I learned about the reaction later.
At the time, I was still dealing with the ordinary responsibilities that followed the rescue.
I hadn't seen the broadcast.
I hadn't spoken to anyone at my father's house.
I didn't know whether he had remained in the room after the glass broke.
I didn't know what Jason had said.
But I could imagine the questions.
The guests had seen the same report.
They had heard the anchor say my name.
They had watched the images from mile marker 214.
It would have been difficult to pretend that the soldier on television was someone unimportant.
I wondered whether my father tried to explain.
Perhaps he told them I was his daughter.
Perhaps he simply nodded.
Perhaps he said something about my service.
I didn't know.
What I did know was that the conversation he had tried so hard to avoid had arrived anyway.
Only this time, it wasn't a casual question about my deployments.
It wasn't someone asking what rank I held.
It wasn't an opportunity for Jason to compare his promotion with my career.
It was a report about an emergency.
A bus full of passengers.
A little boy who had needed help.
An older driver trapped inside a tanker.
A rescue that had ended with everyone from the bus brought out alive.
The report had given my father a picture of the work he had been asking me not to discuss.
I thought about that when I finally checked my phone again.
I wasn't expecting anything.
But I looked anyway.
I wondered whether my father had called after watching the report.
Whether he had wanted to ask what happened.
Whether he had finally understood why I had been unable to come home so many times.
I didn't want to imagine too much.
Hope could be exhausting when it kept arriving without an answer.
I put the phone down.
I wasn't going to chase him.
Not that day.
I had already spent eighteen years trying to make my military life understandable to my family.
I had explained missed holidays.
I had apologized for birthdays.
I had promised to visit whenever I could.
I had never asked them to admire me.
I had only wanted them to understand that I couldn't always choose where I was needed.
And now, after all those years, my father had finally seen part of it without me having to explain.
I thought about Jason.
I didn't blame him for having a promotion.
I didn't blame him for getting married.
I didn't blame his wife's parents for coming to dinner.
None of those people had asked me to stay away.
My father had made that decision himself.
I didn't want to turn the situation into a competition.
That would have meant accepting the very idea that had caused the problem.
My career wasn't a threat to Jason's achievement.
His promotion wasn't a threat to mine.
We were different people with different lives.
There should have been room for both of us.
I hoped my father was beginning to understand that.
But I wasn't ready to call him and make things comfortable again.
I needed to know whether he was going to speak to me because he genuinely wanted to.
Not because the television had made my absence difficult to explain.
That distinction mattered.
I had finally learned that being invited somewhere and being wanted somewhere were not always the same thing.
And I wasn't going to forget it.
Click here to continue reading: PART 20: I Never Needed My Father to See Me on the National News, I Only Wanted Him to Want His Daughter Home for Christmas
Three Nights Before Christmas, My Father Made One Phone Call That Changed Where I Would Spend the Holiday
Part 19 of 20
