The yellow cab let me out at exactly five on Oak Ridge Road, three weeks before my military intelligence unit was due back in Virginia.

The grass was knee-deep and overrun with crabgrass and dandelions, and three weeks of soggy paper flyers were crammed into the metal mailbox so tightly the latch hung open.

I hauled my canvas duffel up onto the porch, noticing the spot where the thick webbed shoulder strap had been resewn at the base staging area.

Fixing that one strap had cost me forty dollars of my own money, but at that moment all I cared about was getting inside to see my daughter.

I turned the brass doorknob, but the latch caught twice before giving way with a stiff scrape against the swollen wooden frame.

The stale air inside hit me the second I crossed the threshold.

It was a dark, sour smell of spoiled milk and damp cardboard, thick in the late-summer humidity.

At the kitchen island, green mold covered a stack of three stoneware plates left in the sink, and two black flypaper strips hung heavy near the faucet.

“Lily?” I called, putting my duffel down on the runner rug.

A faint rustle came from the far end of the counter, by the dark doorway of the pantry.

My four-year-old daughter came into view, standing barefoot on a wooden stool and holding a grimy plastic cereal bowl in both hands.

Her light brown hair was knotted into tight snarls across the back of her head, and her pink pajama top had broad gray grease stains down the front.

“Mama?” she whispered, her voice thin in the silent house.

“Are you really home, or am I dreaming?”

She clutched her stuffed teddy bear tight against her chest with one arm, her little fingers sinking into its worn brown fur.

I dropped to my knees on the floorboards and gathered her small body into my arms.

Her skin was warm, and she smelled of old sugar and dust.

“I’m really here, Lily,” I said.