“Yes.”
“The soldiers coming existed before him.”
“Yes.”
“The work existed before him.”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
Walter looked at Evelyn.
She did not smile now.
She nodded.
Walter rubbed his wrist.
“Fine.”
Alicia exhaled.
“But.”
“What?”
“No speeches about the incident.”
Alicia hesitated.
“Dad.”
“No.”
“It may be impossible not to acknowledge.”
“Then acknowledge without turning me into somebody who deserved better because of my résumé.”
Silence.
Walter continued.
“If they clap because a general’s father got mistreated, they learned nothing.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Walter looked toward Evelyn.
She nodded.
“Good.”
Alicia added, “One more thing.”
Walter groaned.
“What?”
“The Army car will pick you up at eight.”
“No black SUV.”
Alicia laughed again.
“Dad.”
“No black SUV.”
“What color government vehicle would you prefer?”
“Anything people don’t make dramatic videos about.”
“I’ll request beige minivan.”
“That would be respectable.”
“Eight o’clock.”
She hung up.
Walter stared at the phone.
Evelyn leaned against his shoulder.
“Beige minivan?”
“Humility.”
“You spent thirty-one years in Army. Nothing says humility like government beige.”
He laughed carefully because his hip hurt.
Then his expression changed again.
Evelyn saw.
“What?”
“I keep thinking about that boy.”
“Mason?”
“He’s thirty-one.”
“That is a boy to you.”
“Yes.”
Walter looked toward dark window.
“He looked scared when Park took his weapon.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“He should have been scared before putting you on ground.”
“I know.”
“You are not going to start feeling sorry for him tonight.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You are thinking it.”
Walter looked at his wife.
“I can be angry and still wonder what happens next.”
Evelyn stood.
“You can.”
“But I get to be angry longer.”
“That seems fair.”
She walked toward bathroom.
Then stopped.
“Walter.”
“Yes?”
“If you forgive him someday, that is your business.”
He waited.
“If anyone tells me I have to, I will personally put them in the flower bed.”
Walter smiled.
“I believe you.”
The Pentagon ceremony was not supposed to become national news.
By the time Walter arrived, it already was.
The Army had moved media barricades farther from the entrance because crews gathered after learning that the eighty-year-old man in the viral police video was the same retired Command Sergeant Major whose name was being placed on a new leadership center.
Walter saw cameras through the vehicle window.
He looked at Alicia.
“I told you beige.”
The SUV was black.
Alicia sat across from him in dress uniform.
“I tried.”
“You are a three-star general.”
“Apparently not enough for fleet color.”
Evelyn sat beside Walter wearing a deep purple dress and a small pearl brooch their daughter Renee had given her twenty years earlier.
She looked through the window.
“Smile when you get out.”
“No.”
“Walter.”
“I got shoved yesterday.”
“Today you are attending ceremony.”
“My face has one setting.”
Alicia smiled.
“That is historically accurate.”