Sometime during the flight, I nod off. I can’t fight the fatigue, combined with the gentle movement of the hovercraft when they combine to sedate me. As my eyes slide shut, my father’s face appears, blotting out the velvety darkness of dreamless sleep.
“I want you to have this,” he says as we sit together at our kitchen table. He slides something across the stainless-steel surface toward me. His eyes—dark brown like mine—crinkle at the corners when he smiles, turning the hardened face of a soldier into the loving expression of a dad. When he pulls his hand away, his gleaming, metal Lieutenant Colonel’s rank pin is resting on the table next to my coffee cup.
Eyebrows wrinkled, I reach down to pick it up, turning it over in my palm and studying it. “Your pin? But, don’t you want to keep this?”
He shrugs, leaning on his elbows against the table. “I have plenty of things around here that remind me of my time in the service,” he replies. “This is special, though.”
Running my thumb over the pin, I smile. “I remember the day you got pinned,” I tell him. “They had that big ceremony and Mom wore that red dress.”
His smile widened at the memory. “She always looks so pretty in that one. I’ll never forget the sense of pride and accomplishment I felt when she was given that pin to place on my lapel. It was a promotion fifteen years coming, something I’d worked so hard for.”
“You were my hero that day,” I admit. “That was the day I decided I wanted to be just like you when I grew up. That was eight years ago, and I still feel the same way. You’re still my hero, Dad.”
His eyes get a little watery, and he reaches out to grab my newly attached titanium hand. Even though I can’t feel his touch, my fingers wrap around his, reacting to the stimulation. “I want you to keep that pin as a reminder, Blythe,” he says, his voice growing hoarse. “I may not always be around to remind you—”
I laugh, shaking my head. I can’t imagine a world without him in it. “Don’t you know? Heroes never die.”
He laughs with me, swiping at the tear forming in the corner of one eye. It wasn’t until he was gone that I understood why he cried that day as he tilted my chin up with one hand and stared into my eyes.
“I want you to remember to always stand up for what’s right,” he says, serious again. “No matter the cost, Blythe. In the end, no matter what you’ve lost in the fight, justice will always prevail and the good will outshine the bad. Sometimes… sometimes, it takes a while for it to happen, but I believe that it can. Do you understand?”
I am suddenly jolted awake as a baby begins crying in the back of the hovercraft. The mother of one of the refugees rocks and shushes the infant, but I’m already losing my hold on the dream, and my father’s face has retreated back into my memories.
“Hey,” Dax whispers, watching me closely with worry in his gaze. “Are you all right?”
Running a hand through my hair, I take a deep breath and release it. “I’m fine,” I lie, resting my head against the back of the seat once more.
Do you understand?
My father’s words come back to me now, causing me to reach up and caress the rank pin I keep attached to the collar of my jacket. I swallow past the lump in my throat and try as hard as I can, but in the end, I just can’t. Standing up for what was right didn’t do him any favors, and in the past two years, it hasn’t done much for me either. I lay awake some nights and wonder just how far he meant a person should take this whole standing tall thing. Until they’d lost everyone they ever loved? Until they were so fucked up in the head they could never properly love anyone ever again? Until they lost hope, and all passion for the cause they stood for in the first place?
I’m sorry, Daddy, I thought, turning to stare out the window again. I just don’t understand.