Prologue - Watching the War
The television flickered in the background - silent, forgotten - but neither of us was watching anymore.
She moved around me in quiet circles - my wife, only four months into forever. Folding a shirt here. Adjusting a strap there. Her silence said everything her lips did not.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, a worn checklist beside me, my C-bag half-packed. Boots. Uniform. Socks. Shaving kit. Canteen. Every item double-checked, triple-checked - as if certainty itself could be packed like gear.
She moved around me in quiet circles - my wife, only four months into forever. Folding a shirt here. Adjusting a strap there. Her silence said everything her lips did not.
I kept talking, more for her than for me. "It's going to be all right." They were not lies. They were the kind of gentle fictions people use when the truth has no shape yet.