My squad took one look at my clothes and decided I was there for a free meal. “Go stand with the people who empty the bins,” a recruit said before pushing his food onto me. By afternoon, they’d made me the joke of every exercise, but our commander saw something under my collar that stopped him.
I still had to train beside them, and each exercise gave them another chance to put their hands on me.
Walking away would mean leaving the place I’d worked to reach.
At Camp Bracken, my kit bag hadn’t even reached the ground before somebody pointed at its handles.
I’d wrapped the fraying canvas with tape, and a corner had stuck to my sleeve.
“Did they give you that when you came to collect the laundry?”
Alex stood close enough to catch my answer.
I pulled the tape loose and moved into line.
His gaze traveled from my sweatshirt to my boots, then returned to the cuffs.
The sleeves had gone pale where I’d washed them too often.
“She thinks the breakfast is FREE,” he said.
Somebody behind him laughed through their nose.
I faced forward, but he leaned around until I had to see him.
“You’re in the wrong queue.”
“My instructions said to report here.”
He glanced at the others before answering.
“For what, exactly?”
“Communications training.”
His mouth stayed open after the laugh finished.
“Can you communicate that we don’t need kitchen HELP?”
The recruit beside him covered her mouth, badly.
“Eliana,” Alex said, “tell her where she belongs.”
She raised one shoulder and turned away from me.
Nobody moved.
There wasn’t a gap for my bag, so I held it against my leg until we were dismissed.
At lunch, I found a seat with enough room to eat without touching anyone.
Alex brought his bowl over while I was breaking bread into mine.
He put it down so hard that stew jumped onto the table.
“You’ve got the WRONG room again.”
I kept my spoon inside the bowl.
He waited for me to look up.
“Go stand with the people who empty the bins.”
Then his fingers hooked around his bowl, and he pushed it straight into me.
Beans and sauce spread across the front of my sweatshirt.
I caught the bowl against my stomach before it reached the floor.
That got another laugh. 🤔
“Careful,” Alex said, “you’ll have to wash that.”
Eliana pulled her elbows away from the spill without looking at my face.
I set his bowl beside him and reached for a napkin.
He kept his hand on the dispenser.
“Ask.”
I used the napkin beneath my own bowl instead.
It was already damp, and it broke apart against the cuff I was trying to clean.
Alex leaned closer to check whether I was crying.
My spoon knocked against my teeth when I started eating again.
He heard that, too.
“Aw, come on, Carolina, it’s a joke.”
He’d read my name from the kit bag under my chair.
I kept my place.
By warm-up, the stew had dried stiff across my stomach.
Krzysztof fell into step beside me while the others moved ahead.
He’d barely spoken at breakfast, but he’d laughed whenever Alex looked his way.
His shoulder struck mine as we passed the turn.
My boot slipped, and I landed with my palms in wet mud.
He stopped just beyond my reach.
“Do it AGAIN,” he said.
I pulled my foot underneath me, but the sole wouldn’t grip.
“Maybe she’ll get better if she practices.”
Alex laughed from farther up the line.
Mud had worked between my fingers, and I rubbed them against each other before standing.
Krzysztof offered his hand once I was already upright.
He held it there for the others to see.
I stepped past it and started running.
He followed close enough that his boots kept touching the backs of mine.
“Don’t fall over your own feet and blame me.”
At the next turn, I gave him room.
He moved into that space.
I finished with dirt inside my sleeve and the necklace clasp pressed against my neck.
During navigation, Eliana reached across me before I’d finished checking the route card.
“Let somebody else have a look.”
I loosened my grip because we were supposed to work together.
She took the card and held it away from me.
The next direction was on the side against her palm.
“Can you turn that around?”
“You memorized it, didn’t you?”
Alex came closer, and she glanced at him.
Then she pulled the card apart.
The sound was small enough that I heard Krzysztof’s breath beside me.
Eliana tore through the next section before dropping the scraps.
“Now we can see if you’re really LOST.”
I reached toward a piece beside her boot.
She put her heel over it.
