He stared at it.
“I bought that for her after your first deployment.”
I looked up.
“You did?”
He nodded.
“She saw one in a shop window and said it looked like you. I told her it was too small to look like anybody.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Dad touched one finger to the pin but did not pick it up.
“She wore it every time you had something important.”
“I know.”
“She wore it to Evan’s events too.”
I frowned.
Dad looked embarrassed. “She said it reminded her that being proud of one child did not require making the other one smaller.”
For a long time, I said nothing.
That was the first positive thing connected to our family comparisons that I had heard in years.
“Why didn’t you listen to her?”
Dad gave a humorless laugh.
“Because I was good at understanding what I could measure.”
“What does that mean?”
“Evan built houses. I could drive past them. I could see them. I understood cost, schedules, permits. Your work came with acronyms, closed doors, things you could not tell me. Every time I felt ignorant, I decided the subject was stupid instead of admitting I was ignorant.”
There it was.
Not fear of losing me like Mom.
Pride.
A smaller, uglier thing.
“You made me pay for your discomfort.”
“Yes.”
He did not defend it.
After he left, I sat by the water with the anchor pin in my palm.
For the first time, I understood why Mom had worn it to both my ceremonies and Evan’s.
Not as a symbol of the Navy.
