Chapter 14: The Boundary That Held
Contact from my parents did not resume.
The single exchange through counsel had established the only position I intended to maintain: the night they chose the forged discharge over the living service member had been the operative decision; the federal case had merely made that decision’s consequences enforceable. No request for private reconciliation arrived. No attempt was made to reopen a channel that would require me to treat the decade of erasure as a misunderstanding rather than a sustained choice. The absence of further approach was clearer and cleaner than another round of partial recognition would have been.
I marked the anniversary of the verdict the same way I marked most professional milestones—by noting the date and returning to the present assignment. The warning story the Moore family had told for ten years existed now only as exhibits and transcript. It no longer governed any room I entered.
