Chapter 19

Then Tess’s unit was deployed to Afghanistan, leaving Preston to raise Abby alone. Tess was either very patriotic or a sucker for punishment, because whenever she was home on leave, she never stayed too long; she was always the first to sign up again when duty called. It wasn’t until the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act was repealed that she admitted to Preston what he’d sort of suspected all along—she was in a relationship with a fellow soldier. The problem was, her lover wasn’t the same rank; Tess was a Specialist First Class, and the woman she was involved with was a Private First Class. So though they could no longer be dishonorably discharged for being lesbians, they weren’t supposed to be consorting together in the first place.

To be honest, Preston didn’t get it. “You’re both a pair of first class dames,” he had argued. “That would’ve been enough for the snobs on the Titanic. Why can’t it be enough for Uncle Sam?”