Chapter 1 - THE AISLE
The first thing my mother did when she saw me at my father’s memorial was grab my Navy uniform.
Not hug me.
Not cry.
Not say my name.
She stepped into the center aisle of St. Andrew’s Church, seized the front of my dark dress uniform with both hands, and shoved me backward hard enough that my heel struck the pew behind me.
Gasps moved through the church.
Three hundred people had come to bury my father.
Neighbors.
Relatives.
Men he had served beside.
People from the shipyard where he had worked after leaving the Navy.
People who knew me only as the daughter who had not come home when he was dying.
My mother stared directly into my face.
“Take that uniform off,” Helen Hale hissed. “You don’t deserve honor in this church.”
I steadied myself.
My eyes burned, but I would not let her see me cry.
Not yet.
Mother pointed at the ribbons above my left pocket.
“You chose the Navy over your dying father, so don’t stand here pretending to grieve.”
Someone whispered my name.
Rebecca.
Lieutenant Rebecca Hale.
Thirty-four years old.
Eleven years in the United States Navy.
And according to my mother, the daughter who had abandoned Thomas Hale during the final three weeks of his life.
I said nothing.
Because the cruelest part was that I had believed it too.
Then, from the last row, a wooden pew creaked.
An elderly man stood.
Silver hair.
Dark formal jacket.
A chest full of decorations.
Captain Walter Briggs, retired.
My father’s oldest friend.
He held a sealed envelope above his shoulder.
And began walking straight toward us.
My mother’s face changed.
Not grief.
Fear.
Walter stopped between us.
“That’s enough, Helen.”
She stared at the envelope.
Walter raised it higher.
“Tom ordered me to deliver this if Rebecca ever came home.”
My mother lunged for it.
Walter pulled it out of reach.
The church went silent.
Then he broke the seal.
May you like
And my mother whispered:
“No.”
