My brother shoved me into wet mud before training and said, “You should’ve stayed missing.”
His friends ruined my lunch and tore up my route card while he stood there.
Then my sleeve caught on a latch, and the officer who’d let it happen stepped closer to something I’d spent years keeping covered.
I needed to finish training without explaining where I’d been, especially to Garrett.
He’d already made sure nobody would take my side.
“She does this,” he said when I got up.
“Disappears, comes back, expects a bed.”
I scraped mud from my palm against my trousers.
He kept waiting.
I gave him nothing.
At lunch, Cian tipped lentils across my pullover and left his tray against my elbow.
“Sorry. Didn’t see you occupying all that space.”
Garrett moved his boots so the food could fall between them.
Brittany took my route card before orientation and held it near my cheek.
“Let’s see whether you can manage without instructions.”
She pulled it apart along the grid, then handed the pieces to my brother.
He held them up.
I reached across him for the door, and the latch caught under my sleeve.
The fabric rode up.
Garrett stopped talking before I felt the air against my upper arm.
A broken arrow sat inside a square, inked high enough to stay beneath an ordinary sleeve.
Major Postma had been standing beyond the doorway throughout the argument.
Now he pushed between us.
“Leave your arm where it is.”
His fingers stopped short of touching me.
I pulled the sleeve down anyway.
“Mayra,” he said. “Who authorized that mark?”
Cian leaned around Garrett, still holding his empty tray against his stomach.
“Probably whoever had a spare needle.”
The major turned toward him.
“Put that DOWN.”
The tray struck Cian’s leg before he managed to lower it.
Postma faced me again, and his mouth moved before any words came.
“That was issued to personnel assigned to Directive Flintglass.”
Brittany folded the torn card smaller.
I’d heard people discussing that name after lights-out at Fort Redbank, when they thought I was asleep.
They argued about whether the unit had existed and whether its training records had been burned.
Garrett had always joined in.
Now he reached toward my sleeve.
“Everybody from that program was listed dead,” he said.
“You can’t have been there.”
I moved my arm away.
The major kept studying the place the fabric covered.
“Your file says you’re applying for initial training.”
“That’s what I applied for, sir.”
“Why?”
“I wanted a place here.”
He waited for more.
I picked the route-card pieces out of Garrett’s hand and stepped through the doorway.
After that, the empty seats followed me.
Cian would reach a bench, see me, and remember he needed something across the room.
Garrett stopped telling people stories about his missing sister.
He stopped asking me anything.
I still had to get through the same drills, carry the same equipment, and wait while somebody checked my work twice.
When a radio failed, they passed it past me.
When theirs kept failing, they brought it back.
The following afternoon, Cian sat opposite me while we reassembled field radios.
He kept turning a battery the wrong way.
“Did they really send you somewhere nobody was meant to return from?”
I held out my hand for the battery.
He gave it over.
“Is that why you’re HERE?”
I slid it into place and returned the radio.
“I needed somewhere to begin again.”
He pressed the power switch, although I’d already switched it on.
Neither of us corrected him.
The major called an exercise before the equipment checks were finished.
Four sections would locate an evacuation mannequin, establish contact and bring it back before the afternoon deadline.
My section was Garrett, Cian and Brittany.
Brittany stared at the assignment.
“He’s doing this on purpose.”
Garrett pulled his pack straps until they dug into his shoulders.
“Then she can show us what all the fuss was about.”
Within forty minutes, Brittany caught a training round against her thigh and couldn’t keep our pace.
Garrett insisted the route was still right after his third wrong turn.
Cian kept bringing his marker up whenever branches moved.
I waited until Garrett stopped.
“We crossed that drainage cut already,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then stop leading us toward it.”
He turned on me, but Brittany caught his pack and pointed behind us.
A patrol was coming between the trees.
“Get low,” I said.
Cian crouched in the open.
I pulled him behind a bank and went around its other side.
The patrol had spread out to approach the place where they’d last seen us.
