Chapter 2 - The Commander Saluted The Wrong Sister
For three full seconds, nobody at the table moved.
Melody Strickland’s water glass remained suspended halfway to her mouth.
Dad stared at the decorated officer standing beside Lena as if he had
spoken in another language.
Mom blinked twice.
Lena slowly rose.
“General Mercer.”
Major General Thomas Mercer smiled.
“General Strickland. Good to see you home.”
Then he saluted.
Lena returned it automatically.
The room changed.
Not because Lena suddenly became someone important.
She had been the same woman thirty seconds earlier, wearing the same old
black blazer and sitting behind the same blank place card.
Only now everyone knew something they had not bothered to ask.
Melody lowered her glass.
“What did he call you?”
Lena looked at her sister.
“General.”
Dad laughed once.
It was not amusement.
It was disbelief.
“That’s impossible.”
Mercer’s smile disappeared.
Lena answered before he could.
“Dad.”
One word.
A warning.
She did not want a scene.
Mercer seemed to understand.
He looked toward the officers around the table.
“Captain Strickland, congratulations on your promotion.”
Melody stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
“Thank you, sir.”
Her face had gone pale.
Mercer nodded politely, then turned back to Lena.
“The 0700 briefing tomorrow is still on. We moved it to the secure
conference room.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
He glanced at the table.
“I won’t interrupt your family dinner.”
Then he walked away.
Nobody spoke until the door closed.
Dad leaned forward.
“Explain.”
Lena sat down.
“There’s nothing to explain.”
“You told us you teach.”
“I do.”
Melody stared.
“You’re a general?”
“I’m a brigadier general in the Army Reserve.”
The words seemed to hit Melody physically.
“But you said you teach.”
“I teach military logistics and emergency planning at a graduate program
when I’m not on orders.”
Mom’s hand covered her mouth.
Dad’s expression hardened.
“You let us sit here looking like idiots.”
Lena looked at him.
“No. You did that yourselves.”
Silence.
A server entered carrying another bottle of wine.
He looked at Lena.
“General Strickland, would you still like the dinner charged to the card
on file?”
Melody nearly dropped her glass again.
Lena closed her eyes.
So much for keeping that secret.
Dad turned slowly.
“You paid for this?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“That isn’t important.”
Melody gave a stunned laugh.
“You let me ask whether you could afford it.”
Lena met her eyes.
“You didn’t ask because you were worried about me.”
Melody stopped smiling.
“You asked because you wanted everyone here to hear you ask.”
One of Melody’s fellow officers suddenly became fascinated by his
napkin.
Lena picked up her fork.
“Can we finish dinner now?”
But Dad was no longer interested in steak.
He wanted to know why his oldest daughter had apparently become a
general without telling her family.
May you like
The answer began five years earlier.
And Melody was not going to like it.
