blonde, perfectly maintained, always camera-ready. Still carrying the psychic weight of my first deployment to Iraq, I had been drawn to her lightness, her apparent normalcy. She represented everything I thought I was fighting for: the American dream, stability, home. We married within eight months. She was twenty-two; I was twenty-five. The kids came quickly. Emma,…
never been close. Michael had a way of taking shortcuts, of finding the easy path, while I was wired to choose the hard right over the easy wrong. Our mother doted on Michael, maybe because he reminded her less of war and loss. I left for basic training the day after high school graduation and,…
My name is Kenneth Dunar. I joined the army at eighteen, chasing a sense of purpose after my father, a decorated Vietnam vet, died from complications of Agent Orange exposure. My mother had remarried quickly—too quickly—to a man who brought a son into our lives. Michael, two years my junior. He was charming where I was…
After four deployments, I finally came home. My wife texted: “I’m marrying your brother tomorrow. Don’t come. The kids have a new dad now.” I replied with three words: “Wish you well.” Then I made one call. Eighteen hours later, I had 31 missed calls—and one voicemail from my brother that changed everything.
The C-17 Globemaster touched down at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst with the kind of bone-jarring jolt that would have bothered me four years ago. Now, after four consecutive deployments across three continents, the turbulence felt like a lullaby. I was thirty-four years old, looked forty, and felt ancient.
“I understand, but please, believe me, it was completely beyond my control,” Veronica pleaded, the words catching in her throat like burrs. “Of course. Things happen.” Dr. Evans’ tone softened, but only fractionally, the way a glacier might thaw a single millimeter. “We will keep your resume on file. However, as you know, the personal…
“Yes, Ms. Hayes. Dr. Evans is expecting you. Are you nearby?” “No, I…” Her voice wavered, a traitorous tremor. “I’m not going to make it. There was an… unforeseen situation.” A clinical pause hung on the line, followed by the cool, measured voice of Dr. Marina Evans, the head of the prestigious Northwood Preparatory Academy. The…
All because of the cursed subway. “Signal malfunctions,” they’d called it. The station closure, the suffocating crush of bodies on the escalators, and then, the final insult—the snap of her heel as she ran up the last flight of stairs. Why had she worn these shoes? But it wasn’t about the heel. They say trouble…
Thirteen, an unlucky number. She should have left last year when another school had offered her a position, but she’d refused. She couldn’t abandon her third-graders in the middle of the school year. And now, they had shown her no such loyalty. Her train, the one carrying her to the interview that was supposed to…
It felt as if that departing train was pulling away with the last frayed thread of her hope. “Now departing on Track 32,” a woman’s disembodied voice announced from the speakers above, smooth and indifferent. “The 8:15 Acela Express to Providence.” The voice was eerily similar to the one she’d heard on the phone a month ago. “Unfortunately,…
No one stopped. New York City has little time for another’s tears, especially on a Monday morning when everyone is racing toward their own urgent destinations. A woman in an Amtrak uniform shot her a disapproving look and muttered something into her shoulder radio. Probably calling security, Veronica thought with a detached sense of clarity. To remove the…