To my left was a sleek Mercedes SUV. To my right, a BMW convertible that probably cost more than my entire education. This was Arlington, Virginia, where status wasn’t just implied.
It was the very oxygen people breathed. I sat in the car for a moment, gripping the steering wheel. My knuckles were white.
Not the “I stayed up late watching Netflix” kind of tired, but the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from three days of managing a crisis in the South China Sea from a windowless bunker. I smoothed down my suit. It was a standard-issue gray pantsuit, practical, nondescript, and utterly devoid of style.
I stepped out into the crisp November air, the smell of wood smoke and fallen leaves hitting me. Before I could even reach the doorbell, the massive oak door swung open. “Oh, Collins,” Aunt Marjorie sighed, framing herself in the doorway like she was posing for a lifestyle magazine cover.
She was sixty-five, but fighting it tooth and nail with Botox and a wardrobe that cost a fortune. “You’re still wearing that gloomy gray thing on a holiday?”
She stepped aside, ushering me into the foyer, which smelled overwhelmingly of potpourri and expensive perfume. “Look at Nathan,” she gushed, gesturing dramatically toward the living room.
My cousin Nathan stood by the fireplace holding a tumbler of scotch. He was thirty-five, tall, broad-shouldered, and looking like a recruitment poster in his Navy dress blues. The gold buttons on his jacket caught the light from the crystal chandelier.
He looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight. But to Marjorie, he was a statue of perfection. “Doesn’t he look like a god?” Marjorie whispered loudly in my ear as she pulled me into a hug that felt more like a frisk search.
Her eyes traveled down my body, landing critically on my shoes. They were sensible black pumps, the heels worn down from pacing situation rooms, the leather scuffed from kicking open a stuck door in a safe house last week. Marjorie’s lip curled just a fraction of a millimeter.
“We really must take you shopping, dear. You look like you work at the DMV.”
I accepted the insult like I accepted incoming intel. Store it, analyze it, don’t react. The dining room was a masterpiece of suburban theater.
The table was set with fine china, silver cutlery that gleamed aggressively, and a centerpiece of autumn flowers that probably cost more than my car payment. “Sit. Sit!” Marjorie commanded.
She placed Nathan at the head of the table. Naturally. I was seated on the side, squeezed between a decorative vase and the drafty window.
My mother sat opposite me, her eyes fixed on her empty plate, already shrinking into herself. The turkey was brought out, a golden-brown twenty-pound bird that looked like it had been styled by a food coordinator. Marjorie picked up the carving knife, but let Nathan take over.
“A warrior needs to carve the meat,” she announced, beaming. As the platters were passed around, the discrimination became a silent comedy. Marjorie heaped thick, juicy slices of white meat onto Nathan’s plate, followed by a mountain of stuffing and cranberry sauce.
“You need your strength, baby,” she cooed. “After everything you’ve done for this country, fighting in the desert, protecting us.”
When the platter reached me, it was mostly picked over. Marjorie reached across, grabbed the serving spoon, and dropped a single dry wing and a scoop of lukewarm green bean casserole onto my china.
You don’t burn calories like Nathan does. He’s out there in the field.”
I looked at the dry turkey wing. I hadn’t eaten a real meal in thirty-six hours.
The irony was rich. While Nathan was indeed a SEAL, and a damn good one, his last deployment had been a training rotation in Germany. My office chair had recently been inside a dusty Humvee coordinating drone strikes.
“The food looks delicious, Aunt Marjorie,” I said. It was the lie that kept the peace. She took a long sip of her Napa Valley Cabernet, leaving a lipstick stain on the rim of the crystal.
“You know,” she started, and I felt the muscles in my neck tighten. The preamble always signaled an attack. “I heard on Fox News that the Pentagon is looking to cut administrative staff.
Are you worried, honey?”
I cut a piece of the dry meat, chewing slowly. “My department is stable. Thank you.”
“Oh, ‘stable,’” she mocked gently.
“That’s code for boring, isn’t it? Look, if you get laid off, I’m sure Nathan could pull some strings. Nathan, couldn’t you get her a job at the base?
Maybe answering phones or processing payroll. At least then she’d be near real soldiers. It might rub off on her.”
The table went quiet.
The sound of silverware scraping against china seemed amplified. Nathan stopped chewing. He looked at his mother, then at me.
There was a flicker of embarrassment in his eyes. He knew I outranked him. He didn’t know exactly what I did—intel is compartmentalized for a reason—but he knew that lieutenant colonel wasn’t a rank you got for answering phones.
“Mom,” Nathan said, his voice low. “Collins is doing fine. Let’s not talk shop.”
“I’m just trying to help,” Marjorie threw her hands up, the diamonds on her fingers flashing.
“I worry about her. It’s not natural for a woman her age to be so unaccomplished.”
My mother made a small noise like a whimpering dog, but she didn’t look up. She kept cutting her green beans into tiny microscopic pieces, terrified of drawing fire.
Marjorie wasn’t done. The wine had loosened her filter, and her need to elevate her son required a stepping stone. I was that stone.
She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing with malicious delight. “Let’s be honest, Collins. We’re family.
We can say these things. It’s been eighteen years. Eighteen years in the Army.” She pointed with her fork at Nathan’s chest where a rack of colorful ribbons sat proudly on his blue uniform.