“Leave the rubbish.”
The arrow I’d needed disappeared beneath her sole.
I stood up and took the path I’d been reading before she interrupted.
Alex called after me, but I didn’t turn.
Eliana followed, still carrying the section she’d kept.
When I slowed at the junction, she raised it as though she might finally let me check.
Then she folded it into her pocket.
By the combat exercise, Krzysztof was already standing opposite me.
He rolled his shoulders while the instructor explained the drill.
We were meant to practice breaking a hold, then release when told.
Krzysztof reached for me before I’d finished taking my position.
“Make this EASY on yourself.”
His fist closed around the neckline of my sweatshirt.
The fabric pressed against my throat as he drove me backward.
My shoulder hit the plywood barrier, and my teeth caught the inside of my cheek.
I grabbed his wrist.
He pulled again instead of letting me attempt the movement.
The chain caught beneath his thumb.
I felt it drag around my neck before the pendant slipped out over my collar.
It swung against his hand. 😱
“What’s this supposed to be?”
He lifted the fist holding my sweatshirt until the pendant hung beside my chin.
I couldn’t lower my head without pulling against the chain.
“Some kind of prize?”
His mouth was close enough that I could feel his breath.
I pushed against his wrist, trying to make space beneath his fingers.
Then his hand stopped.
“STOP THE EXERCISE,” Major Tse said.
Krzysztof released my sweatshirt, but the chain stayed hooked over his thumb until I pulled it free.
I closed my fingers around the pendant.
The major stepped between us before I could tuck it away.
“Open your hand.”
I looked at him instead.
His gaze stayed on the piece of metal showing between my fingers.
“Carolina. Let me see it.”
I opened my palm beneath my chin.
The broken circle lay sideways across my fingers, with the bar across its center.
He bent closer, then straightened so abruptly that I lowered my hand.
“Keep it there,” he said.
I held the pendant where he’d told me, and his fingers stopped just short of touching it.
Major Tse looked from the emblem to my face and said, “Who authorized you to carry that?”
The clasp
“My father gave it to me. Pedro Macias.”
I slipped a finger beneath the chain and worked the clasp around to the front. One end had pulled sideways. I couldn’t make it close.
“It’s mine, sir.”
The major put his hand down.
“Your father gave you that?”
“Yes.”
Alex shifted behind him. The instructor came around the barrier, but Major Tse held up his palm before anybody spoke.
“Can you breathe properly?”
“Yes. I want to take the chain off.”
“Do that.”
I folded it into my fist. My thumb covered the break in the circle.
Krzysztof rubbed his wrist where I’d held him. He’d managed to become the injured party without so much as changing places.
“We were doing the drill, sir.”
The major turned toward him.
“I’ll ask you.”
My kit bag lay beside the bins beyond the barrier. Before the drill, Alex had moved it there with his boot to clear space for his own.
I pointed.
“May I get my bag?”
Alex stepped toward it.
“I can bring—”
“I can get it.”
The major let me pass. The loose tape caught my cuff again. I pulled harder than I needed to and took a strip of thread with it.
When I returned, Krzysztof had joined Alex. Eliana stood beside them with her hand inside her pocket.
The instructor reached toward my shoulder.
“Do you need to sit out?”
I wanted a clean sweatshirt. I wanted my hands to stop shaking. Neither seemed available from that particular question.
“I need a different partner.”
Alex made a small sound.
Major Tse turned his head.
“Something to add?”
“Only that she’s been having trouble all day, sir.”
The handles
I set the bag between my boots.
The major looked at the stain across my sweatshirt.
“What happened there?”
“Lunch.”
“An accident,” Alex said.
“I asked her.”
Alex lowered his eyes. He could do respectful beautifully when somebody worth respecting was present.
I pulled the handles apart and laid the pendant inside the small pocket where I kept my instructions. My father’s stitching ran along its edge. He’d sewn that pocket in because he didn’t trust important things at the bottom of a bag.
He’d found a sandwich down there once. After that, everything required its own compartment.
