The top of the closest bag had sagged open, showing the tan leather heel of my issued combat boots and three neatly folded sets of camouflage utility uniforms.

“Why are my service uniforms in garbage bags?” I asked.

Evelyn smoothed down the front of her yellow knit cardigan and fixed her pearl necklace again.

“We had to empty the upstairs closets on Sunday,” she said, her voice too cheerful and perfectly breezy.

“Come on into the kitchen, Leah.

Your father just made fresh coffee.”

I picked up the green canvas duffel by its heavy webbing strap and stepped across the threshold into the house I’d owned since 2012.

In the kitchen, my father, Richard, stood by the quartz center island holding a heavy white mug.

He was sixty-two, with the broad shoulders of a retired high school athletic director, and he wore his gold signet ring on his right hand.

He rapped the thick gold band once against the hard quartz with a sharp, metallic click.

“Welcome home, Captain,” he said.

His voice had the booming command tone he used whenever he expected everyone in the room to fall in line at once.

“The front deadbolt’s been changed,” I said.

“My brass key tagged 1994 won’t work in the cylinder.”