Chapter 4 - The Family Phone Call
The red light on my desk phone began to blink rhythmically—a silent, pulsing demand for attention.
I looked down at the blinking light, knowing exactly who was on the other end of that line before I even picked up the handset. Word travels fast in military towns, but it travels at the speed of light through a panicked family network.
Marcus gave me a sympathetic look, turning toward the door. “I’ll leave you to it, Commander.”
“Thank you, Marcus.”
When the door clicked shut, I reached out, pressed the speakerphone button, and picked up the receiver.
“Corinne Harrison,” I said, using my full name and rank as protocol dictated.
“Corinne! What the hell is going on?!”
My mother’s voice erupted through the speaker, shrill, panicked, and trembling with disbelief. In the background, I could hear the faint, frantic murmur of my father pacing the linoleum floor of their Ohio kitchen.
“Hello, Mother,” I replied, keeping my voice impeccably calm and steady.
“Gwen just called us from a holding cell!” my mother wept hysterically. “She said you had her arrested! She said military police dragged her away in handcuffs because of some stupid argument over a bag! Corinne, she’s your sister! How could you do this to your own flesh and blood?!”
I closed my eyes for a brief second, feeling the familiar, dull ache of a wound that had never truly healed.
“Mother, Gwen did not just get into an argument,” I said, every word measured and precise. “She illegally breached a secured, restricted military installation during an active federal inspection. She harassed federal contractors, screamed obscenities, and intentionally threw classified government property into the Mayport basin.”
“It was just a bag of papers!” my mother cried, refusing to grasp the gravity of the situation. “You’ve always been so cold, so heartless! Ever since you put on that uniform, you forgot you had a family! You think you’re better than everyone else just because you’re some big officer now!”
There it is, I thought bitterly. The exact same narrative Gwen had spent nineteen years feeding them.
“This has nothing to do with being better than anyone, Mother,” I replied, my voice dropping into a quiet, unyielding chill. “This is about federal law, national security, and the uniform I swore an oath to protect. Gwen committed a felony on federal property. She chose her actions. Now she has to face the consequences.”
“She’s your sister!” my father’s voice suddenly boomed through the speaker, rough and furious. “Family is supposed to protect each other, not throw them in a cage like an animal! If you have any decency left in that stone-cold chest of yours, you’ll call that judge right now, drop the charges, and bring your sister home!”
I sat in silence for a long moment, looking down at the titanium briefcase sitting on the steel table across the room.
“I cannot drop the charges, Dad,” I said softly. “The moment she threw classified government property into that river, it stopped being a family matter. It became a matter of national security.”
“You’re dead to us,” my father snarled.
Click.
May you like
The dial tone hummed softly through the speaker.
I placed the receiver back onto its cradle, staring at the blank wall ahead of me. The silence in the office felt heavier than ever, pressing down on my shoulders with the weight of a nineteen-year war I had fought entirely alone.