The winter before he died, he’d repaired the handles while I sat beside him with my application open. “You’ll need another bag,” he’d said. I told him this one would do. He pulled the needle through with pliers and said, “Then hold this end.” When I stumbled over a question on the application, he made me read the whole thing aloud. “Don’t give me the part that frightened you. Give me the whole message.”
I closed the pocket.
Major Tse was still waiting.
“Alex pushed his bowl into me.”
“It slid,” Alex said. “There was food on the surface. I was moving it, and she grabbed it.”
“You put your hand over the napkins.”
“I was getting one.”
“You told me to ask.”
He looked toward the instructor.
“I don’t remember every word of a conversation over lunch.”
I did. Every word had followed me out of that room.
The major asked whether anyone else had been there.
Eliana took her hand from her pocket.
“I was beside Carolina.”
I turned toward her. At lunch, she’d moved away from the spill. That had hurt less than the laughter. I’d spent the afternoon making excuses for her because I needed somebody to be merely frightened.
“Tell him,” I said.
Alex looked at her.
The major moved a step sideways so she could face him without looking past Alex.
“Before you answer, this isn’t some discussion between the four of you. Each person speaks for themselves.”
Eliana rubbed her palm against her trousers.
I wanted to help her. That was the embarrassing part. I wanted to make the first sentence easy, as if she’d been the one wearing somebody else’s lunch.
“You were right there,” I said.
She looked at the bag between my feet, then at the others.
“I saw the bowl fall.”
Beside the barrier
“Fall from where?” Major Tse said.
“His hand, I think.”
Alex gave a small nod.
I put my foot against the bag to stop myself picking it up.
“If I can change partners, I can finish.”
The instructor glanced at Major Tse.
“We can arrange that.”
Krzysztof stepped forward.
“Sir, we’re supposed to practice holds. That’s what I did. She grabbed my wrist, and then the necklace got tangled. I didn’t know she had it on.”
The major pointed toward the barrier.
“Where was she standing when you took hold?”
Krzysztof put his foot beside mine.
“There.”
“And where did she finish?”
He glanced at the plywood behind me.
“She stepped back.”
“I was pushed,” I said.
“You moved. I was holding on.”
The instructor went to the place where Krzysztof had started.
“I told you to wait until both partners were ready.”
“I thought she was ready.”
“Did you ask?”
“We’d been shown what to do.”
That wasn’t an answer. He delivered it with such confidence that I nearly checked my own memory.
The instructor held up his hand in the position we’d been taught.
“Show me the grip.”
Krzysztof reached toward my collar.
I stepped away so fast my heel struck the bag.
“Not on her,” the instructor said.
His hand stopped between us.
Alex spread his palms.
“Nobody wants to upset her. We can switch. That’s all she asked for.”
That was my first fix, handed back to me with his fingerprints on it. Change partners. Finish the day. Let the stain and the card and the shove become a disagreement everybody had generously agreed to forget.
The major turned toward me.
“Would you be able to continue with the instructor?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Alex began walking toward the other trainees.
“Stay here,” the major said.
Alex stopped.
“We haven’t finished.”
His pleasant face went stiff around the mouth.
“Sir, she’s struggled with the group since this morning. We tried to include her. We gave her the route. She walked off on her own. Now everything we do is being taken the wrong way.”
Eliana stared at the ground.
I turned toward her.
“You took the route from me.”
“You were holding it for ages.”
“I was reading it.”
“We all needed to see it.”
“You tore it.”
Alex looked over my shoulder at the trainees waiting beyond the barrier. Several had moved closer. He lowered his voice, which somehow made me sound louder before I’d said anything.
“We were testing what she’d remembered.”
The major looked at the instructor.
“Was that part of the exercise?”
“No.”
Alex put his hands behind his back.
“It was practice. We thought it might help.”
I wanted to throw my bag at him. It wouldn’t have traveled far. Dad had repaired the handles, not installed a motor.
Instead, I pointed at Eliana’s pocket.
“She’s still got part of it.”
Her hand covered the pocket opening.
