Maya was five.
Isaiah promised this deployment would be different.
He had said that before.
Lena had smiled sadly.
"You always say that."
"I mean it this time."
"You meant it last time."
He had kissed her forehead.
"Seven months."
She pointed a finger at him.
"Seven."
"Seven."
"No surprise extensions."
"Not my decision."
"Then become a general."
Isaiah laughed.
"Working on it."
Their last morning together had been ordinary.
Coffee.
Burned toast.
Maya refusing to wear matching socks.
Isaiah searching for his wallet while it sat directly in front of him.
Lena drove him to the departure point.
Maya cried.
Isaiah cried once he was on the bus where they couldn't see him.
For four months, everything went normally.
Video calls.
Packages.
Pictures.
Then Isaiah's team disappeared.
Their convoy was hit in a mountain pass during a communications blackout.
Six soldiers were confirmed dead.
Three bodies were recovered.
Two men escaped.
Isaiah and three others were missing.
For eleven months, the government classified them as missing in action.
Search operations continued.
Rumors surfaced.
An intercepted message suggested prisoners had been taken.
Then nothing.
One year passed.
Then eighteen months.
A recovered grave contained remains believed to include two members of Isaiah's team.
DNA testing was complicated by contamination and incomplete samples.
Eventually military investigators concluded there was overwhelming evidence Isaiah had died during captivity.
Lena received the visit every military spouse feared.
Two uniformed officers.
A chaplain.
A folded flag.
No body.
Only words.
Presumed deceased.
Lena refused to believe them.
For months, she kept Isaiah's clothes in the closet.
His shoes remained beside the door.
She paid his phone bill.
She emailed his account.
She wrote messages every Sunday.
Maya continued making drawings.
At school, she told other children her father was missing, not dead.
Lena let her.
Then one afternoon, Maya punched a boy for saying her father was a corpse.
That was when Lena realized hope could hurt a child too.
She started therapy.
So did Maya.
They held a memorial service eighteen months after Isaiah vanished.
There was no coffin.
Only a photograph.
Lena almost couldn't enter the church.
Isaiah's mother, Evelyn Brooks, held her hand.
Maya carried a folded note she placed beneath the photograph.
She never told Lena what it said.
Thomas Hale attended the service.