At my younger sister's wedding, my mother mocked my dress uniform in front of 200 guests and called me a "lowly soldier." I didn't argue. Then the groom saw my insignia—and his champagne glass started shaking before he whispered, "Major Hart."
The first laugh came from somewhere near the back of that room.
And then another one.
I had been inside my sister's reception about ten steps when my mother looked me up and down in front of nearly two hundred people and said, loudly enough for half of them, "What's a lowly soldier doing back here?"
And she smiled while she said it.
That is the part that did it. Not the words. I have had worse in nine years.
It was the certainty underneath them. The same certainty she had the day she decided Rina's future mattered more than mine.
I looked at my father. He looked at his drink.