“Look at Nathan. He’s a Christmas tree of valor. And you?” She gestured to my plain gray blazer.
“Not a single ribbon, not a single medal to hang on the wall. Nothing.”
I placed my knife and fork down. I aligned them perfectly parallel on the plate.
It was a grounding technique—order in chaos. “Awards in my line of work aren’t usually public, Aunt Marjorie,” I said softly. “Excuses,” she scoffed.
“If you do something brave, they pin a medal on you. That’s how it works. If you don’t have medals, it’s because you haven’t done anything.
Is that it? Is your job just making coffee for the generals? Is that why you never talk about it?”
She laughed again, looking around the table for validation.
“Don’t be ashamed, Collins. Truly, the world needs people to file paperwork. Not everyone has the stomach for danger.
Some people just need a safe little hole to hide in while the real men do the work.”
The air in the room seemed to vanish. I looked at my mother, begging silently for her to say something. Say I’m smart.
Say I’m hardworking. Say anything. But she just took a sip of water, her hand trembling.
I was alone. I looked away from my mother and fixed my gaze on the centerpiece of the table. A single tall white candle burned in the middle of the autumn arrangement.
The flame flickered, dancing in the draft from the window. It was mesmerizing. It was hypnotic.
And suddenly, I wasn’t in a dining room in Arlington anymore. The smell of roast turkey vanished, replaced by the scent of damp earth and freshly cut grass. The white tablecloth faded into the pristine white marble of a headstone.
The flickering candle wasn’t a decoration. It was the eternal flame of memory. The insult about hiding from danger echoed in my ears, but it swirled together with a voice from the past, dragging me backward, down into the deep, dark well of memory where the real scars began.
The flame of the candle blurred, pulling me back to a gray, drizzly morning in Arlington National Cemetery twenty-eight years ago. I was twelve. The world felt too big, too cold, and entirely too empty without my father.
The grass was impossibly green, contrasting sharply with the rows of white marble headstones that stretched out like silent soldiers standing at eternal attention. My father’s funeral wasn’t a grand affair. He was a quiet man in life, and he remained a quiet man in death.
There were no news cameras, no crowds of weeping admirers, just a small group of men in trench coats who stood at a respectful distance, their faces hard and unreadable, and the honor guard performing the flag presentation. I watched, mesmerized and heartbroken, as the soldiers folded the American flag. Thirteen folds, precise, sharp, meaningful.
Each fold a tribute to a life given in service. When the officer knelt in front of my mother and presented the tight blue triangle with the white stars facing up, he whispered the words I would memorize forever. “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful nation…”
My mother took the flag, her hands trembling so violently she nearly dropped it.
I wanted to reach out, to touch the coarse fabric, to feel the last physical piece of my father. But then Marjorie’s voice cut through the solemn silence like a serrated knife. She was standing right behind us, dressed in a black coat that looked more appropriate for a fashion runway than a burial.
She leaned toward my mother, not to offer a tissue or a hug, but to whisper something that would burn a hole in my heart. “See, Sarah,” Marjorie hissed, her breath smelling of mints and judgment. “This is the price of stubbornness.
If he had just listened to me and gone into commercial real estate, he’d still be here. He’d be closing deals in D.C., not rotting in a wooden box for a pension that won’t even cover your rent.”
I froze. The tears drying on my cheeks turned cold.
At twelve years old, I didn’t have the words to fight back, but I felt the acid of her words eating through me. To Marjorie, my father wasn’t a patriot who died protecting assets in Eastern Europe. He was a bad investment.
He was a failure because he didn’t leave behind a portfolio of strip malls and duplexes. That moment defined the rest of my life. It drew a line in the sand.
On one side was Marjorie’s world, loud, shiny, and hollow. On the other was my father’s world, silent, dangerous, and honorable. I chose my side right then and there.
As I grew up, the divide only deepened. While Nathan was being groomed to be the golden child, I became the ghost. I remember my tenth birthday.
It was a Tuesday. I had woken up with that specific bubbly excitement that only a child feels, waiting for the balloons, the cake, the happy birthday song. I waited all morning.
Then all afternoon. By dinnertime, the silence was deafening. Mom was rushing around the kitchen, but not for me.
Marjorie and Nathan had come over. “Did you hear?” Marjorie announced, bursting through the door, her voice booming. “Nathan won the regional swim meet.
First place in the freestyle. My little Olympian!”
Nathan, dripping wet hair and holding a cheap plastic trophy, beamed. Mom clapped, her face lighting up in a way it never did for me.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. We have to celebrate. Let’s order pizza.”
I sat on the stairs hugging my knees.
My tenth birthday, double digits, and it had been completely erased by a swimming trophy. I didn’t say a word. I just went back to my room, pulled out my math homework, and worked until my eyes blurred.
If they weren’t going to love me, I decided I would make sure they couldn’t ignore me. I would be undeniable. By high school, I was undeniable—but not in the way Marjorie valued.
When I was accepted into West Point, the United States Military Academy, it was one of the proudest moments of my life. I had worked myself to the bone. I was the valedictorian of my class.
I placed the acceptance letter on the kitchen counter, waiting for someone to notice. Marjorie saw it first. She picked it up with two fingers as if it were a dirty napkin.
“West Point?” she sniffed, tossing it back down. “Good Lord, Collins. Why would a girl want to go there? Continue reading…
