The Sixteen Seconds

Texas Army National Guard, nineteen years, first sergeant.

I had a phone in a plastic bin in a room with four other men in it and it lit up at 2:17 with a number I did not know.

I almost did not answer it.

I want that on the record at the start.

“Daddy?”

“Wren?”

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

She was nine.