I reached their flank before they turned.
The exercise marshal called them out as my rounds struck their vests.
I came back for my section.
Garrett hadn’t moved.
“Can you walk?” I said to Brittany.
She nodded and pushed herself upright with the marker.
This time they followed.
At the pump shed, another section had the mannequin and somebody covering the entrance.
Cian lifted his marker before he had cover.
A round struck the wall beside his cheek.
Brittany dropped hers against the concrete, and Garrett hauled her behind the pump housing.
“We can’t get THROUGH,” he said.
I waited for the covering recruit to reload, then crossed to the side entrance.
Inside, the mannequin’s weight had trapped its carrier between a bench and the wall.
I tagged the covering recruit, took the carrier out of the exercise and got the weight onto my shoulder.
Nobody followed until I called Garrett.
“Take her equipment.”
He picked up Brittany’s marker.
We reached the assembly point before the deadline, with Cian carrying the radio against his stomach.
Postma looked at the mannequin, then at my section.
“Who gave the orders?”
Nobody answered.
I lowered the weight and reported that the evacuation was complete.
The following morning, he called me into his office before breakfast.
“You could’ve stayed absent,” he said.
I stood beside the chair he hadn’t offered.
“Your application should never have passed through here.”
“But it did.”
“That program was closed. You knew what returning would do.”
I kept my hands against my trouser seams.
“Sir, closing a file doesn’t stop the people in it.”
The alarm started before he could answer.
An explosion rattled the window, and somebody outside shouted for the gate to be shut.
Postma reached for his radio.
I was already moving.
Garrett stood in the corridor with Cian behind him, both looking toward the entrance.
“They tracked me here,” I said.
My brother grabbed my sleeve.
“Who tracked you?”
The entrance burst inward.
Men in dark uniforms pushed through with weapons raised, and Garrett’s grip dragged me half a step toward them.
I knocked his arm away.
“GET BEHIND ME.”
He went down beside Cian as I drove the nearest weapon toward the doorframe.
The next man hit us before I could get clear.
His shoulder caught my ribs; I used the wall to stay upright and forced him across his partner’s line.
Garrett crawled backward.
I kept the doorway blocked until the guards reached the corridor.
By then, I couldn’t close my left hand.
Postma stepped over the fallen door and stopped in front of me.
“You brought them onto this installation.”
My brother was still on the floor.
“They would’ve come,” I said. “You just wouldn’t have known what they were.”
Postma looked toward the entrance, then back at the recruits behind me.
“Effective immediately, Lieutenant Mayra is reinstated,” he said.
“Garrett, report to your sister for orders.”
My good hand
“Get the radio off the floor,” I told Garrett.
“Give it to the major.”
Those were my first orders to my brother.
No push-ups. No crawling through the mud he’d put me in.
There were guards at the entrance, people waiting for instructions, and my left hand looked attached mainly out of habit.
Garrett got up.
I put my right hand on his shoulder while I stepped over a piece of the door.
He lifted it off.
“Hang on,” he said. “We need to talk about this.”
My foot was still in the air.
I put it down on the wood.
“The radio,” I said.
He picked it up, but he looked at Postma before handing it over.
Postma took it.
“She gave you an order. You don’t need to check with me.”
Cian pressed himself against the wall to let a guard pass.
Garrett stayed in front of me.
“Is this just for today?”
The major turned away to speak into the radio.
My brother looked at the place on my shirt where rank should’ve been.
He’d spent days finding things wrong with that shirt. Mud. Lentils.
The way I wore the sleeves.
Now the empty patch bothered him.
“Mayra.”
“Move your foot.”
He looked down. His boot blocked the strip of floor I needed.
This time he moved it.
A medic came through from the yard and guided me toward the bench.
Garrett followed, close enough to look helpful.
The medic asked whether I could bend my fingers.
I tried. That was plenty.
“Don’t keep doing that,” she said.
An instruction I could get behind.
Garrett crouched beside the bench while she checked my hand.
