Full Measures (Flight & Glory, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“Ember?” I turned to see Mrs. Rose, whose husband had been killed in the attack with Dad. She looked put together in a simple black sheath and matching heels. Her hair was done, makeup perfect and unsmeared. Her two little boys, Carson and Lewis, were immaculately dressed in little black suits.

They headed down the aisle, and something dark stole into me, raising my temperature. How could she be okay? How was she so perfectly poised when my mother couldn’t hold it together? The unfairness of everything weighed on me. I wanted Mom to pull herself together like Mrs. Rose had.

An officer stood at the podium and began the traditional roll call. Oh God, here we go. As he called out the names of soldiers present, they stood in the congregation announcing their presence. All around me, figures in blue popped up like jack-in-the-boxes, alive and well. I thought I was ready to hear it. After all, I knew it was coming. Our CAO had walked us through this many times. They would call my father’s name, but he wouldn’t answer. That was the whole point. “Lieutenant Colonel Howard?” The officer’s voice echoed from the silent church. Every muscle in my body tensed and my teeth ground together. “Lieutenant Colonel Justin Howard?” April’s keen wail split the silence and tears burned their way down my cheeks. I couldn’t so much as raise my hands to wipe them away. God, just stop calling his name. Please. But he didn’t. “Lieutenant Colonel Justin A. Howard?” One more time. I just had to make it one more time. “Why do they keep calling Daddy’s name?” Gus asked. To prove he’s really gone.

Now you have it because I’m your whatever.” “My whatever?” The soft kiss he’d placed on my lips had me leaning in for more. “Whatever you need me to be,” he whispered against my mouth. He’d opened my door and brought my bag up the walk. “It’s not so easy to wash off,” he added, “and neither am I.”

“Start smelling the shirts. If it smells like Dad, bag it.” “Why?” I swallowed back my tears. “When you were two and Dad deployed, you had night terrors. No one knew why, but Mom couldn’t get them to stop.” I nearly laughed. “God, they told me this story over and over. Anyway, Mom never washed Dad’s pillowcase, so she slipped it over your pillow. It smelled like him, and you slept. Once that smell wore off, she un-bagged some of his shirts that she’d saved and covered your pillow with those.” Silent tears tracked down my sister’s face. “Okay.”

Josh’s voice was clear and strong. “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

He raised his hand like he wanted to touch me, but lowered it slowly. “Your dad, he didn’t die in vain.” I pulled the loose piece of paper from my bag, folded it in half, and handed it to him. “What made you think it was meant for Dad? You’re the one resolved. What’s your full measure of devotion?” I walked away before I had to listen to his answer.

Mom moved Chloe to the couch, cradling her head against her chest as the younger woman let out sobs that ripped through the scar tissue I’d grown over my grief. Chloe had held everything together, and I’d been so jealous that she was functioning while Mom was basically catatonic. This was nothing to be jealous over now.

I pulled back far too soon, and way too late, leaving a piece of my soul embedded in that tattoo, as close to his heart as I could get. I would never get over Josh Walker.