“Show me what they did to you, girl,” he had said that afternoon while the sun was setting behind the mountains in the distance. I told him that I was fine but he insisted that he wanted to see the mark of the sacrifice I had made for my country.
So I showed him the scar and the stiffness and the way my arm stopped obeying me after I moved it past a certain point. His face did not crumple with pity but he reached out to touch my sleeve with two fingers to see if I was still whole.
My mother came outside halfway through that moment and froze on the porch as the screen door banged shut behind her with a loud crack. I remember the smell of cut grass and the way her eyes went from confusion to a sharp and sudden anger that I could not explain.
She realized in that second that my absence had an explanation that she could not control or turn into a story for her own benefit. “Why did you keep this from me, Cassidy?” she had screamed at me that night while standing in the middle of the kitchen.