“The pancakes,” she whispered through dry lips. “You salted them by mistake instead of adding sugar.”
Mike felt his throat close up. He pressed her hand to his unshaven cheek. For the first time in years, the hard old soldier cried.
Going back to their apartment on Mill Street wasn’t easy. Mike refused to bring Ellen and Katie there right away. First he went alone.
The place smelled of stale liquor, cigarettes, and oily cologne. He tore down the ugly wallpaper the gang had put up. He hauled every piece of flashy furniture they had brought in out to the curb. Then he scrubbed the floors with bleach as if he could erase the memory itself.
In the back closet, under piles of junk, he found something that stopped him cold: Katie’s old school backpack, the one Ellen had written about. It was torn, but inside were her handwriting notebooks and a broken colored pencil.
Mike wiped the dust from it carefully.
A week later he brought Katie home from temporary placement. She held his hand so tightly it hurt, as if she thought he might disappear again. When they reached the apartment door, she stopped.
“Daddy… what if those bad men come back and break the windows again?” she asked.
Mike crouched down so he could look her in the eye. “They won’t. Not ever again. This is our home. And nobody’s taking it from us.”
The first night back was strange and quiet.
Ellen was released only under the personal assurance of Colonel Savel. She still startled at loud sounds. But in her own kitchen, wearing her old robe, she seemed to begin returning to herself.
Mike brewed strong tea the way he always had in the service, only now it was poured into the family’s surviving china cups instead of metal field mugs. They sat together in the dim kitchen, saying little, listening to the peace.
In the next room, Katie slept holding her old backpack against her chest. She refused to let it go, even in sleep…
