My Stepmother Said I Disgraced The Uniform Until A Soldier Stood Up And Told The Truth

you held his hand. I’ll carry that forever.

I held it for a long time.

The porch light was yellow and the photograph was worn at the fold and Wade’s face was clear and specific in the way that faces of people gone too young are always specific, the particular unfinished quality of twenty-one, certain and unmarked and gone.

I did not cry.

I closed the wallet.continue reading …