My Father Told Me to Pretend We’d Never Met at the White House—Then General Vance Announced I Oversaw His Defense Contract Review

I would not influence it.

I would not make my father pay for telling me I was no longer his daughter.

And I would not let him profit because I still was.

The decision had cost me direct authority over something important.

It gave me something else.

A clean boundary.

Work could remain work.

Family could remain complicated.

Neither had to become a weapon for the other.

I lifted the blue mug.

The Army star sticker had peeled slightly again.

I pressed the corner down.

Three-dollar mug.

Probably worth less now.

Trevor remembered it.

Arthur remembered it.

Daniel mocked it.

I kept using it because it held coffee.