Seven Years (#3 in Military Series)

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Harold sat on the end of his daughter's bed and began to pack away her memories.

It felt as if he was laying his only daughter to rest as he began to pack away anything that would make her remember, or cause her confusion.

He had amounted a small pile of stuff beside him that was from her time in the military. Everything else had been placed into boxes and put away in the garage.

Reaching out, Harold picked up her dog tags and ran the pad of his thumb over her name stamped into the metal.

REYNOLDS, JULIA.

Harold's eyes began to tear up, not for the first time, as he slowly lowered her dog tags into an army tin he had saved from his old days.

When his daughter had first enlisted, he had imagined this scene over and over in his head. Getting the knock at the door, not being able to step foot into her room before one day having to begin going through her things.

He thought about all the parents before him who had done it that won't be seeing their children again, but Harold would.

He wasn't packing away her things because she had died, he was doing it because she could never remember being in the Marines.

He was getting his daughter back, that's what he had to remember.

The next thing to join the pile were a bunch of letters, tied with a ribbon. It reminded him of something you would see in the movies. He did not read them, they were private, but he was fairly certain he knew who she had been writing to.

Harold thought about Marcus. He had been flown back to Afghanistan for the last few weeks of his tour, bearing the bad news that his fiancé would not be returning.

That was another thing which had been stolen from him, Harold realised, he would never have Marc for a son-in-law and he wouldn't get to walk his daughter down the aisle.

More things joined the pile, an empty shell casing from her training days, photographs, reports, post cards.

The list seemed to be never ending but soon he was met with an empty bed and a tin filled with cherished memories which had been so easily stolen by a man with an RPG.

Harold had caught up with Marc the next day and asked for the details. He needed to know how his daughter had come to be where she was.

She had been trying to stop a terrorist. His daughter, Harold chuckled, trying to stop a terrorist.

It almost didn't bear thinking about but he was prouder of her than he could ever be, but he would never be able to tell her that.

Closing the lid down on the tin, Harold simply remained there and remembered the time he had driven his daughter to the enlisting office.

Downstairs, Katherine hovered over the bin in the kitchen.

Her foot was pressed down on the pedal lifting up the bin lid, her clasped hand was stretched over the bin, but she froze.

Just open your fingers, Katherine. She told herself, Open your fingers and it will all be over.

She stood there for another five minutes, willing herself to do it, but she couldn't.

She could have stood there for a year and she still wouldn't be able to do it.

Stepping back, the lid to the bin crashed shut, and she lifted her hand up to her face. Peeling her fingers back, Katherine stared at the ring resting innocently in her palm.