Six months later, the early sun came up over the water near the base and turned the whole bay to amber and rose, and I sat on a wooden bench along the waterfront path with a thermos of coffee beside me and my daughter in her stroller, babbling at a scatter of seagulls on the grass.

Iris was thriving — round-cheeked, bright-eyed, loud with delight, entirely free of the inheritance that had shadowed my own childhood.

I heard gravel crunch behind me and turned to see Reid coming down the path in his dress whites, home from deployment forty-eight hours, his face opening into the smile that had first taught me what it felt like to be simply glad-of.

He kissed the top of my head and scooped Iris up out of the stroller, and she shrieked with joy and grabbed at his brass buttons.