Valerie Came Home From Deployment to Find Her Twelve-Year-Old Daughter in Intensive Care

“Sit down.

You look like you just came off a plane.”

“I came off three.”

“Then sit down twice.” He almost smiled.

I sat, and he set the cup in front of me on the low table.

He kept his own cupped in both hands and watched it the way a man watches a parking meter run out.

“I’ve been hard on you,” he said.

“Since you got off that plane.”