"I am trying to find the end of it," I said. "Not the end of the story. The end of what I can tell."
He nodded toward my coffee. "You have gone cold twice now."
"I know."
"Jules, you do not have to measure every word with me."
"I do, though," I said. "Some of it I cannot say. Not will not. Cannot. Frequencies, procedures, things that were classified then and are still classified now. If I told you, I would be breaking a promise I made and a law I swore to follow."
"I understand that part," he said.
"Do you?" I said. "Because there is another part, and it is harder. There are names I carry that I will not give you. Not because anyone ordered me not to. Because they did not come home, and their stories are not mine to hand across a diner table. Their families got a folded flag and what the service could tell them. What I heard on the net that last hour, that stays with me."
Nico was quiet for a long moment.
"You think I am going to push," he said.
"I think anyone would," I said. "You waited ten years for this conversation. It would be natural to want all of it."
"I want what you can give," he said. "If there is a line, there is a line. I have lines too, Jules. Places I do not take people, even family. Especially family. I am not going to be another weight on the other side of yours."
I looked down because my eyes had filled.
"You have no idea what that means," I said.
"I think I have some idea," he said.
"You asked me better questions this morning than anyone has in years," I said. "But you not asking now, that matters more. Do you understand that?"
"I am learning," he said.
For a while we just sat. The diner had thinned out.
Then Nico folded his hands around his mug.
"Can I tell you my side of the silence?" he said. "Not to punish you. Just so it is not only your decade we have talked about."
"Yes," I said. "Please."
"It cost me holidays," he said, plain as weather. "Thanksgiving at Pap's house, you on speaker for four minutes and then gone. Christmas, a card with no return story in it. I stopped asking Mom if you were coming."
"I remember those calls," I said.
"I almost called you so many times," he said. "After my first deployment. After I made staff sergeant. After a kid in my platoon lost his brother and I sat in my truck for an hour. I had your number up. Every time I told myself you had made it clear. You had your life. You did not want to be pulled back into ours."
"Nico, that was never true," I said.
"I know that now," he said. "I am telling you what I built with what I had. A sister who loved us, probably, but from far away on purpose. A sister who did not want me close enough to ask anything real. It was easier to believe that than to believe you were carrying something and would not trust me with it."
"I thought I was protecting you," I said.
"I know," he said. "I am not saying you were selfish. I am saying protection felt, from this side, a lot like being left."
"I am sorry," I said. "Not for the classified parts. For all the rest. For the four minute calls."
"You are here for the long version now," he said. "That counts."
He smiled then. "Though for the record, as your brother, I reserve the right to be annoyed that a gunnery sergeant knew your rank before I did."
I laughed before I could stop it. "Barrett has very good timing."
"He saluted you at my party, Jules. In my kitchen. I was holding a tray of meatballs."
"You were holding it with great dignity," I said.
"I nearly dropped it on Mercer," he said, and then he was laughing too, and we were just Nico and Jules, not a major and a staff sergeant with ten years between us.
My phone buzzed on the table. Dylan Mercer.
I stared at the name. Nico said, "Answer it."
I did. "Dylan?"
"Ma'am," Dylan said, and I could hear a smile in it. "I told Aaron everything. That the voice has a name. That it was you. He went quiet for a long time. Then he said he wants to meet you, if you are willing."
Nico watched my face. "What is it?" he whispered.
I covered the phone. "Aaron wants to meet me."
I uncovered it, and took a breath.
Chapter 21: The Cost of Coming Home, Part One