“You won’t need to put everything in your account,” he said.
I looked at him.
“About us,” he said. “Before this morning.”
Postma lowered the radio.
“Your section still owes me yesterday’s account, too.”
Garrett stood up before the medic finished with me.
The card in my pocket
Later that morning, after the medic wrapped my hand and told me where to report for another check, I sat in Postma’s office.
Garrett stood beside the chair.
He didn’t offer to move it closer to the desk.
I hooked a heel around its leg and dragged it myself.
The sound took most of the room with it.
The major put yesterday’s exercise sheet in front of us.
There was space beneath each person’s name.
“An objective completed doesn’t tell me who can do the work,” he said.
“We were supposed to settle this at breakfast.”
Garrett leaned forward.
“We brought it back before the deadline.”
“Yes.”
“With everyone.”
“Yes.”
My brother waited for another word to turn that into a pass.
I reached into my pocket for the route card.
Its pieces stuck to the lining. Mud had dried between the folds.
Garrett put his palm over the sheet.
“Do we need that?”
Two days earlier, before he’d shoved me, he’d stood beside my bunk and straightened the strap on his pack.
“Section lead,” he’d said. “They’re looking at me for it.”
“Then stop leaving your radio checks for somebody else.”
“Don’t start being my sister in here.”
I’d asked him for one thing.
“Don’t bring home into this.”
He’d agreed. An hour later, he was telling people I disappeared and expected a bed.
Now he took his hand off the exercise sheet.
I was twenty-nine. Garrett was twenty-seven.
Those two years had apparently made me responsible for every awkward silence he’d ever suffered.
Postma touched the corner of the torn card.
“Was this damaged during the exercise?”
“Before it.”
Garrett shifted beside me.
“We were messing around.”
The major looked at him, then back at me.
“You should’ve reported it.”
“You were at the door.”
His finger stopped on the paper.
I wanted to add that he’d found his voice quickly enough once my sleeve went up.
I wanted him to hear the tray hit Cian’s leg again.
Instead, I pulled the card toward me.
He let it go.
“Get Cian and Brittany,” he told Garrett.
My brother’s hand stayed on the back of my chair.
“Can I have a minute with her first?”
Postma shook his head.
Garrett bent close enough that only I could hear him.
“Don’t make me look small in front of them.”
Then he went to fetch the two people he’d invited to do that to me.
The empty spaces
Cian and Brittany came into the office together.
Brittany stayed near the door.
Cian chose the chair farthest from mine, then seemed to think better of it and remained standing.
He’d made moving away from me into a full course of study.
Postma pointed to the seats.
“Sit.”
Garrett took the chair beside me before either of them could.
The major asked him to give the exercise account.
My brother began at the pump shed.
“We came under pressure at the entrance. Brittany went down. I got her behind the housing and recovered her equipment. We regrouped and completed the return.”
He spoke toward Postma.
Every few words, his eyes came to me.
I kept my wrapped hand on my knee.
“What happened before the shed?” the major said.
“We took an indirect route.”
Brittany rubbed her thumb along a seam in her trousers.
“Three wrong turns,” I said.
Garrett’s knee hit the desk.
“We corrected.”
“Who corrected?”
“We worked it out.”
Postma waited.
My brother turned toward me.
“You knew the area better.”
“I’d been given the same card.”
He looked at the pieces beside my elbow.
“I didn’t tear it.”
Brittany lifted her head.
“You held it.”
“I was handed it.”
“And held it up beside her face.”
He gave her the look he’d used on me since we were children: stop helping the other person.
She looked down again.
Postma asked Cian about the radio.
Cian swallowed.
“It came back working, sir.”
“Did you make contact from the shed?”
“No, sir.”
“Why?”
“We were moving.”
The major pushed the exercise sheet an inch away from himself.
Garrett leaned forward with it.
“Sir, there were things she could do that none of us were trained for. You put somebody like that in a section, of course the rest of us are going to look bad.”
Somebody like that.
