That is what I liked about it. The standard was the standard.
Nine years. And then an invitation on thick cream paper with my parents' names under hers.
I nearly binned it.
Instead, on the day, I put on my blues.
And when I came into that hall a number of people looked at the medals before they looked at my face.
My mother knew me straight away. So did my father; his drink stopped halfway up.
And Rina's smile went.
And then my mother said her line about the lowly soldier, and a few people laughed, and I did not.
I was looking past her. At Casper.
My sister's groom had stopped smiling and his eyes were going over my uniform and his hand had gone tight round that glass.
And my mother read it as embarrassment.
"She won't stay," she told him. "She's never finished anything that mattered."
