“Yes, sir.” He lowered her, but didn’t let go. She held on, too, for a long minute. He felt wiry beneath the thick uniform, all muscle. When he finally relaxed his grip on her, she shut the door and kicked her bag to the side, then collapsed on the reclining chair catty-corner from the couch. He crossed to the door as well, to bolt it, then returned to settle into the couch this time, though Sophie got the impression it was a deliberate attempt to look at ease, not actual comfort. She bent to unlace her own combat boots, ashamed for a moment of the trappings of war—the boots, David’s old jacket—she had adopted. She wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her in them before, and she felt as if she were playacting.
“What’s with the boots, soldier?” he asked, as if reading her mind.
She hoped the dim light obscured the flood of color to her face. “Nothing. They’re comfortable. You wear them all day, too, right?” He nodded and she relaxed. She put her boots behind the chair, out of view, and tucked her feet under her.
“Where are they?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject.
“Ma is still at work, and Mom went to get takeout in my honor. You have no idea how much I’ve missed Chinese food.”
“I don’t think we’ve had it the whole time you were gone. At least not any night I’ve been here, I don’t think.”
“Civilian sacrifice for the sake of the soldiers. I love it.” As he said it, his body tensed and his eyes darted to the window. Sophie squinted and spotted their neighbor Mr. Winters, walking his old bloodhound past their house.
“Is it weird to be home?” she asked, trying to bring David’s attention back inside. His eyes returned to her, but she could tell his attention was split. Piloted people always thought they were being subtle when they chose to expand their focus, but they often let their jaws go slightly slack, and the muscles around their mouths. She didn’t know if anyone else noticed.
“Weird but good,” he said. “I think it’ll take a while to get used to being here. To not being there.”
“I keep wanting to poke you to see if you’re real.”
“I’ll thank you to not poke me. Did you even know I was coming back today? When Mom went to get food I offered to go with her but she said I should wait here for you.”
Sophie shook her head. “I asked them not to tell me. I figured I’d see you when you got here and I would get a nice surprise out of it.”
“That makes sense, I guess. It’s weird, but so are you.”
She stuck her tongue out. How quickly they reverted to their childhood relationship. They didn’t have an adult one, not yet; he’d been gone for too long. In any case, she was glad she’d stuck with the surprise story. She didn’t think it would benefit him to hear she’d chosen not to be told when he was coming home not because she liked surprise, but because she didn’t like anticipation. She didn’t like counting days, or the queasy feeling of almost-here. On the rare occasions when she felt auras before her seizures, that was what they felt like: an imminent arrival. The pairing of the two feelings made her uncomfortable. She felt like she might bring him bad luck if she hoped too hard for his return.
He glanced at the door and seconds later Sophie heard the dead bolt slide. Having Combat David around was like having a dog in the house. Every movement outside was a cause for concern, or at least curiosity; thankfully he didn’t bark. He was on his feet and moving toward the door before it had swung open, and had Val in a hug before she was fully into the house. From where she sat, Sophie saw pure joy on Val’s face. Val dropped her messenger bag next to where Sophie had left hers and hugged David, who was not only taller than her, but twice as broad through the shoulders. Sophie didn’t know how it was possible for him to take up so much space when he was so skinny. Maybe it was the uniform.
“Why are you two sitting in the dark?” Val asked, turning on a lamp. She’d stopped hugging David, but kept her hand on his sleeve.
“Hadn’t bothered turning on the light,” answered Sophie, though she didn’t actually know David’s reason. They hadn’t really gotten beyond superficial greetings yet. Dancing around a relationship that had been put on hiatus for ages. They had messaged each other a little bit during his deployments, but those interactions had been superficial, too.
Julie arrived with a plastic bag in each hand, a smiley face emblazoned on each. The smiley scales of justice, weighing her down equally on both sides with rice and dumplings and spring rolls and chicken. Sophie watched from her easy chair, not removing herself from the family, but observing briefly from the outside, as she had often done.
Theirs was a strange family. Four people, but only one blood bond. She didn’t feel any less their child, any more than she doubted for a second that Val, who had still not stopped holding on to David, was his mother in every sense even if she hadn’t given birth to him. Even with his new adult face, he looked more like Val than Julie, held himself more like Val than Julie.
She knew she didn’t look like any of them, but it didn’t matter. They were bonded by nineteen years in the same house together, the rest of them longer. Family was all of those things: blood, but also common experience. Whatever had happened to David while he was away, he had changed. His edges were different. He made all the motions of home without looking like he was fully with them. She could certainly