He used to say my name when he wanted me to find something he’d lost.
I picked up the radio from the side of the desk.
It was the same field set Cian had carried back against his stomach.
The strap still had the knot I’d tied to keep it from slipping.
Postma had brought it in with the equipment that needed returning.
I set it between Cian and Garrett.
Neither reached for it.
“We can leave yesterday until later,” I said.
Garrett’s shoulders dropped.
“For now, tell him what happened in the corridor.”
He turned back to Postma.
“We heard the alarm. I went to see what was happening. Mayra came out, and I tried to keep her back.”
My right hand stopped on the radio strap.
Cian looked at me.
Garrett continued.
“She said they’d followed her. I didn’t know what she meant. I tried to stop her going toward the entrance.”
“You pulled me toward it.”
“I grabbed your sleeve.”
“And pulled.”
“I was trying to help.”
The major looked at Cian.
Cian’s mouth opened.
Garrett put a hand on his shoulder.
“He was right beside me. He knows.”
I could’ve lifted that hand away.
I could’ve told Cian that he didn’t owe my brother anything.
Instead, I waited for the man whose battery I’d fitted to say what he’d seen.
Cian rubbed his palms against his knees.
“It all happened fast, sir.”
Garrett left his hand where it was.
Outside the office
Postma sent Cian and Brittany to wait by the equipment room while he took a call about the entrance.
Garrett followed me into the corridor.
I needed water. He needed an audience of one.
“You’re enjoying this.”
I held the cup under the tap with my right hand.
Water went over the rim before I managed to turn it off.
Garrett reached past me and shut it.
For half a second, we were just two people at a sink, one with a bad hand.
Then he said, “I could tell him you saved us. All of it. You don’t have to drag out every stupid thing that happened before.”
I drank.
He waited.
“Say it because it’s what happened,” I told him.
“I just said I would.”
“If I leave the rest out.”
He folded his arms.
“You know what I mean.”
I did. That was the trouble.
He took the cup from me and put it on the ledge.
I hadn’t finished it.
“Listen. I was doing well here.”
“You got lost.”
“Yesterday.”
“And you wouldn’t stop.”
“Because you could’ve said something sooner.”
I put my hand against the sink.
There it was, laid out so neatly that he could’ve put a boot beside it for inspection.
If I stayed quiet, I let him fail.
If I spoke, I made him look bad.
“What did you want me to say?” I asked.
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
“At the drainage cut. What exact words would’ve been acceptable?”
“You don’t need to talk to me like I’m an idiot.”
“I said we’d crossed it before. You said you knew.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Everybody was looking.”
“They were following you.”
He kicked the wall below the sink. Not hard.
Just enough to make me look at his boot instead of his face.
“I waited for you.”
I let him have the sentence.
“At home,” he said.
“I waited. Nobody knew anything. Then you came back and acted like I was supposed to be pleased with whatever scraps you felt like giving me.”
My throat hurt more than my hand.
“I couldn’t tell you everything.”
“You could’ve told me something.”
“I told you I wanted to stay.”
He stared at the tap.
For a moment, I wanted to put my hand back on his shoulder.
There was a part of me willing to make another attempt before the first one had stopped hurting.
“Garrett. What you said about the bed.”
He looked up.
“That was a joke.”
“I was standing in mud.”
“I didn’t know what you’d been.”
“What did you need me to be?”
He turned his head toward the office.
I took my cup off the ledge.
He caught it before I could bring it to my mouth.
“Just let me finish training. We can sort out the family stuff afterward.”
“The card and the radio are training.”
“You brought that thing in there to embarrass me.”
“Brittany tore it.”
“Because of what I told her.”
He said it quickly, with an irritated shake of his head, as though I’d made him explain an obvious point.
I put the cup down.
“What did you tell her?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“That you make a show of needing help. That if nobody helps, you manage perfectly well.”
A drop ran from the cup across the ledge.
Garrett wiped it with his thumb.
“You did manage.”
I opened the office door myself.
