The three of us had come, in a way. Lily, and me, and the woman in the carry-on who had sent us.
Cora would have hated the first-class seats, actually. She’d have said it was too much money and demanded we put it back in the can. She was like that, careful, practical, the one who kept us afloat while I was deployed and then while I was healing.
She was the one who filled out the disability paperwork when I couldn’t look at it.
She was the one who taught Lily that her daddy’s leg didn’t make him less, it made him proof that you can lose something enormous and still carry your family.
And then the cancer came, fast and unfair, and I lost her the way the convoy lost those seconds, with no warning and no bargaining and no going back.
I will not pretend that was easy.
