“He was going to be the youngest colonel in the division.”

“Then he got passed over.”

“Twice.”

“Do you know what that did to us?”

“The other wives looked at me like I was married to a ghost.”

“We couldn’t keep up the payments on the house in the hills.”

“We couldn’t pay the club dues.”

“If we sold the house, everyone would know.”

“They would know he was failing.”

She looked at our mother, searching for support, but my mother looked down at the carpet.

“Andrew told me he found a way,” Claire continued, her voice trembling.

“He said the system had plenty of surplus.”

“He said Emily was overseas and didn’t even use her domestic allowance.”

“He said it was just sitting there in the garrison ledger.”

“He told me he would route it through the housing office.”

“I told him it was risky.”

“But he said he had the clerk under his thumb.”

I watched my sister’s face as she spoke.

The sister who had always looked down on my uniform.

The sister who told our parents I was wasting my life in the mud.