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that I wasn’t coming home again.
    There is a lot of waiting in the
military.
    But Alexandra didn’t seem to mind that I
had a military background when we talked over dinner that night. I can’t
remember all that I told her, but she definitely got that predictably dazzled
look in her eyes when I told her about my life as a SEAL a while back. Damn,
she had been cute with those dark eyes and gentle curves, and a wholesome
façade hiding the inner witch that I got to see the morning after.
    “Are you just giving up, then?” my mom
asks.
    I glance over at Hannah before I answer. I
never want that little girl to think that her uncle gave up on anything. “Just
trying to figure out what my next move is.”
    “You could just go to the county shelter
and adopt a dog there.”
    “Yeah, but this one really needs some
medical help.”
    My mom glances my way. “Taking on another
hard luck case, are you?” She smiles, probably remembering all the injured
animals I used to bring home as a kid. “Well, then just do what you always did
when you were a SEAL.” My mother perks up a smile as she reaches for the
refrigerator door.
    “What’s that, Mom?”
    “Command. Take the lead. Tell that woman
what you want and ‘don’t give up the ship.’” She ends her statement with a
famous Captain James Lawrence quote. I have to love the way Mom is always weaving
some Navy heritage into the conversation. You’d think she had been married to
an Admiral all these years.
    She is right , I realize hours later as Hannah and I
are deep in the woods looking for fairies, armed with flashlights and
magnifying glasses, and covered in some kind of apple-berry scent that she said
would attract them. And yeah, I realize that my brothers in the SEALs would
never let me live it down if they knew I let my niece douse me in perfume.
    My mom is right. I don’t need to retreat.
Time to march forward.
    I slip away to the front porch just after
dessert with my phone and start typing out a message to the contact email
address I found online, when one of my brothers steps out on the porch.
    “It was nice of you to come,” he says.
    Ryan is my younger brother by ten months,
which classifies him as my Irish twin, I guess. “I always do,” I tell him.
    “Yeah. Keep it up, okay?”
    “I will.”
    “I know Dad appreciates it.”
    I nod slowly, knowing immediately where
this conversation is headed. I’m the eldest son—the one Dad always
imagined handing over his business to one day. Even though I enjoy construction,
I love actually building something with my own two hands. Dad’s business has
gotten so huge that the only place for me in his company is something behind a
desk, wearing a suit, and having godforsaken business lunches with people I
don’t give a shit about.
    I know; I interned there in high school before
I got accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy, breaking my father’s heart.
    “He’s glad you’re home. We all are. Especially
now.”
    I sigh deeply, wanting to ask him
something, but not really ready to hear an honest answer. “How’s he been,
anyway? He always seems fine at dinner.” About a year ago, when I was stationed
in Annapolis, I got a call from Dylan, my youngest brother. He had received a
phone call from Dad asking when Dylan’s plane was going to land and where he
needed to be picked up.
    Trouble was, Dylan wasn’t flying on any
planes that day.
    My dad is pretty stubborn, and he
insisted that Dylan had told him that he was flying into Ohio that day. We all
shrugged it off. Dylan does travel a lot, and Dad was under a lot of stress at
work.
    But then about a month later, he called
me from his car. He didn’t know where he was. Not just like his car had made
the wrong turn and he was in an unfamiliar part of town. He didn’t even know
what state he was in.
    I’m not sure why he called me, actually,
but I’m glad he did. Because if I hadn’t heard it for myself, I never would
have believed it.
    He hung up the phone