He looked at the room.
“And that’s what a father is,” he said. “Not the man whose blood you have. The man who climbs up on the tractor. The man who shows up.”
He looked straight at Dr. Prentiss, sitting with his face in his hands.
“Any man who shows up for a boy,” the admiral said, “belongs at this breakfast.”
Part Thirteen: Standing Up
For a long moment, nobody moved.
Then, at the table nearest ours, a man stood up.
It was the man in the gray suit. The one who’d been staring at my top row of ribbons. The one
whose face had gone pale.
He was standing very straight.
“Chief Halloran,” he said.
His voice was shaking.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Mark Whitfield. Navy Reserve. I was a corpsman before I commissioned.”
He looked at Caleb.
“I knew your son,” he said. “Danny Halloran. We were at Field Medical Training Battalion together at Camp Lejeune. 2011.”
