The grill hissed like an animal learning to breathe again. Beyond it, the blue ridge foothills sloped down toward a neighborhood that slept in cul-de-sacs and woke to lawnmowers. Folding chairs bit into crabgrass. Men who used to salute each other pretended their back pain was weather.
I had not been home in almost a year.
I came straight from a change-of-command in DC, still in service dress whites because I’d run out of time and excuses to stop at quarters. The uniform was a mistake for a barbecue, but I was too tired to change and too stubborn to hide. The sun turned the brass on my ribbons into small signals. The day smelled like smoke and green things and the ache of old scripts.
He saw me first. My father. Gray now, skin the color of stubbornness, a can of beer balanced in the grip that used to hold clipboards like gospels. The corner of his mouth curled and a familiar cheerfulness slid into place like a mask he’d never learned how to take off.
