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Show reflected the sky and matched the creases in his shirt with those in his pants so that a straight line ran from shoulder to toe. In the winter he added a regulation dark coat with gold bands on the sleeves designating his rank; his head brushed the sky. I'm home, he would announce as he entered the house, removing his cover and placing it on the hall bench. I'd like to say I ran to him every night, welcoming him back from the northern Virginia traffic, the carpool lane restrictions, the Metro line closed for repairs, but I rarely did. The dinner table was usually the first I would see of him each day. Sometimes we would visit him at the Pentagon, though the traffic made such trips limited. One of the largest buildings in the world, the Pentagon consists of several rings of offices and several floors, all surrounding a central courtyard. You might work on the third floor but the D ring. In the gullet of the building, there is no natural light, just the shine of fluorescent bouncing off gleaming linoleum. Despite close to eighteen miles of hallway, the pentagonal shape means ypu are never more than seven minutes from any point in the building, allowing the many military and State Department personnel to move between floors and rings rapidly. Working as he did without a window, I imagine entire weeks went by that my father never saw the sun. One night in late September we returned home from dinner at friends. Scott and I sat in the back seat, drawing imaginary lines on the vinyl and demanding that the other stay on their side. Even when we escalated the battle with a series of pushes, a redrawing of the imaginary line, and then a skirmish between feet, we garnered little attention from the 52 |
