New Husband. Old One Gone novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Colonel

Mama buttoned the coat all the way to her chin.

"Get your computer, Rosie," she said. "And that boy's legal pad."

"Mama, it's an hour to the base."

"Then we'd better go."

She picked her car keys off the hook by the door.

Sawyer stood up from Daddy's chair.

"I can drive y'all."

Mama looked at him for the first time in four days.

"You can follow," she said.

So we went up Highway 17 in a little line.

Mama's Buick in front, with me beside her and Corey in the back. Sawyer's truck behind us the whole way.

Mama drove with both hands on the wheel and her chin up, five miles under the limit.

I wrote the complaint on Corey's legal pad on my knee.

One page. Who was driving. What Bryce said in the sand and in the hospital. What the video showed.

Corey read it over my shoulder from the back seat.

"You spelled 'lieutenant' wrong," he said.

"Everybody spells it wrong."

"Yes, ma'am. You still did."

I fixed it.

At the main gate, the Marine in the booth held out his hand for IDs.

Mama gave him a card I'd never seen her use. Gold star in the corner.

He looked at it and stood up straighter.

"Ma'am," he said.

Corey handed over his retired ID with his hand shaking.

Then the Marine leaned down to look back at Sawyer's truck.

"And the gentleman behind you, ma'am?"

Mama didn't even turn her head.

"He's with me," she said.

I looked out my window so she wouldn't see my face.

The battalion headquarters was a long brick building with a flagpole out front and a lawn cut short as a Marine's hair.

Off to one side, men were working on a wall.

Black granite, waist high, curved. A blue tarp was tied over the face of it.

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