I Returned For Thanksgiving To Find My Parents Gone—And My Father Waiting

that had hung there for years. A single nail stuck out from the center, empty and accusatory.

“Where is it?” I asked, though I already knew what used to hang there.

Victor’s shadow box. The display case that held his Vietnam service medals—his Bronze Star with V device for valor, his Purple Heart, his Combat Action Ribbon, the ribbons he’d earned in continue reading …