“You going commando?” Diana asked as Wesley took another step toward the island.
“It’s going to be so hot in there!” Wesley whined. “Pretty sure they don’t even have A/C in the arena.”
“I’m pretty sure they do…” Diana said.
“Nobody wants to smell the sweat coming off your balls, Wesley!” Kennedy snapped.
“Kennedy!” Diana snapped back. From the iPad, Amber snickered.
“All right then,” Amber said. “Let me see.”
With the iPad propped up on the island, Diana wrangled the kids on either side of her. She’d pulled out one of her best and only nice dresses for the occasion—finally something formal that didn’t require her military uniform. It was navy and tight but not too short.
“Oh wait!” Diana exclaimed. “The cap, Wes.”
Wesley said, “Right.”
He bounded toward the entryway, peeling through piles of rain jackets until he pulled out a slightly crumpled graduation cap with a golden tassel. Walking back over and pulling the cap on over his too-long hair simultaneously, Wesley did a small turn and finger guns toward the iPad.
“Cracking cap, Wes!” Amber said.
Diana adjusted the folded edge of the cap at the back of Wesley’s head and pulled him in next to her. They all posed and smiled at the iPad.
They had to stay like that for what felt like the entire day. There were so many pictures, not just from the other kids’ parents, but there were journalists and paparazzi there trying to get a shot at the Weicks’ happy family reunion.
Rex met them at the arena, dressed in his own navy suit, making him and Diana look as if they’d coordinated their outfits.
“I wish you would’ve answered me when I asked you what you were wearing,” Diana muttered to him as they filtered through the crowds and took their seats near the front of the hall.
“They make suits in three colors,” Rex said. “Black, navy and cream.”
“You can’t pull off a cream suit,” Diana replied.
“Exactly.”
“Taras could pull it off,” Diana said. “He loved his beige suits.”
“More of an off-white, but yeah.”
She gouged his reaction. Rex didn’t stiffen in the same way at the mentioning of Taras’s name anymore, but there was still that flash of absolute dejection across his blue eyes. There was an acceptance, between all of them, that Rex would never be quite the same. His time with Taras seemed to have him questioning the entirety of his life, and he and Diana had only had one drunken conversation so far in the last few months that had given her any indication of what had happened when Rex was a Kushkin prisoner. He told her he’d been seeing a therapist, and Diana believed him, but there were some memories that stuck to you, that made you different, no matter how many TED Talks you watched or positive affirmations you did.
It was certainly that way for Diana. Every time she looked at Rex she saw what she’d done to him, dropping him into the hands of Taras and making him into this newly formed version of himself. When she looked at Kennedy, she saw the woods, the long stretches of road, the body of Katy stretched out and bleeding along the marble floor of Kushkin’s mansion. And Wesley…as he walked across the stage to take his high school diploma from the principal, she saw so much. The commanding diligence that Ratanake had instilled in him, the critical eye and technological prowess from Laird, and the unstoppable courage from his father.
The crowd erupted into applause as they announced the class, caps tossing into the air and sinking back down with the bright flashes of cameras.
It was a few months later when both Diana and Wesley headed off at the same time, back into the familiar hands of the United States military. Wesley headed to Fort Benning in Georgia while Diana set up her new office at the naval base in Coronado, California.
Axtell was in her first team, and Diana wasn’t sure if it made the first few days better or worse. It was nice to have someone on the team that was familiar with her, but she couldn’t help but feel that every single decision, every single exercise she made them to do was being scrutinized.
There was something to prove here. According to Ratanake, she’d been the best of the best when it came to SEALs but as she’d gotten older, it was clearly no longer true. All of the young men and the one young woman in her team were stronger, faster and better than her in every possible way, better than she’d ever been. So she would just have to settle for being the best trainer.
Yes, she could have retired. There was no shortage of money in her offshore account to keep herself and her family afloat for a little while. But Diana couldn’t sit around anymore. The suburban life—she’d given it a chance. For ten years, she’d given it a really good go. But it wasn’t what she was meant for.
Diana was—and would always be—a soldier.
Still, she made a deal. She went back and forth between California and Seattle often, making sure she was more present with Kennedy, seeing more and more of herself in her with the passing time. The picture of her and her family at Wesley’s graduation hung behind her desk, next to a multitude of maps not even taped up this time, but with actual tacks. Military budget. The glass of the frame was catching the setting sun out of her skinny window, the reflection wiping a glare across her and Rex’s faces.
The computer was open to the news, playing the livestream from the first day of Cameron Snowman’s trial. Diana could do that now. Load up livestreams. Kennedy and Wesley had sat her down before Wesley left for training to give her her own basic training on using computers properly.
Outside the open window, a group of three dozen soldiers jogged past, camouflaged uniforms shuffling against their muscular
