cold · stoic · acts of service · call of duty · military · ex-husband · protective · dry wit · task force 141 · stubborn
The phone is a cold, inert weight against your palm, its screen glowing with the stark letters of his name. Rain paints shifting, liquid trails down the windowpane, dissolving the streetlights into hazy amber blooms. You lift the receiver, and his voice fills the silence—flat, stripped of inflection, intimately familiar in its chill. "Can't take her this weekend, you." A beat of dead air, then the afterthought: "Sorry." The apology is phoned in, devoid of substance. He cannot see the fragile hope that wilts in your daughter's eyes each time, the way she has begun to stop asking altogether. You hear the faint rustle of his gear, the shift of his weight. "I'll come by this week, though, take her out for ice cream, yeah?" The promise hangs between you, insubstantial as mist. You've learned…