She stood there, arms crossed over her flight suit, staring at me. Her eyes traveled from my face down to my outfit—the faded beige blouse and the loose-fitting jeans I had changed into. She let out a snort that was decidedly unmilitary.
“With all due respect, ma’am,” she drawled, “you look like you’re about to go coupon clipping at a grocery store, not attending a high society wedding.”
I picked up my purse, a generic leather bag I’d bought at an outlet mall five years ago. “That’s the point, Marissa. It’s camouflage.”
Fitch shook her head, her expression darkening.
She walked around the desk, invading my personal space in a way only a best friend and second-in-command could. “I don’t get it, Mina. I really don’t,” she said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“You are a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. You command a wing of strategic airlift capabilities. You have a star on your shoulder.
Why in God’s name are you letting your family treat you like you’re some unemployed drifter?”
I sighed, looking past her to the window where the gray sky was threatening rain. “They know I have a job, Marissa. They just don’t understand what it is.”
“So tell them.” Fitch threw her hands up.
“Tell them you outrank every person in that country club they worship. Tell them you have the President on speed dial.”
“If I tell them I’m a ‘general,’” I said, making air quotes, “my father will nod and ask if that means I’m the general manager of the motor pool. To Robert and Linda Grimes, government work is just administration.
It’s filing cabinets and waiting in line at the DMV. They think ‘general’ is just a fancy title for a senior bureaucrat who pushes paper. They don’t see the planes.
They don’t see the strategy. They just see a civil servant’s salary.”
Fitch looked like she wanted to punch a wall. “But that’s insane.
You make—”
“I know what I make,” I cut her off. I did know. I knew it down to the penny.
It was a math equation I ran in my head every time Patrick bragged about his bonuses. I did the mental calculation again just to ground myself. My base pay as an O-7 with over twenty years of service.
The basic allowance for housing, which in Hawaii—one of the most expensive zip codes in America—was astronomical. The flight pay. The cost-of-living allowance.
It all added up to a compensation package hovering right around four hundred thousand dollars a year. I wasn’t destitute. I wasn’t struggling.
I was in the top tax bracket of the United States. I earned basically the same amount as my brother Patrick, the financial wizard. The difference was in where the money went.
Patrick wore his wealth. It was on his wrist in the form of a Rolex. It was in his garage in the form of a Porsche.
It was in the Hermès Birkin bags he bought his fiancée to prove his worth. My wealth was invisible. It was in my diversified investment portfolio that I never talked about.
It was in the college funds I’d secretly set up for my nieces. And mostly, it was in the checks I wrote every month to the Wounded Warrior Project and the Air Force Aid Society. Last year, I donated fifty thousand dollars to build housing for homeless veterans.
Patrick spent fifty thousand dollars on a membership to a golf club in the Hamptons. We were not the same. “I don’t need them to know about the money, Marissa,” I said softly.
“I use my money for things that matter. I don’t need to wear a price tag to feel valuable.”
“It’s not about the money, Mina,” Fitch said, her eyes softening with a mixture of frustration and pity. “It’s about the respect.
You’re letting them walk all over you. You’re playing small so they can feel big.”
She picked up a folder from the desk and tapped it rhythmically against her palm. “You know what you look like right now?” she asked.
“A tired woman going on vacation,” I ventured. “No,” Fitch said, her voice sharp. “You look like an eagle trying to walk like a chicken because you’re afraid of scaring the other chickens in the coop.”
The image hit me hard.
An eagle trying to walk like a chicken. “They are my family, Marissa,” I said, feeling the old familiar defensive walls going up. “I just want to keep the peace.
It’s just for a weekend. I can handle it. I’m a stoic, remember.”
“Being a stoic means enduring pain you can’t change,” Fitch countered.
“It doesn’t mean volunteering for abuse you don’t deserve.”
She walked over to the heavy steel door of the office and held it open for me. The noise of the outer office—the ringing phones, the chatter of the staff—flooded back in. “Go,” Fitch said.
“But do me a favor, General. When you’re sitting in that middle seat in economy, just remember who you actually are. Don’t let them clip your wings.”
I adjusted my purse strap, feeling the weight of the civilian costume settling on my shoulders.
It felt heavier than my rucksack ever did. “I’ll see you in three days, Colonel,” I said. “Keep my birds safe.”
“I always do,” she replied.
I walked out of the command suite, past the young airmen who snapped to attention as I passed, even in my plain clothes. They knew who I was. They respected me.
As I stepped out of the air-conditioned building into the humid pre-storm air of Hawaii, I felt a knot of dread tighten in my stomach. Behind me was the world where I was a general. Ahead of me was the world where I was nothing.
I walked toward my car, a sensible four-year-old Honda Accord. Patrick would have laughed at it. He would have called it a commuter car.
I got in, gripped the steering wheel, and took a deep breath. “The man in the arena,” I repeated to myself. “The face marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
I was leaving the arena, and I was heading straight into the lion’s den.
Los Angeles International Airport was its own special circle of hell. It was a cacophony of rolling suitcase wheels, screaming toddlers, and the robotic voice of the PA system announcing delays. The air inside Terminal 4 smelled of stress, stale pretzels, and jet fuel.
I stood near the entrance of the check-in counter, checking my watch. I had arrived exactly at 0900 hours. Punctuality wasn’t a habit for me.
It was a religion. I scanned the crowd looking for them. It wasn’t hard.
You didn’t need a radar system to spot the Grimes family. They were making an entrance. My father, Robert, was leading the phalanx, pushing a luggage cart that was stacked so high with Louis Vuitton monogrammed bags it looked like a monument to capitalism.
My mother, Linda, walked a step behind him, wearing oversized sunglasses indoors and a scarf that probably cost more than a senior airman’s monthly paycheck. And then there was Patrick. My brother was walking with that loose-limbed, arrogant stride of a man who has never had to run for cover.
He was wearing a beige linen suit—Armani, doubtless—that was entirely impractical for travel but perfect for projecting status. He was typing on his phone, barely looking up as people swerved to avoid hitting him. I looked down at my own gear.
I had one bag—a black tactical carry-on that fit everything I needed for four days. Efficient. Mobile.
Invisible. They spotted me. Or rather, my mother spotted my lack of luggage.
“Mina,” she called out, waving a manicured hand. I took a deep breath, steeling myself. I had negotiated with warlords in Afghanistan.
I could handle a weekend with my parents. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” I said, forcing a smile as they approached.
There were no hugs. The Grimes family didn’t do public displays of affection. They did public displays of assessment.
My mother stopped in front of me, lifting her sunglasses to perch them on her forehead. Her eyes—sharp and blue like mine—scanned my face like she was looking for a crack in the foundation. “Oh dear,” she sighed, reaching out to touch my cheek with a cold finger.
“You look so weathered.”
“It’s good to see you too, Mom,” I said, pulling back slightly. “No, really, Mina,” she continued, her voice loud enough for the couple standing in line behind us to hear. “Your skin is like parchment.
