Dad looked nervous.
“Too much?”
“Almost.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “He practiced asking that.”
I ran my thumb over the new engraving.
For twenty-two years, Dad had treated my Navy career like an embarrassing phase I refused to outgrow. The old company name had become part of that story—a world built for sons, visible work, and a legacy I was supposed to join or disappoint.
Now the same brass plate held something else on the back.
Not a correction of history.
An admission that the daughter had always existed even when the sign did not know what to do with her.
I handed the plate to Grant.
“Put it in your office.”
“Why mine?”
“Because you are the son.”
He groaned.
Dad laughed.
I looked around the table.
Ordinary food. Uneven lawn. My mother barefoot in the grass. No helicopter approaching.
For the first time in years, I did not need one.
