Chapter 7 - The Cot in the Garage
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Agent Vance stepped over the threshold, followed by two uniformed security personnel carrying locked metal pelican cases.
"Captain Callahan, where are your current quarters located?" Agent Vance asked me, maintaining strict professional protocol.
"We need to retrieve your transit seabag and transfer your secure communication gear to the command transport," the agent explained.
Before I could answer, my mother made a desperate, choking sound in the back of her throat.
She lunged forward, her hands waving frantically as if trying to physically block the path down the hall.
"Wait! Please, there's no need to go back there!" my mother pleaded, her cheeks burning with an overwhelming wave of crimson shame.
"Her things are... they're not in the guest rooms right now," my mother stammered, looking wildly toward my father for rescue.
"Thomas, tell them, we were renovating the upstairs bedrooms!" my mother lied desperately, her voice shrill with panic.
My father said nothing; he looked like a statue carved out of cold gray granite, unable to move his feet.
"My gear is through that door, Agent Vance," I said calmly, pointing toward the interior door leading into the attached garage.
Agent Vance nodded to his team, and the two junior personnel pushed through the door into the dimly lit utility space.
I followed behind them, with Marcus and Caitlyn trailing closely in stunned silence.
The fluorescent tube on the garage ceiling flickered to life, buzzing loudly against the cold concrete walls.
There, sitting between plastic storage tubs labeled CAITLYN - BRIDAL SHOWER and piles of discarded lawn furniture, was my bed.
A narrow aluminum folding cot with a worn green wool blanket sat inches away from a leaking garden hose and an old grease bucket.
Beside the cot, resting directly on the stained concrete floor, was my battered olive-drab deployment duffel bag.
A paper plate holding a dried crust of leftover pizza sat on an upturned cardboard box that had served as my bedside table.
The two naval security officers stopped in their tracks, staring at the scene in absolute, horrified disbelief.
Agent Vance turned slowly around, his eyes sweeping over the wedding decorations and settling directly on my father's face.
"Is this a joke, Captain Callahan?" Agent Vance asked, his voice deadly quiet, vibrating with restrained fury.
"You housed a decorated combat commander on a surplus cot beside a broken lawnmower?" the agent demanded.
"She... she arrived unexpectedly," my father muttered, his eyes darting to the floor, unable to bear the weight of the agent's disgust.
"We had no room inside the main residence," my father whispered, the excuse sounding pathetic even to his own ears.
"You had four empty bedrooms upstairs, Thomas," Marcus suddenly interrupted, his voice breaking with raw, furious tears.
"My old room has been empty for three years," Marcus yelled, turning on his father with clenched fists.
"Caitlyn's guest room has a king-sized mattress that nobody has slept on for six months!" Marcus shouted, his face contorted in agony.
Agent Vance bent down personally, lifted my heavy duffel bag from the floor, and swung it onto his broad shoulder.
"Captain Callahan, the base commander has prepared the Admiral's Guest Quarters at the naval station for your immediate arrival," Vance said to me.
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"You will not spend another ten seconds in this garage," the agent stated, turning his back on my parents with utter contempt.
As I walked toward the driveway into the crisp evening air, my mother collapsed onto the edge of the cot, weeping uncontrollably into the cheap wool blanket.
