My brother, a police officer, arrested me during Sunday dinner, right in front of our family. “You’re under arrest for impersonating a military officer and theft of government property,” my own brother snarled as he slammed my face onto the cold marble floor of our grandmother’s dining room, his knee digging into my back. As he snapped the handcuffs onto my wrists, the door suddenly burst open. A four-star general and his men marched in. “Lieutenant!” he roared. “Step away from the general right now.”

Not for Mark. Not for our parents. But because Grandma Margaret sent me a handwritten invitation. And I owed her more than silence.

Grandma Margaret’s letter was written in the same soft cursive I remembered from childhood birthday cards—blue ink, steady hand, paper that smelled faintly of talcum powder and lemon oil.

Dinner at two sharp, sweetheart. Everyone will be there. I miss hearing your voice.

So, I booked a flight, pulled two days of leave, and chose my outfit like I was planning for a ceasefire. No uniform. No insignia. Just a simple black dress, sleeves to the elbow, and a string of pearls small enough to pass as modest. I tied my hair back and packed light.

I didn’t expect this to be easy, but I owed her kindness, even if the rest of them never earned it.

The house hadn’t changed. White brick, green shutters, the same ceramic frog on the porch that I used to hide keys under. What had changed was the weight in the air as I stepped inside.

Conversations paused mid-sentence. Glasses clinked awkwardly. I kissed Grandma Margaret’s cheek and tried to ignore the way Mark’s eyes followed me across the room like a slow-burn security camera.

The table was set for twenty-four. Roast beef, green bean casserole, cornbread, peach cobbler cooling near the window. It looked perfect, just like it did every holiday growing up. And somehow, more dangerous than any foreign embassy I’d ever entered.

I sat between Aunt Denise and my teenage cousin Noah, who immediately asked if I’d been somewhere cool. I smiled and said, “Just D.C.,” which was true if you counted the sub-base war room at Fort Moss.

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