“Welcome home, Sergeant.”
“Good to be home, Top.”
The front door behind us was open. Unlocked. Brushed-nickel Schlage deadbolt. My key. My lock. My house. Nobody was ever going to change that again.
Sometimes Nate asks me if I think about Brenda. If I feel bad about what happened to her family. I think about it honestly every time he asks, and every time the answer is the same. She had a choice. Every single day for seven months, she had a choice. She could have called Fort Carson. She could have asked Nate where I was. She could have done nothing at all. Instead, she changed my locks, rented my home, pocketed the money, forged documents, filed a false insurance claim, and put a lien on a deployed soldier’s only piece of property on earth. I do not feel bad. I feel grateful. Grateful for Captain Sparks. Grateful for Reed Callahan. Grateful for a law that exists because this country decided, a long time ago, that the people who defend it deserve to come home to something worth defending.