I returned from service with a prosthetic leg I hadn’t told my wife about, along with gifts for her and our newborn daughters. Instead of a reunion, I found my babies crying and a note saying my wife had left us for a better life. Three years later, I stood at her door again. This time, on my terms.
I had been counting down the days for four months.
I was an ordinary man with one simple reason to get through each morning: the thought of walking back through my front door and holding my newborn daughters for the very first time.
My mother had sent me their photograph the week before.
I had studied that picture more times than I could count. It stayed folded in the breast pocket of my uniform for the entire flight home, and I took it out so often the crease had softened.
