them from Marcus’s hand. “Did you remember to add your extra time from last Sunday?”
“Yes, I put it under overtime like you told me. Is there anything else you need from me?” Marcus asked.
“Someone to do the rest of these invoices,” I said, thumping the substantial stack of papers on my desk with a knuckle.
He laughed as he spun around and walked away. “The last time you tried that, you stood over the poor guy’s shoulder the entire time.”
I frowned and leaned over to see him walking down the hallway through the open door of my office. “He was doing it wrong!” I yelled at his retreating form.
Marcus gave a dry chuckle as he spun around to look at me, still walking backward down the hall as he replied, “He was only doing it wrong because you’re a control freak.”
I shrugged at Marcus and sat back up. I couldn’t really say anything to challenge his statement. I was a control freak. I couldn’t help it. What habits my mother had begun instilling in me as a child, the army had finished.
Growing up the poor son of a single mother, I’d learned early on that order and control were essential for survival. We had a tight schedule of what bills we would pay on time and which would go late. We could survive a few days without electricity in the summer. In the winter, we’d huddle around the tiny wood-burning fireplace we’d scrimped and saved for so we didn’t have to turn on the heater.
We’d planned every meal weeks in advance to stretch every penny we’d had. We’d cut coupons from the Sunday paper—justifying the two-dollar price tag—making a game of finding the most disgusting combination we could. I still insisted I maintained the title of King of the Coupons with my salmon brownies and cheese slice sprinkles.
Long before I’d turned eighteen, I’d known the military was our only chance. I’d told no one what I’d planned, not even my best friend Foster, fearing he’d try to talk me out of it. The day after I’d graduated, I’d waited outside the recruitment office to open, and I’d happily signed my life away for the chance of a college education and a way out for my mother and myself.
I knew I was lucky that it had worked because for so many, it hadn’t. I’d excelled at basic training in ways that had surprised even me. The order and structure had felt like a comforting blanket even when things had felt so uncertain.
In the eight years I’d served, my mother and Foster had been my lifelines, my only connections to a blessedly ordinary life. A life where friends and brothers didn’t die in front of me from bullets and shrapnel. A life where they wouldn’t disappear for days on end and then come back broken in ways that fundamentally changed who they were.
I’d managed to serve my time and get out relatively unscathed. Yes, I still had problems with fireworks and unexpected sounds, my knees ached at inopportune moments, and my shoulder sometimes gave me fits from the bullet I’d taken, but I had my health and my life, so I counted myself fortunate. I said nothing of the memories I held, of the things I’d done to survive, because I knew they’d never leave me.
Knowing I needed to get the payroll done before Lee showed up with his friend at three, I got back to work. A few hours later, our employees were paid, I’d tallied the expenses from the day before, and I was a free man. Standing from my desk, I rolled my shoulders and stretched until I felt a satisfying pop in my chest.
I took a few minutes to straighten up my desk and closed the door behind me as I left. I passed Foster’s open office door without looking inside, not wanting to see the mess. As organized as that man was, his office was a disaster zone.
Opening the door at the end of the hallway, I stepped out into the lobby of The Church. I was surprised to see Marcus running a new potential member through our spiel. While we were technically open, very few members bothered showing up so early. These times were for our more shy and private members.
The girl Marcus was talking to was, without a doubt, shy and new. I could tell. She had that look I’d seen a thousand times that was equal parts wonder and wide-eyed terror.
I gave the girl a