I reached across the desk and pressed the button to silence the ringer.

The red light continued to flash in the quiet room, casting a dull glow over the mahogany wood.

My father did not look at the phone.

His hand trembled as he reached for the thick manila folder remaining on the corner of the desk.

“Read it, Dad,” I said.

He pulled the first set of documents from the folder.

The paper rustled loudly in the silent office.

It was a printout of an email chain from November of three years ago, during my deployment to Djibouti.

My father’s eyes scanned the page, his lips parting slightly as he read the words.

“This is the email where you told us you were too busy to call for Thanksgiving,” he murmured.

“Look at the header,” I said, pointing to the top of the sheet.

“The sender address is my official military email, but the routing servers show it originated from a domestic IP address.”

My father squinted at the technical data.

“I don’t understand these numbers, Emily,” he said.