Eliana’s pocket
“Take it out,” Major Tse said.
Eliana pulled out the folded piece.
The edge had gone soft where she’d handled it. She opened it halfway, then held it toward me.
“Here. You can have it back.”
I kept my hands at my sides.
“Show him.”
Her arm stayed out between us.
Alex looked at the paper.
“We shouldn’t have torn it. That’s fair. We got carried away.”
“Who tore it?” the major said.
“Eliana did the actual tearing, but—”
“Then Eliana can answer.”
She lowered the paper.
I thought she might cry. My own eyes had been burning since the barrier, and I was annoyed that hers might get there first. It wasn’t a generous thought. I’d run short of generous before the second junction.
“She said she could do it without the card,” Eliana said.
I stared at her.
“No.”
“You said you knew where you were going.”
“After you tore it.”
“You walked ahead.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me see what was left.”
Eliana looked at Major Tse.
“She wouldn’t let anyone help. Krzysztof offered his hand when she fell, too. She walked past him.”
Something went loose in my stomach.
I’d handed her the route because we were supposed to work together. I’d asked her to speak because she’d been there. Both times, she’d waited until I let go.
Krzysztof nodded.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say. We can’t do anything right.”
The instructor stood beside me, but he hadn’t been at lunch or on our part of the route. His eyes went from one face to the next.
The others were listening now. Not just the three in front of me. The trainees who’d laughed at breakfast stood behind them, close enough to hear Eliana say I’d refused help.
I could feel the picture changing without me.
The woman in the dirty sweatshirt. The broken necklace. The trouble at every exercise.
“Give him the paper,” I said.
Eliana handed it to the major.
He opened it completely.
“Where’s the rest?”
“Back on the route.”
“Why did you keep this piece?”
“I didn’t want to leave all of it lying around.”
“You left the rest,” I said.
“I couldn’t collect everything while you were walking off.”
Alex nodded again. His head was getting a full day’s exercise.
The major held the paper between two fingers.
“Carolina, did you ask them to test your memory?”
“No.”
“Did you say you could continue without the card?”
“After she tore it, I took the path I’d already read.”
“That’s what she’s saying,” Alex said.
“No,” I said.
It came out too loud.
A trainee behind him looked down. Somebody else shifted away from the group.
I tried again.
“That’s not what she’s saying.”
Major Tse lifted his hand.
“One at a time.”
I shut my mouth.
Eliana wiped beneath one eye. I wanted to wipe mine too, but that felt like joining a competition I’d never agreed to enter.
“Sir, I shouldn’t have torn it,” she said. “I accept that. But she asked us to let her do it herself.”
The major looked at me.
I could answer no again. I could say it until evening. There were still three of them and one of me.
I opened my bag for the instructions I’d brought that morning. My father had made a pocket for important things. He hadn’t made one for proving you weren’t a liar.
The pendant slid against the paper inside.
Major Tse’s gaze dropped to it.
Alex followed his eyes.
“Maybe we could establish what that is before we go any further, sir.”
The empty place
Major Tse folded the torn card.
“You don’t decide what we establish.”
Alex lowered his chin.
“No, sir. I only meant she seems very protective of it.”
“It’s her property.”
“But you asked who authorized—”
“I know what I asked.”
The instructor moved the waiting trainees back from the barrier. Alex turned as if he might go with them.
“Not you,” the major said.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The instructor came back and asked me again whether I needed medical attention. I told him I could breathe and move my shoulder. He said he’d have someone check me before I trained again.
Major Tse looked at the bag.
“You can take your things over there and sit down. We’ll deal with this.”
There was a bench beyond the bins.
From it, I could see the training lanes. I could sit with my bag and wait while the same three people explained me.
“What happens to my place?”
“You’re not being sent away.”
“Am I finishing today?”
“You’re not going back into that drill now.”
Alex rubbed his palms together.
“We should probably get back, sir. We’ve held everybody up.”
I bent for the handles.
My father had pushed the needle through that canvas with pliers. I’d covered his repair with tape when the fabric around it started to give. All morning, I’d kept that bag off the ground because nobody would make room.
