Chapter 2 — The Uniform

The drive to the airfield lasted eleven minutes. I barely remember it. What stayed with me instead was my father’s voice.

A week before he died, we’d been sitting on the porch of the house he built, on land our family had owned for three generations, his glass of iced tea leaving a damp circle on the wooden armrest as the Carolina sun slipped behind the trees.

“Nicole,” he’d said. Whenever he wanted me to truly listen, his voice went calm and deliberate. “Whatever happens to this family — and something is coming, I can feel it — you do not use that uniform to get even with anybody.

Do you understand me?”

I remembered frowning.

“The uniform isn’t a weapon for revenge,” he continued. “It’s a promise you made to something bigger than yourself.”