“Who were they, really?”

I reached across the table and took her hand — the same hand I had held in the emergency room, on the night her world broke, when I had to decide what kind of man was going to answer for it.

“Just some old friends, sweetheart,” I said.

“Men I served with, a long time ago.

Men who never forgot the only thing that ever really mattered to any of us — that the most important duty in this whole world is protecting the people you love.”

My phone chimed on the table.