Page 7 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier (Wrong Number, Right Guy #11)

Trey

I cherished the childhood home my mom kept in Dallas for a long time after I moved out and went to Basic.

There was so much nostalgia that filled up the house I grew up in.

But with every ending comes a new beginning.

I didn’t cry when my dad died when I was sixteen, although I felt the loss like the deepest pain through every part of me, even if he wasn’t a very good man.

I’ve cried twice that I can remember: once when we came back from Iraq with one less soldier than we’d gone with, and again when Mom packed up our house and moved to Austin.

The house where she and I had survived our own wars with Dad, and where in a sense, we had both grown up together.

You never really get over losing a comrade. I did get over my mom’s decision to move to Austin and start a new life. Of course she would want to do that.

The moment she greets Saylis and I at the front door, she is overflowing with new life. Her arms spread wide, reaching first for Saylis and wrapping her in the tightest hug. When she lets go, she grabs hold of me and pulls me in just as hard.

“So,” Mom says, releasing me halfway. Her eyes wander over toward Saylis, before cutting sharply back to me. “This is the girl you went to see before your own mother.”

“Trey, you did not,” Saylis says. She gives a helpless look at my mom. “I didn’t know, really, I couldn’t communicate with him at all until he landed.”

“It was a stop on the way,” I defend, weakly. I give a little shrug but it’s hard with her hands still gripped to my biceps.

“ On the way .” Mom blows a puff of air through her lips. “Don’t minimize how badly you wanted to see her.”

I glance pitifully at one then the other. “I can’t win here.”

Mom’s smile is bright, cheeky, and a little bit devious. “And now, my son, you are a man.”

I grin at her. “I thought I became a man after Basic.”

And she cackles: “Not even close.” She reaches out for Saylis’s hand, pulling her inside. “Come in! See my lovely home. Your home, too,” she says to us both. “What do I always tell you, Trey? My home is always your home.”

Home —there’s that word again. It isn’t the childhood house I grew up in that Mom sold.

It isn’t the place I kept in Dallas. When I’m on deployment, home is just a phone call away.

It sounds like a line from a children’s fable, or a Hallmark card, but it’s the truth: Home is the love inside of us. We carry it with us, we harbor it.

Wherever I might go, I’ve got home.