“Women don’t get call signs,” my retired Marine stepfather said at my brother’s commissioning dinner, smiling at a room full of officers like he’d just turned me into the joke again, and then I said the two words that made the laughter d.i.e so hard you could hear chairs scrape across the floor

My mother married Garrett in the summer of 2016, which was the same season I graduated from the Academy and became an Ensign. I tossed my cover into the air in Annapolis on a Saturday, and two months later, I was watching her marry a man who viewed the Navy as a taxi service for the Marines.

Garrett was a man of bronze stars and loud opinions, convinced that if you weren’t on the ground with a rifle, your service was just “office work with a view.” He brought his son, Cooper, into the mix, a kid who was fourteen and seemed to be the only one who actually liked having me around.

At the wedding reception, Garrett introduced me to his friends with a dismissive wave of his glass. “This is Kinsley, my wife’s girl. She decided to drive the boats instead of joining a real outfit.”

His friends laughed, making jokes about how someone had to make sure the Marines got to the beach on time. I just tightened my grip on my water glass and smiled, telling myself it was just the way old soldiers talked.