“No,” Grace says, voice rising, “but it’s mine.” She hides her clenched fists. The way she pinches the thin skin on her wrists. Sharone watches the two of them carefully. “It’s mine, Dad.” Dad, not Colonel. Not some distant military figure that sends her a formal email for dinner at the house she grew up in. No, it’s Dad, who taught her how to ride a bike, who dropped her off on her first day of high school. Dad, who let Grace cry into his uniform when no one else looked like her, sunshine hair and brown freckles on brown skin. “Dad,” she says, and he jerks back, surprised.

“Porter, I just want to know—”

“It’s mine,” she says. “All of it. My degree and whatever fucking—”

“Your language—”

“—mistakes I make, they’re all mine. Whatever I decide to do, it’s mine.”

“Okay,” Sharone cuts in. “Colonel, don’t you remember being young? You didn’t have everything figured out all at once, did you?”

“I did,” he says firmly. “The army recruited me out of high school. It’s not like I could afford college. I had no choice but to figure out what success looked like with the hand I was dealt, so I did the work to get it. Then I had a family to take care of, and I did that, too. I just want to know Porter is doing the work to get what she wants.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Grace says, and she watches his face with a repressed sort of satisfaction. “I worked for eleven years to become a doctor because I wanted you to be proud of me.”

“We agreed you would do medicine—”

“You agreed I would do medicine,” she corrects, voice trembling. “And I didn’t. I did something that disappointed you. I didn’t get the job Professor MacMillan set up for me, and I know that disappoints you, too. But my career is mine to figure out.”

Colonel sits stone-faced and unmoving. Finally, he pushes back from the table and refuses help getting up. “Then that’s what you need to do,” he says. “Next time, you will figure out what the best is, and you will get it. That is what Porters do.”

The kitchen is quiet when he leaves. Perhaps this is where Grace figures it out. In the silent gravity of her father’s home.

“That went well,” she says, finally slumping down and sipping her wine. “He didn’t disown me, at least.”

“He would never,” Sharone says. “Your father has his own shit to deal with, but never doubt he wants the best for you.”

Grace nods. “I know,” she says quietly. “But I don’t even know what’s best for me, so how the hell does he?”

“You know how he is,” Sharone chides. “He thinks he knows everything.”

Grace sighs and checks her phone, filled up with messages from Agnes and Ximena in their group chat. “I should go. Want me to help with the dishes?”

“Girl, this is not my mama’s house. You know I use the dishwasher.” She shoos Grace away. “Want me to drive you home?”

Grace shakes her head. She feels hollowed out, her insecurities laid bare for Colonel to poke and prod. But they are hers to examine, hers to shove back into the pit of her stomach, hers to hide. “No,” she decides. “I’ll take a Lyft. It’s fine.”

“Be careful,” Sharone tells her, kissing the top of Grace’s head. She’s tall in her heels. Grace doesn’t know how she wears them all day. “Call when you get home.”

“I will,” Grace promises. “Love you. Thanks for not letting Colonel eat me alive.”

Sharone laughs. “I love you, too,” she says. “You’re a good kid, Porter.”

The words feel like a balm, a cold compress to the raw feeling of exposure.

Spring nights in Portland are breezy, and as Grace sits on the porch swing and waits for her car, she lets her mind wander. She is not here in a home she needs an invitation to visit. She is in the stars, bold and bright and beautiful. She is strong and unwavering, and not filled with the sour taste of failure and the weight of unknowns.

She thinks, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, like a mantra. She has to be okay, because there is no other option. She is okay because she must be, to muster the strength to set up more job interviews. She must be as formidable as the black, swirling universe. It keeps going, and so shall she. She has to.

The door swings open, and Sharone steps out holding a bulky envelope.

“From your mom. I didn’t tell Colonel,” she says. “Looks like it’s been to hell and back, but it got here.”

Grace opens it with careful fingers. She and Mom spoke on FaceTime two weeks ago, and she hadn’t mentioned she was putting anything in the mail. She’d been in Thailand this time, and the connection was spotty.

The paper is wrinkled, the ink smeared in places like it got caught in the rain. Mom is always traveling on some spiritual retreat or holistic voyage, and Grace has become used to receiving letters and packages from all over the world.

“She’ll be home soon to start doing prep for harvest season,” Grace reads. “Should be ready to start up in a few months. She expects it to be a big one.”

“Oh wow,” Sharone says. “Running those groves sounds like so much work.”

In the envelope, tucked in the bottom, are a few crumpled bills.