Our father had given it to me on the very day I was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

He’d handed it to me in this same driveway and told me I’d always have a safe place to come back to between deployments.

I carried the cardboard boxes up the gravel path and stopped at the foot of the wooden porch steps.

The solid oak front door stood wide open.

I set the folded boxes down on the porch planks and stepped quietly into the dim foyer.

A cordless drill was whining loudly in the middle of the living room.