“That was what everyone believed.”
“You presented it as verified fact.”
“Because she gave us nothing else!”
General Mercer’s expression hardened.
“A civilian does not earn the right to invent a service member’s record because classified orders deny her an explanation.”
Becca wrapped her arms around herself.
Her beautiful coat was soaked now, its careful lines collapsing beneath the rain.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
I looked at her.
“You didn’t ask.”
“I asked for five years.”
“You accused for five years.
There’s a difference.”
She had sent messages, but they were never questions.
They were verdicts.
Coward.
Failure.
Ungrateful.
You always run when things become difficult.
I had read every one of them from windowless rooms and temporary quarters, then deleted them because I could not safely answer.
Becca pointed toward the military file.
“So that’s it? A uniform means she’s forgiven for everything?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said.
“I followed orders.”
“And I buried him alone.”
The pain beneath her anger was real.
That was what made the moment difficult.
Becca had cared for Grandpa.
She had also turned that care into a weapon.
“You should not have had to carry all of it alone,” I told her.
“I wish I could have been there.
But wishing did not release me from my oath.”
For one second, she looked like my sister again—the girl who used to climb into my bed during thunderstorms and insist she was only there because I was scared.
Then she glanced toward the donors.
Her expression closed.
“This was my day to honor him.”
“It was never your day,” Ruth Calder said.
“It was his funeral.”
The cemetery representative approached the private guards and quietly instructed them to step away from the family entrance.
They obeyed without looking at Becca.
Hale removed one final page from his case.
“Thomas also specified who should receive the flag.”
Becca’s chin lifted.
“I am his eldest granddaughter.”
“That was not his instruction.”
She looked at me before Hale even said my name.
“No.”
“The flag is to be presented to Major Whitaker.”
Becca took a step backward.
“She wasn’t here.”
General Mercer answered quietly.
“She was exactly where he asked her to be.”
The funeral began twenty minutes late.
I sat in the front row beside an empty chair Grandpa had ordered reserved for Becca.
She occupied it only after everyone else had entered.