Now there was a whole bench available. Safely out of everybody’s way.
I straightened without lifting it.
“I don’t want to sit over there while they tell you what I said.”
Krzysztof shook his head.
“Nobody’s trying to get rid of you.”
“You told me to make it easy.”
“During a hold.”
“Before I was ready.”
He threw his hands out.
“Then I’m sorry I thought you were ready. What else am I supposed to say?”
The major stepped between us again.
“Enough.”
The instructor turned toward the other trainees. The last training lane was being cleared for the next group. My place opposite the barrier disappeared as someone carried the equipment aside.
I’d missed it.
Whatever happened now, I couldn’t go back to the minute before his hand closed around my collar and do the exercise everybody else had done.
My face crumpled. I put my sleeve against my nose, forgot about the stew, and immediately regretted choosing that particular source of comfort.
Alex looked away.
That almost made me cry harder. He’d wanted an audience all day. Now he had one, he couldn’t bear to look at the result.
“I can take her bag,” Eliana said.
“No.”
She stopped beside the handle.
I pushed the bag behind my heel.
Major Tse waited until I lowered my sleeve.
“What do you want me to hear?”
I nearly said everything. I nearly started at breakfast and gave him the whole miserable day in one breath.
Instead, I looked at the paper in his hand.
“Ask them where I asked her to tear it.”
Eliana’s eyes moved toward Alex.
The major kept looking at me.
“And don’t let them answer for each other.”
The whole message
Major Tse turned to Eliana.
“Where did Carolina ask you?”
“Before we moved off.”
“Before you took the card?”
“She was still looking at it.”
Alex opened his mouth.
The major pointed away from us.
“Stand beside the barrier. Face this way. You’ll get your turn.”
Alex moved.
Krzysztof stayed where he was.
“Where were you?” the major said to him.
“Beside them.”
“What did Carolina say?”
“She said she knew the path.”
“Before or after the card was torn?”
Krzysztof rubbed his wrist again.
“After, I think.”
Eliana took a step toward him.
“You weren’t listening to everything.”
The major lifted his hand.
Krzysztof looked at her, then at Alex.
“She asked you to turn it around. I remember that.”
I pressed my fingers into the taped handle.
“What did Eliana say?” the major said.
Krzysztof took longer this time.
“Something about memorizing it.”
“Did Carolina agree to have it torn?”
“I didn’t hear her say that.”
The major held the scrap toward Eliana.
“And when she asked to see this?”
Eliana’s mouth opened, then closed.
“You’ve still got it,” I said.
“I was going to give it back.”
“At which junction?”
She looked at Alex again.
The major moved into her line of sight.
“Answer her.”
“I should have given it back at the junction.”
“The first one?”
“Yes.”
“And the next?”
“Yes.”
The major lowered the paper.
I pulled my father’s pendant from the pocket. I hadn’t meant to bring it out. My fingers had gone in after the instructions and closed around it instead.
“Please decide what they did before you decide what this is.”
Major Tse looked at my hand.
Then he took a step back.
“You’re right.”
Alex came away from the barrier.
“Sir, if there’s some family connection here, we couldn’t possibly have known.”
The major turned toward him.
“Would you have left her alone if you had?”
Alex stopped.
My father hadn’t worn a uniform. I could have told them that at breakfast, at lunch, at every point where they’d mistaken his daughter for somebody who didn’t belong.
“He worked in a laundry,” I said.
Major Tse nodded.
“With my father.”
The broken circle
Alex stared at him.
“Your father, sir?”
“Wendell Tse. He repaired the machines. Pedro worked beside him.”
I held the pendant flat.
Dad’s work had come home under his fingernails. I could still picture him scrubbing them before touching the repaired bag, as if the canvas would complain.
The major pointed to the bar across the circle.
“My father made those. Two of them, when he retired. He kept one and gave the other to Pedro.”
“Dad said a friend made it.”
“A washer from a machine they couldn’t get parts for. He cut it and put the bar through.”
