Fifteen Years After My Father Changed the Locks, He Seated Me at Table Twenty-Two

“What are you going to do with those forty-three envelopes?” Clare asked, her voice light against my shoulder.

“Pack them in my command trunk,” I told her.

“Right next to my official service record.”

“And the old picture of us on the hood?”

“That goes on the dashboard for the drive back to base,” I said.

David checked his wristwatch in the amber floodlight.

“It’s past midnight.

We have a breakfast reservation at the Main Street Diner at eight.”