Chapter 8 - Coffee Gone Cold
Nobody moved after Daniel said it. The words just sat there over the folder, heavier than the papers themselves.
Frank stared at the second page like if he looked long enough the wording would change. His mouth worked but nothing came out. Josh had gone still behind us, his hand resting on the back of my chair. I could feel his fingers pressing in.
Then Josh cleared his throat. "I'm gonna —" He gestured toward the counter. "Coffee's still on."
He pushed back and stood, his hoodie brushing my shoulder as he squeezed past the table. It broke something in the room. Frank shifted in his seat. Daniel finally blinked and stepped back half a step, his hands hanging empty at his sides.
Josh pulled four mugs out of the cabinet. I watched him because it was easier than looking back down at the pages. He poured without asking who wanted any, the pot shaking a little in his hand. The smell filled the kitchen, dark and familiar. He set a mug by Frank, one by me, one near Daniel, kept one for himself. Steam curled up.
Nobody picked one up.
I wrapped my hands around mine just to do something with them. The ceramic was hot against my palms. Over the rim I saw the little flag by the window over the sink. It was one of those small wooden block flags Frank had picked up at a church fundraiser years ago, red and white stripes painted a little crooked, the blue square chipped at the corner. It had sat there through every morning I could remember. I'd dusted around it that week without even seeing it.
My eyes dropped without meaning to, to Daniel's boots. Tan, laced tight all the way up, dust in the creases by the soles. He'd come in the back door and stopped right there by the table. He hadn't tracked anything in. He'd been careful about that, even carrying what he was carrying.
Frank reached for his glasses. They'd been sitting folded by his elbow since he'd taken them off to open the folder. My chest tightened when he picked them up.
He put them back on.
It was such a small thing, but it changed his whole face. He looked like himself again, not the pale man staring down without a shield. He adjusted the arms behind his ears, then pulled the folder a little closer and turned back to the first page, the one I'd already read twice.
"I need to see this again," he said. His voice was rough.
Daniel didn't stop him. Josh came back and leaned in behind us again, his coffee untouched on the counter behind him. Mine went cold under my hands while Frank read.
He used his finger this time, tracing under each line slow. I watched his eyes move behind the lenses. Halfway down the page his finger stopped.
"There," he said.
"What?" I leaned in.
He tapped a little box near the bottom margin, below the signature block. I'd skimmed right past it, thinking it was just footer print. It was a square checkbox with a line of small type beside it and a blank for initials.
"Read that," Frank said to me, because his reading voice was still shaky.
I bent closer and read it out, quiet. It said the service member could request review and attach a written statement before any final action. There was a date next to it, still a few days out.
I looked up at Daniel. "You can ask for a review? And send in your side?"
Daniel nodded once. He hadn't touched his coffee either. "Yes, ma'am. I have to request it. And I can submit a statement with it."
Frank took his finger off the page but left his glasses on. He sat back, exhaling hard through his nose. "So nothing's final yet," he said. "You still get to speak."
Josh let out a breath behind us. "That's something, then."
May you like
It was something. It wasn't an answer, but it was a door we hadn't seen a minute before. The folder lay open between us, the pages a little curled from all our hands, the checkbox staring up like it had been waiting for Frank to put his glasses back on and find it.
Frank kept staring at that line. He didn't close the folder. He didn't take his glasses off again.
