“Thank you,” I said.
Her eyes filled again, but she did not make the moment about her tears.
That was new.
After dinner, my father asked me to step outside.
We stood under the oak tree as the evening cooled around us.
For a while, he said nothing.
Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small photograph.
It was old.
Me at twenty-two, in uniform, grinning so wide it almost hurt to look at.
My first commissioning ceremony.
“I kept this in my desk,” he said.
I looked at the photo, then at him.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I stopped taking it out after everything happened.”
His voice roughened.
“Not because I stopped being proud. Because I didn’t know how to be proud and disappointed at the same time.”
I said nothing.
He deserved the discomfort of finishing the sentence.
“I chose disappointment because it was easier than admitting I didn’t understand.”
