My deployment was real, my guardianship arrangement was legal, my intentions had been good.

But I want to be honest about what happened in that office, because it is the part of the story I am least proud of and most changed by.

Sitting across from that caseworker, I stopped hiding behind my own excuses.

Yes, I had been overseas.

Yes, I had been serving my country.

But I had also, if I was honest, found it easier to believe the comfortable updates than to demand the uncomfortable truth.

I had wanted to believe Hannah was fine, because believing it let me do my job without the unbearable weight of doubt, and so I had accepted every thin excuse my sister offered rather than push until I saw my daughter’s face on a screen with my own eyes.