The smell of a military aircraft has a way of settling into you, not just your clothes but your bones, your thoughts, the quiet spaces where memory lives, and even after eighteen hours of recycled air, cramped legs, and half-slept dreams, it was still there when my boots finally hit American ground.
I hadn’t slept on purpose.
Sleep makes the mind wander, and I didn’t trust where mine would go if I let it.
Instead, I kept my eyes open and my focus fixed on a creased photograph tucked into the inside pocket of my uniform, the edges soft from being handled too often, showing a little girl with crooked pigtails, a grin missing two front teeth, and eyes that still believed adults meant what they said.
I didn’t tell anyone I was coming home early. Not my parents in Ohio, not my ex-wife, and not the neighbors who sometimes checked in on Rosie after school. I wanted the moment to be quiet, private, something that belonged only to us. I wanted to see her face before anyone else had time to explain the world to her in a way that hurt.
Straight from the airport, still in uniform, I drove to her elementary school.
The building looked exactly like it had a year ago, low and wide and painted a shade of beige that tried very hard not to stand out, with banners about kindness taped to the front fence and a hand-painted sign near the entrance that read Every Child Belongs Here.
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