“Then we don’t let it stick,” I said.

I came into my kitchen at eight that night with dried ocean salt crusted white on my uniform sleeves and beach sand packed into the seams of my boots, knowing it would cost forty-two dollars to get them resoled at the base shop.

Matty was at the table under the light, surrounded by colored markers and a sheet of white poster board.

He looked up when I walked in and pulled off his round plastic wire-rimmed glasses to clean them on the hem of his gray shirt.