His chair beside mine
Postma was off the call when we returned.
Cian and Brittany came back in behind us.
My brother sat beside me again.
He moved his chair closer.
I shifted mine away.
The major asked whether we were ready to finish.
Garrett answered before I did.
“Sir, I’d like to say something about the family situation.”
My cup was still in the corridor. I wished I’d brought it.
A mouthful of water would’ve given me something to do besides hear him.
“Mayra asked me to keep things from you,” he said.
I turned toward him.
“At the start. She said not to bring home into this. I’ve tried to respect that.”
Brittany looked at me.
The major’s pen stayed above the page.
“What things?”
Garrett spread his hands.
“The way she comes and goes. How she shuts people out. I was trying to give her room, and now everything I do gets treated like I’m against her.”
“You told them I expected a bed,” I said.
“Because you did.”
“I applied for one.”
“And you got it. You got all of this.”
He pointed around the office.
The gesture included the torn card and my wrapped hand.
A generous package, apparently.
Cian moved his feet under his chair.
Garrett turned to him.
“You remember. I told you she didn’t need looking after.”
Cian looked at the radio.
“You told us she left whenever things got hard.”
My brother’s hands dropped.
“At home.”
“You didn’t say at home.”
“I shouldn’t have to explain every word.”
Postma put the pen down.
“Garrett.”
My brother stood.
“Sir, I understand she outranks me now. I understand everybody’s impressed. But I’m the one who knows her.”
He looked at me.
“Tell them you weren’t going to report any of this before today.”
I couldn’t.
Before today, I’d meant to get through the course.
I’d meant to eat somewhere Cian couldn’t reach my tray.
I’d meant to ask for another card and let Brittany think she’d won.
That admission belonged to me, and I hated him for dragging it out where he could use it.
“I wanted to finish,” I said.
“Exactly.”
He sat again.
“If she didn’t have a problem then, why does she have one now?”
Brittany stood so abruptly that her chair struck the wall.
“She had a problem. We were it.”
Garrett stared at her.
“You don’t get to turn holy now.”
“I’m not.”
“You tore the card.”
“Yes.”
“You laughed.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her face with the heel of her hand and stayed on her feet.
He looked at Cian.
Cian wouldn’t meet his eyes.
My brother bent toward me.
“Are you going to let them do this?”
I nearly said that I’d let them do rather a lot already.
Instead, I said, “Sit back.”
He didn’t.
“You can make this stop. Tell him we completed the exercise. Tell him I helped you this morning.”
“You helped Brittany at the shed.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
He was close enough that I could count the places he’d missed shaving.
“You’re my sister.”
I looked at the radio between us.
He lowered his voice.
“If you put me back at the start in front of them, don’t come looking for me afterward.”
My right hand was flat on my knee.
I pressed it down until my leg hurt.
He waited for me to give him the answer I’d given him in one form or another for twenty-seven years.
Postma reached for the exercise sheet.
“Lieutenant. Your recommendation?”
Garrett put his hand over mine.
“Choose.”
The radio between us
I took my hand out from under his.
“Let him give the return report,” I said.
Garrett sat back.
Postma looked at the radio.
“Here?”
“Here, sir. No pressure from a patrol. No weight to carry.”
My brother reached for it.
For a moment, he looked almost grateful.
I moved the torn card beside the set.
The pump shed lay across the two pieces.
I fitted them together with my right hand.
Garrett adjusted the handset.
He pressed the switch on the wrong side.
Cian shifted forward, then stopped.
Garrett looked at me.
I left my hand on my knee.
He tried again. The set gave a brief crackle.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The return report.”
“To whom?”
“Use the exercise call signs. Say it here.”
He looked down at the card.
The room waited.
He named the shed.
He gave the grid square beside it instead of the one it occupied.
Brittany closed her eyes.
Garrett stopped.
“The card’s torn.”
I pushed the pieces together.
“There’s the missing line.”
He bent over them.
I could’ve given him the number.
