It is enough to say that she had been beaten, that she had been held, that she was trembling under a thin blanket, and that when I saw her I stopped being a colonel and became only her mother.

Chapter 3 — The Little Girl

For one heartbreaking second I did not see the grown woman in that bed.

I saw the little girl who used to mail handmade cards to deployed soldiers so they would feel less lonely — the child who waited at the front window every single time I came home from a rotation, watching for my car.

That girl had grown into a woman who could barely lift her head from a hospital pillow.

“Mom,” she whispered, and I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her, and she shook so hard it felt like holding a frightened child through a storm.