Nobody in my family knew I was coming.
Not my mother.
Not my younger sister.
Not even my wife, Naomi.
And that was exactly how I wanted it.
For almost three years, my entire life had existed nb through phone screens, rushed video calls, care packages, and bank transfers.
Naomi and I had been married for six years before I deployed.
She was the kind of woman who left coffee warming for me when I worked late, remembered the birthdays of people I had forgotten, and somehow made a tiny rented duplex feel like the safest place in the world.
