“I give the orders here,” my mom’s colonel boyfriend yelled—until I calmly told him who I really was.

” Mark finally took a bite, chewing with his mouth half open, a smacking sound that graded on my nerves like sandpaper. He swallowed and shook his head. Bland, Maggie, it’s just bland. You always go light on the salt. You got to cook with flavor like the French. I had this dish in Paris back in 88 that would blow your mind.

This Well, this is fine for home cooking, I guess. I saw my mother’s shoulders slump. The light in her eyes flickered out. She sat down silently and took a tiny spoonful of rice, not looking at either of us. My hands were clenched in my lap. “It smells delicious, Mom,” I said, making sure my voice carried across the table. “I’ve missed this.

The galley food on the ship is nothing compared to your cooking,” Mark snorted. “Good? Yeah, I remember the mess halls slop on a shingle.” He took a long swig of his beer. But you know in the air force officers ate like kings. When I was stationed at Rammstein Air Base in Germany during the Cold War, we had filet minion every Friday night. The oak club there was legendary.

And so it began the Mark Hensley show. For the next 20 minutes, I didn’t get a word in. Neither did mom. Mark launched into a monologue that was clearly rehearsed. A greatest hits collection of his career. He talked about the wall coming down as if he had personally pushed the bricks over. He talked about flying sorties near the Russian border.

His descriptions filled with jargon that sounded impressive to a civilian but sounded completely off to me. “I was pulling six G’s,” he boasted, waving his fork in the air. “Inverted.” “The MIG was right on my tail, but I knew I had the better turn radius. You have to have ice in your veins for that kind of work, Aubrey. You Navy folks, you just float around in circles waiting for something to happen. Up there, it’s pure predatory instinct

I took a sip of my tea, analyzing him. He claimed to be an ‘ 06, a colonel. But his stories were full of holes. He mixed up his aircraft capabilities. He talked about tactics that weren’t introduced until the Gulf War, claiming he used them in the 80s. He was puffing his chest, a rooster trying to impress the hens.

Actually, I said, seizing a rare pause while he chewed a mouthful of bread. We had a pretty intense deployment this time. We navigated a carrier strike group through a typhoon in the South Pacific. 5,000 sailors, 70 aircraft, and waves crashing over the flight deck. The logistical coordination alone was boring, Mark interrupted. He didn’t just speak over me. He waved his hand in front of my face as if shoeing away a fly.

Come on, nobody wants to hear about logistics, Missy. That’s paperwork. That’s glorified traffic control. He leaned in, looking at me with a patronizing smirk that made my skin crawl. You see, that’s the difference. You manage people. I manage machines. Deadly machines. You’re a manager. I was a warrior.

There’s a difference in the DNA. I felt the blood rushing to my ears. I wanted to tell him that as a rear admiral, I commanded more firepower with a single word than he had ever seen in his entire career. I wanted to tell him that logistics won wars. I wanted to tell him that managing people meant holding the lives of young men and women in my hands every single day.

But I looked at mom. She was pushing a green bean around her plate with her fork, creating little patterns in the gravy. She wasn’t eating. She was shrinking. Mom, I said, trying to bypass Mark entirely. How is the volunteering going? You were working at the VA hospital library, right? Reading to the veterans. Mom looked up, a faint spark returning.Oh, yes. It’s wonderful. There’s this one gentleman, Mr. Henderson. He’s 90 years old and he loves historical fiction. I found this new book about Maggie. Stop. Mark groaned, rolling his eyes. Aubrey doesn’t want to hear about you shelving dusty books for scenile old men. It’s depressing. Besides, I told you you spend too much gas money driving out there.

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