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lurch. I wanted him to say something, but he just looked at them.
    After that moment of flinching, almost stumbling, shock, Dad was stoic: nodding gravely, shaking hands, dead. They said their spiel. I couldn’t hear it over the noise in my head.
    The woman, who did all the talking, was OK. Older. Calm. Somehow like she was as much a part of this as we were, but not like in our faces or anything. She shook my hand and didn’t once look at the juice all over my shirt.
    The guy hovered near the door until she gave some kind of signal, and then they left, like they’d never been there.
    A different uniform showed up later — our CAO, casualty assistance officer, Cooper. He was younger than the others, and friendly, but all business, with papers and questions, a binder full of stuff to be done. While CAO Cooper was making a call, Dad downed two quick drinks standing at the sink, staring out the back window. Then he brushed his teeth and gargled. When he came back into the living room, Dad acted like everything was fine, like we were just having some kind of visit. I could smell the mint from all the way across the room. I’m sure Cooper could, too, and that he knew exactly why. Before going into the living room, Dad snagged my arm and shot daggers at my shirt, shoving me toward the stairs, like Cooper cared what I was wearing or what I smelled like.
    Eventually some neighbors came by, crying, carrying stuff, smiling sad fucking smiles. Dad stared
them
out the door. Then the reporters and the cameras. Cooper got some other uniform to handle them. One short interview and then Dad ran them off, too.
    All through the planning, Dad stayed mellow, quiet, slightly buzzed. Just dull enough to handle it, I guess, but it made him slow sometimes. Too slow. Cooper would sometimes look at me when Dad would zone out for a minute, like I could do anything, or even acknowledge that there was anything that needed doing or why. But he’d just wait, like no time had passed, until Dad could handle it again.
    I just wanted it all to go away. The people. The plans. The uniforms. Everything. I’d have given anything to have gone to sleep and woken up when it was over. The constant, awful anticipation was choking me.
    Everyone had all these questions, but no one could answer the only one I cared about. No one would tell me what happened.
    Eight days later, a different uniform, the “escort,” arrived with what was left of T.J. He said the least. I don’t remember his name, but I remember his face clearly. He was about T.J.’s age and height, but his hair and eyes were dark. There was a scar on his cheek, a rippling, pinkish line from his sideburn to his jaw. He had that hard-body stance like the guys in T.J.’s unit, like a steel rod had been grafted onto his spine. When he shook my hand, he nearly crushed my fingers. But he looked me in the eyes.
    The morning of the funeral, he sat Dad and me down in a small office at the back of the funeral home and pulled out a bag with what was left of T.J.’s stuff. One by one, he passed the things to Dad.
    T.J.’s dog tags, gleaming on their chain, like they had been scrubbed and polished.
    His beat-up sport watch, band fraying a little near the buckle, a patch of some kind of tape on the other side.
    The multi-tool I’d bought him for Christmas a few years ago. Scratched but clean, and shiny.
    A braided leather bracelet.
    A small compass on a chain, the size of a quarter, the arms bright green on the black face.
    Some kind of medallion on a cord.
    The escort left the room — to give us some privacy, I guess. Or maybe because he could see that Dad wanted him gone.
    Dad let me touch everything, but then took each thing back and put it in the bag, bending one of my fingers to the side to get the dog tags out of my hand. He shook his head, sneering at the medallion and tossing it into the bag hard. He pulled the cord tight, sealing the bag. I reached for it, but he slid it into the pocket of his