My father had called it his retirement jewelry. He’d worn it under his work shirt for years after that. Retirement, in his case, remained an attractive rumor.
Major Tse swallowed.
“Mine’s at home. After my father died, I kept his.”
I turned the pendant over. The back had been rubbed smooth against Dad’s shirts, then mine.
“He gave me this before he died.”
The major put his hands at his sides.
“When I saw it, I thought somebody had taken something belonging to my family. I should have asked whose it was.”
Nobody moved.
“I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way,” he said.
Alex looked from him to me.
“Well, that explains the confusion. None of us understood there was a personal history. Obviously, if we’d known her father worked here—”
“You knew what she told you,” the major said. “She was here for communications training.”
“Yes, sir. And we were trying to include her.”
I put the pendant away.
“Tell him about the bins.”
Alex’s eyes came back to me.
“Carolina, that was a joke about the bag.”
“And lunch?”
“I shouldn’t have said it twice.”
“The bowl.”
He looked at my sweatshirt.
“I’ve said I’m sorry about the spill.”
“You said it slid.”
His mouth stayed open.
The major waited.
Alex turned toward Eliana.
“You saw it. I moved the bowl. That’s all. It wasn’t some planned thing.”
Eliana had both hands against her legs now.
“You pushed it into her.”
Alex took a step toward her.
“You said it fell.”
“It fell after you pushed it.”
“That’s a very different description from what you gave five minutes ago.”
“Because you were standing beside me.”
The major moved his arm between them.
“Stay where you are.”
Alex’s face changed. The little smile went, and the volume he’d used at breakfast returned.
“So everybody’s going to pretend they weren’t laughing? She laughed. He laughed. I didn’t tear the card, and I didn’t grab anybody. Now there’s a necklace, and suddenly I’m responsible for the entire day.”
I wanted to answer that. I had several answers available, and none suitable for someone who still wanted to train there.
The major looked at Krzysztof.
“Why did you move her into the barrier?”
“I thought she’d push back.”
“That wasn’t the drill.”
“I know that now.”
“You were told before you started.”
Krzysztof pressed his lips together.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you keep hold after she tried to make room under your hand?”
“I didn’t know about the chain.”
“The question was about your hand.”
He looked at me.
I left my collar alone. I’d been pulling it into place since he released it. Let him look at what he’d stretched.
“Yes,” he said.
Alex spread his hands again.
“There. That’s what happened. He went too far with the hold. Eliana went too far with the card. I’m being treated like I put my hands around her neck.”
“You don’t get to distribute this,” the major said.
The instructor stood beside the bag. Behind him, the trainees who’d laughed at lunch had gone quiet.
Major Tse pointed to the cleared lane.
“None of you continues today.”
Alex’s hands dropped.
“Sir, we need the completion for tomorrow’s training.”
“You won’t receive it.”
“So we repeat a whole day over this?”
“You’ll repeat the work you didn’t do properly. Under supervision. You won’t choose partners.”
Krzysztof looked toward the empty lane.
“All of it?”
“The day is incomplete.”
Eliana wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
“Can I at least finish the route?”
“No.”
Alex turned toward me.
“Is that what you wanted?”
The major started to speak, but I answered first.
“I wanted my lunch.”
A sound came from one of the waiting trainees. It stopped immediately.
Alex’s face went red.
“I’ll replace the sweatshirt. I’ll buy her a bag. If that’s what this is about, we can settle it.”
I pulled my bag upright.
“Leave my things alone.”
Major Tse pointed toward the bench.
“You’ll wait there with the instructor while I arrange your return. Separately from Carolina.”
Alex stayed where he was.
“And she’s allowed to carry on because you knew her father?”
“No,” the major said. “She’ll be assessed on work she completes. You were stopped for what you did.”
Eliana moved first.
She passed my bag without reaching for it. Krzysztof followed her.
Alex looked at the trainees behind the instructor, searching for the faces that had laughed with him. Nobody moved to make room beside him.
“Carolina,” he said. “You could have said who you were.”
