I held his gaze, the silence around us thickening into something sacred, a moment outside of time where everything extraneous fell away. The world receded until it was just the two of us, standing on an invisible bridge built by shared understanding. The colonel’s salute was both an acknowledgment and a question. It asked nothing of me but to stand in my truth.
Aunt Linda’s voice cut through the thickening gravity, lighter than the moment deserved. “Ray, sit down, you’ll scare the children,” she said, with a chuckle that rolled awkwardly into the stillness. Her attempt to dilute the moment with humor landed like a stone in water, rippling outward with diminishing returns.