It would’ve taken less time than watching his finger move back and forth across the grid.
My mouth even started to form it.
Then I shut it.
Postma leaned back in his chair.
Garrett set down the handset.
“I can’t do this with everybody staring at me.”
I turned the card toward Brittany.
“Can you give him the location?”
She looked at it, then shook her head.
“No, ma’am.”
Cian held his hands between his knees.
“I couldn’t get the set working at the shed,” he said.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
Garrett looked from one to the other.
“We got the mannequin back.”
“She got it back,” Brittany said.
Postma pulled the exercise sheet toward him.
My brother reached for my wrist.
“You said we were complete.”
“The evacuation was complete.”
“You made it sound like we’d passed.”
“You let me carry that, too.”
He pushed away from the desk.
The chair fell behind him.
Garrett on his feet
Garrett left the chair on the floor.
“Fine. I failed a radio call. You all saw it.”
Nobody answered.
“You want me to do it again? I’ll do it again. But don’t sit there pretending this is just training.”
He pointed at the route card.
“She kept that. Two days. Who keeps something like that unless they’re planning to use it?”
“I needed a route card,” I said.
Brittany bent to pick up his chair.
“Leave it,” he told her.
She set it upright anyway.
Postma spoke before Garrett could turn back to me.
“You won’t lead a section on the next exercise.”
My brother went still.
“You haven’t shown you can lead one. You’ll repeat navigation and communications before you’re assessed again.”
“But yesterday counted for nothing?”
“It counted. We just established what it counted for.”
Garrett put both hands on the desk.
“Sir, I’ve done every drill you’ve asked. I’ve been here the whole time. I’ve carried my own kit. I didn’t disappear and come back with some mark nobody’s allowed to ask about.”
The major’s face changed at that.
I wanted him to say something for me.
I hated how much I wanted it.
Then I pushed my chair back and stood.
Garrett took his hands off the desk.
“You can ask,” I told him.
His eyes went to my sleeve.
“Ask about the mud. Ask about the lunch.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ask why you needed them to laugh.”
His face reddened.
“Because I was angry.”
Brittany moved beside Cian.
Garrett pointed at her.
“And you were happy enough to join in.”
“I was.”
“Cian?”
Cian stood.
“I tipped food on her. I thought you’d think it was funny.”
“You did think it was funny.”
“Yes.”
The major stayed behind the desk.
Garrett looked at him.
“You saw the card. You didn’t stop it.”
“No,” Postma said. “I didn’t.”
“Then why am I the only one standing here?”
“You’re not.”
Brittany held out her hand to me.
I gave her the pieces.
She flattened them against her palm and tried to line up the edges.
One corner wouldn’t lie down.
“I tore this,” she said.
“He told us you wouldn’t do anything. I wanted to see.”
I let her keep holding it.
Cian rubbed the back of his head.
“And this morning,” he said, “Garrett didn’t hold her back. He pulled her. I was there.”
My brother turned on him.
“You said you couldn’t tell.”
“I said it happened fast.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Cian’s face was wet now.
He wiped it with his sleeve and kept going.
“She got me down yesterday. She got us down today. I didn’t want you angry with me, so I sat here.”
Garrett looked at the door.
Postma didn’t move to block it.
Neither did I.
My brother took one step, then stopped beside the chair he’d knocked over.
“So what do you want? All of you. An apology? Fine. I’m sorry about the card. I’m sorry about lunch. I’m sorry I grabbed your sleeve.”
He was looking at Postma.
I waited.
His face came around to mine.
“I’m sorry I shoved you.”
“And?”
He shook his head.
“Mayra.”
“What did you say?”
He rubbed his mouth.
Brittany held the card against her stomach.
My brother’s eyes filled.
“I said you should’ve stayed missing.”
I kept my hands at my sides.
He cried without covering his face.
That was harder to stand in front of than the shouting.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“You knew I came back.”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came.
The major stood.
“Your sister will give an accurate account. So will you. There will be no section-lead recommendation from me.”
