He’s not a soft man, Leo.

He handed me the letter across the desk, and he waited while I read the whole thing, and then he looked at me, and he said: ‘Sergeant Vance.

Get your gear.

Your brother has been holding down the fort long enough.

Go home and take the baton.'”

I stood there on the grass and stared at that worn envelope, and something enormous shifted in my chest — grief and gratitude and disbelief all at once, so much of it that I could hardly hold it upright.

Because I understood, now, what had really happened that morning.