Page 148 of Until Joy

But she was looking at my face, not the food. Those blue eyes missed nothing.

“I moved to the table,” she continued. “I'm not an invalid, despite what you and my mother might think.”

I ladled soup into two bowls and added the sandwiches to a tray. “You're supposed to be resting.”

“I've been resting all day. Besides, eating at an actual table with actual plates makes me feel human again.”

She was right. We'd been living in crisis mode for so long that normal things like family dinners felt foreign. But tonight, with her parents gone and the house quiet, we could pretend to be a normal couple having a normal evening.

I followed her to the dining table. We ate in comfortable silence for several minutes. Joy demolished half her sandwich and most of her soup before she looked up at me again.

“What's wrong?”

I kept eating, hoping she'd let it go. “Nothing's wrong.”

“Graham.”

The way she said my name made it clear she wasn't buying my bullshit. I set down my spoon and met her gaze.

“I was thinking about my dad.”

“When's the last time you talked to him?”

“I don't know.”

“I don’t buy that.”

My fist clenched next to my plate, and she covered it with her much smaller hand. “Can you tell me?”

“I called him when I left the Navy. That’s been it.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, so I took a chance and looked up into her eyes. She had a tender look on her face. “How long ago was that?”

“Four years ago.”

“I thought you’d only been with the Broken Eagles for two years.”

“I spent the first two years after I left the Navy just riding around. Seeing the country.” I looked down. I pushed soup around my bowl, buying time. “He doesn't know about Africa.” I whispered.

“About the mission that went wrong?”

I nodded.

“So, you haven't told him about the worst thing that ever happened to you?” Her voice went soft. “And you've been carrying that alone for four years?”

“Not alone. You know I’ve talked to Wes about it.”

“But not your father.”

“He's a colonel, Joy. He spent his entire career in leadership positions. He understands the weight of command. The responsibility.”

“Which means he'd understand better than anyone what you went through.”

I shook my head. “He'd see it as a failure. I was supposed to bring my team home alive.”

“You brought Kent home.”

“I was supposed to bring them all home.”