Garrett gripped the chair.
“Not even after I repeat?”
“Earn a new one. This one is gone.”
My brother looked at me again.
I didn’t reach for him.
The equipment room
Before noon, we went to the equipment room with Postma.
The recruits from the other sections were there.
Some sat on the benches where Cian used to find reasons not to sit beside me.
Garrett stopped inside the door.
The major waited.
Nobody had told my brother to make a speech.
He could’ve walked to the back and started his checks.
Instead, he looked at the nearest bench.
“About my sister,” he said.
A recruit lowered a battery.
Garrett rubbed his palms down his trousers.
“What I told you about her leaving when things got hard. I didn’t know where she’d been.”
He looked at me once.
“She gave the orders yesterday. We got back because of her. This morning, she kept them off us.”
No one clapped.
Thank God. I couldn’t have survived applause before lunch.
Cian went to the bench and put his field set down.
“I need to repeat the battery check,” he said.
Brittany set the torn card beside it.
“Navigation for me.”
Garrett stood alone for a moment.
Then he joined them.
Postma handed me a set of lieutenant’s tabs he’d brought from his office.
They rested in my right palm.
“Your place is here,” he said.
“I won’t go back into that program.”
“I’m assigning you to field communications. Training staff. We’ll discuss duties after your hand’s checked.”
“Not his assessor.”
The major looked toward Garrett.
“Agreed.”
“And the report includes the doorway. Before my sleeve caught.”
Postma nodded.
“Put down that I was there.”
He left the tabs with me.
Brittany came over holding a replacement route card.
She’d written nothing on it.
She put it on the bench within my reach instead of holding it up beside my face.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
I slid it into my pocket.
Then I tried to fasten the tabs.
The first one went on crooked. The second fell from my fingers.
Brittany picked it up.
“May I?”
I nodded.
She attached it, then fixed the first.
Across the room, Garrett bent over the grid he’d called unnecessary two days earlier.
My name on the radio
That afternoon, after the medic cleared me for desk work and told me to keep the wrap on, I returned to the equipment room.
My own field set waited at the end of the bench.
Postma had assigned it to me for training duties.
My name was on the tag. Not my brother’s section number.
Not a question beside an application.
I picked it up with my right hand.
The weight pulled at my ribs, so I set it down and shortened the strap before trying again.
There was no need to prove I could carry something badly.
Cian sat opposite Brittany.
He fitted a battery, stopped, checked it, and tried again.
She worked along the grid with a finger.
Neither asked me to take over.
Garrett stood when I passed.
“Can we talk?”
I stopped by the door.
He came close enough to speak without the whole room hearing, though he kept looking behind me to see who was listening.
“I said it in front of everybody.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m repeating the stations.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I lost the lead slot.”
I waited.
“You could tell him I was upset. In the office. About you being back. You could say you want me in your section once your hand’s better.”
“You’re staying with the course.”
“I know. I mean afterward.”
He reached for the radio strap, then stopped before touching it.
“I did help Brittany. You said that yourself.”
“It’s in my account.”
“Then put in the rest.”
“The rest is there.”
His eyes went to the tabs on my shirt.
For a moment, his face took on the expression he’d worn when the major first said my rank.
He looked almost offended by how little space those tabs occupied.
“I don’t know how to do this with you,” he said.
“You can start with my name.”
He swallowed.
“Mayra.”
I nodded.
He took half a step closer.
“Don’t make me start over alone.”
Behind him, Cian put the battery cover on and tested the set.
Brittany slid her card toward Garrett’s empty place.
He had a seat. He had people waiting.
He looked at my radio.
“Come on. You’re my sister. Carry me through this one.”
“Carry your own.”
I walked past him with my radio.
If someone close to you has ever made you earn your own place twice, I hope this one kept you company.
Family wounds can linger long after the moment passes, as in the graduation picture I kept cropping and the sewing tin my mother threw away. For another story about being left waiting while someone else decides what belongs, read the binder beside the collection plates.
