My Father Called Me A Zero In Front Of Officers Until The Colonel Asked For My Call Sign

cold and tasted like the end of something and the beginning of something else simultaneously, and I stood.

“I have a briefing this afternoon,” I said.

He rose from instinct, decades of protocol moving through his body without requiring conscious instruction.

“Of course. Duty calls.”

There was a moment when we stood on either side of the table and the air continue reading …