The sun turned the brass on my ribbons into small signals. The day smelled like smoke and green things and the ache of old scripts.

He saw me first. My father. Gray now, skin the color of stubbornness, a can of beer balanced in the grip that used to hold clipboards like gospels. The corner of his mouth curled and a familiar cheerfulness slid into place like a mask he’d never learned how to take off.

“Our little clerk is home,” he called to the backyard, loud enough that the men at the far folding table stopped talking about fishing and pretended they’d been discussing geopolitics all along.