“I did.”
He went to the bench.
The second route
Before the afternoon ended, I stood at the start of the route with another card.
My shoulder had been checked. The chain stayed inside my bag.
The instructor held out the card but didn’t let go immediately.
“If you need to stop, you stop.”
“I understand.”
“You don’t have to finish to make a point.”
“I came to do this.”
He released it.
The three of them were still beside the bins when we set off. Alex leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Eliana kept her face toward the path.
I didn’t hurry past them. That took more effort than it should have.
At the first junction, I read both sides of the card.
The instructor waited.
There was no hand reaching over mine, no shoulder moving into the space I’d left. I checked the direction again because my first attempt had become so tangled with their voices that I didn’t trust the part I’d remembered.
Then I pointed.
“This way.”
“Give me the whole instruction.”
I read it aloud.
My father would’ve approved of that. He’d always suspected half a sentence could cause more trouble than a broken washing machine.
At the next junction, I stopped before the instructor did.
“There’s another instruction on the back.”
“Then use it.”
I turned the card over.
Such a small thing. Paper in my own hands. Both sides available without negotiation.
By the time we returned, the afternoon group had finished. The instructor stood me beside the place where the others had handed in their cards.
“Route completed,” he said.
Alex lifted his head.
The instructor handed me back the card.
“You checked when you weren’t sure. Keep doing that.”
I wanted to say something capable and military. What came out was, “Thank you.”
My eyes started again. Apparently they hadn’t received the message that we were past that part.
Eliana stood from the bench.
“I’m sorry about the card.”
I looked at her.
“And what you told him?”
She pressed her hands together.
“You didn’t ask me to tear it.”
The trainees nearest us could hear.
“Say that part again.”
She looked toward them, then back at me.
“Carolina didn’t ask me to tear the route card. I took it from her.”
I nodded once.
Krzysztof got to his feet beside her.
“I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”
“No,” I said. “You shouldn’t.”
Neither came closer.
The instructor opened the gate and called them through.
The strip of tape
Major Tse found me beside my bag after the others left.
I had the pendant on my palm and the clasp between my fingernails. The bent end wouldn’t sit back in its loop.
“Don’t force it,” he said. “You’ll break the catch.”
I put it in the pocket Dad had sewn.
“I’ll get it fixed.”
He crouched a little to look at the handles.
“Pedro’s work?”
“The stitching. The tape’s mine.”
“He used to say people blamed the machines when they overloaded them.”
“Then he’d overload our washing machine.”
The major laughed once.
“That sounds right.”
I could’ve managed the formal conversation. His laugh nearly finished me.
Dad had been gone long enough that most people only knew him from what I told them. Here was someone who knew that laugh belonged at the end of a complaint about him.
“He always said he could fit one more towel,” I said.
“My father said he could fit one more shift.”
I rubbed my sleeve under my nose again, using the clean side this time.
The major stood.
“I’m sorry you spent your first day like this.”
“I want tomorrow to be different.”
“You won’t be paired with them.”
“And the training?”
“You’ll do the training. The parts you missed will be made up.”
I pressed the tape down. Its end lifted.
He held out his hand.
“May I?”
I gave him the handle to hold while I wound the loose strip around it. He kept the canvas still. Dad used to do that for me before I was old enough to be the one holding the other end.
“There,” I said.
The major let go.
At the communications hut, the instructor was waiting by the open door. He moved his own bag along the wall and pointed to the space beside it.
“Yours can go here.”
I carried mine over.
The tape held. The pendant stayed in its pocket. My sweatshirt still looked as if I’d lost a fight with a saucepan.
The instructor stepped back from the doorway.
“Ready, Carolina?”
I set my bag beside his.
“Yes. Where do I start?”
If this stayed with you, send it to someone who knows how much a place in line can mean.
Being judged and pushed aside doesn’t stop at the squad: read about a pastor who tells a nine-year-old he doesn’t belong and a husband who opens his wife’s email. For another story of unfair treatment at home, see the $417.60 bill for three.
