"His brother's house."
Isaiah crossed his arms.
"His brother."
Lena nodded.
"Thomas Hale."
Isaiah stared.
The last name registered.
"Hale?"
"Michael Hale's older brother."
Isaiah's expression changed.
Captain Michael Hale.
Isaiah remembered him instantly.
Michael had been riding two vehicles behind Isaiah when the attack began.
He had died before the medics could reach him.
Isaiah looked away.
"That's how you met him?"
"Yes."
Isaiah laughed bitterly.
"Of course."
Lena wiped her hands over her jeans.
"We met in a grief group."
Isaiah's eyes sharpened.
"A grief group for me."
"For Michael too."
"Still."
"I know."
"No, Lena. You don't."
His voice rose.
"You don't know what it feels like to spend four years imagining your wife and kid waiting for you, then look through your own window and see another man holding you."
Lena started crying.
Isaiah continued.
"You don't know what it's like to hear your daughter call somebody else Dad."
"You're right."
"I came back for you."
The sentence cracked.
Lena covered her mouth.
Isaiah looked toward the window.
"For four years, that was the only thing I had."
Lena stood.
"And for almost four years, I had nothing."
He turned.
She immediately regretted how harsh it sounded.
But she continued.
"I had officers at my door telling me you were gone."
"I wasn't."
"I know that now."
"I was alive."
"Isaiah, I know."
"I was waiting for rescue."
"And I was waiting too!"
The room went silent.
Lena's chest rose and fell.
"I waited for two and a half years."
Isaiah said nothing.
"I wrote to you when everyone told me you were dead."
She wiped tears angrily.
"I left your toothbrush beside mine. I slept on my side of the bed because I couldn't touch yours."
Isaiah's jaw tightened.
"Maya asked every morning if the Army had found you."
Lena's voice broke.
"I had to tell our five-year-old daughter that I didn't know if her father was hungry, hurt, scared, or dead."
Isaiah looked away.
"Then they told me you were dead."
"You believed them."
"Eventually."
"You shouldn't have."
Lena stared.
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Wait."
"For how long?"
Isaiah looked at her.
The answer felt simple inside him.
Forever.