He was assigned to Grant’s staff.

The citizenship question had not been resolved.

The system had not changed.

What had changed was that the right person in the right position had decided to act, and the technicality had been set aside.

Parker understood exactly what that meant — not a triumph of the principle that merit should transcend legal category, but a demonstration that exceptions could be made for the right individual when someone powerful enough wanted to make them.

It was, in a way, the story of his life compressed into a single bureaucratic moment.