Chapter 8 - The Cost of Silence
“Stop it, Richard! Just shut up!”
The voice came from the doorway near the kitchen.
We all turned. Standing there, clutching a floral-print purse to her chest with white knuckles, was Aunt Brenda—Mom’s older sister. She had been sitting quietly in the back corner all evening, watching the trainwreck unfold.
Brenda marched toward the center of the room, her sensible heels clicking like hammer strikes against the floor. Tears of rage were streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.
“Brenda, stay out of this,” Dad snapped. “This is military business.”
“Military business? You pathetic coward,” Brenda hissed, stopping right beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “You’ve been lying to yourself for twenty years, Richard. And you’ve been lying to everyone in this town.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “Brenda, I swear to God—”
“No, Richard! You don't swear to anyone!” Brenda reached into her purse and pulled out a worn, yellowed manila envelope, held together by frayed rubber bands. She threw it directly into my father’s chest. The envelope hit his medals and fell to the floor, spilling its contents across the tiles.
Official letters. Department of the Army letterheads. Commendation certificates.
And medals.
A Defense Superior Service Medal. A Joint Commendation Medal with combat device.
“What is this?” Derek stammered, dropping to his knees to pick up one of the ribbons.
“Those are Morgan’s,” Brenda said, her voice shaking with righteous fury. “Every time Morgan was decorated, the Pentagon sent notification packets to the family home. Richard found them in the mailbox. He hid them in the crawlspace under the workbench in the garage. He told Helen—my sister, your wife—that if she ever told Morgan he had seen them, he’d walk out on the family.”
I stared at the papers scattered across the floor. My heart, which had been frozen in combat mode, suddenly cracked open.
Mom knew.
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Before she died of cancer four years ago, Mom had always given me that sad, knowing look when I visited. She had hugged me tighter than usual, whispering that she was proud of me, even when Dad refused to sit at the same dinner table.
“You hid them?” I whispered, looking up at my father. “You had my citations in the garage for ten years?”
