Chapter 2 - The Signature
Sarah caught Daniel beside the side exit before he could reach his car.
"The captain has ordered the display covered until the ceremony," she said.
"Good."
"And he's asked the executive officer to speak to you about conduct."
Daniel looked back through the window at the hall.
A facilities worker had already draped a sheet over the memorial.
"I shouldn't have shouted," Daniel admitted.
Sarah gave him a level look.
"No, you shouldn't have. But that's not the part that frightened him."
She showed him the clipboard she had been carrying.
Attached to its back was a photocopy of a letter sent to the museum office.
The bottom bore his mother's name, Elaine Mercer, and a signature dated three months after the funeral.
"I acknowledge the official rescue narrative as presented," the text read.
Daniel had seen that signature on birthday cards and old permission slips.
He knew its uneven capital E.
"Did she write this?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know."
His answer startled them both.
He had grown up certain of the shape of his father's sacrifice and the woman who had carried its weight.
It was the first time he had admitted a gap in either story.
He drove to his mother's apartment in Norfolk without calling ahead.
Elaine opened the door in gardening gloves, her hair tied in a loose gray braid.
"You're early," she said, and smiled.
He showed her the photocopy.
Her smile disappeared.
"Where did you find that?"
"At the base. Why did you approve Hale's version?"
Elaine sat down before answering.
"After your father's death, the Navy gave us papers. More papers than I could understand. A man told me the statement would help speed the memorial and settle the record."
"Was the man Hale?"
"No. A civilian. He said he worked with the command's legal office."
She rubbed the ring she still wore on her left hand.
"I was trying to arrange a funeral. You were thirteen. I signed what they told me to sign."
Daniel wanted to be angry at someone.
He found himself looking at his mother's shaking fingers and feeling ashamed instead.
"Did you ever read the rescue account?"
"Not until years later," she whispered.
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
Elaine opened a drawer and took out a thick envelope.
Inside were hospital bills, condolence letters, photocopies, and a narrow slip of paper from a veterans charity.
"Because after I questioned it," she said, "someone told me your education grant would be reviewed. I didn't know whether that was true. I was terrified of taking away your future."
Daniel studied a notation on the slip: MERCER FAMILY ASSISTANCE — CLOSED BY REQUEST.
His mother reached over to cover it.
"I never requested that," she said.
For seventeen years he had thought the lie ended at a medal.
May you like
Now he was looking at an account closed in his family's name.
