putting my bag into the car.
Melanie turned at the sound.
She knew him after a moment.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
He smiled.
“Three accounted for?”
She nodded.
“Kenny’s working. Jazmin’s home.”
“And you?”
“Taking Cassie with me.”
He nodded and went back inside. There was no gathering around us, no speech. Melanie shut the boot.
I pulled at the sweatshirt collar.
“I’ve been trying to get this thing off for about a hundred years.”
“That sounds right for a Friday.”
My undershirt caught again when I lifted my arms.
I stopped.
Melanie stood beside the open car door. Her hand rested on the roof, and she waited for me to tell her what I needed.
“Hold the bottom of the undershirt.”
She took the hem.
I pulled the sweatshirt over my head. It came free.
She reached through one sleeve and turned it the right way out, then held it toward me.
I shook my head.
“Put it in the back.”
She tossed it onto the seat.
Then she opened her arms, and I stepped into them.
If this one stayed with you, send it to someone who’s always been spoken for instead of listened to.
For more family betrayals and jaw-dropping confrontations, read “My Husband Closed My Tablet Before I Finished Reading”, “My Husband Motioned to Remove the Judge Who Once Took Me In”, and “My Mother Typed Her Own Name Into My Power of Attorney”.
