I remember that room, that stillness after deployment, that ache in the sternum when the last duffel was packed and the car pulled away at 07:14. It’s a phantom limb, that maternal role, an amputation you didn’t consent to, and now I just stare at the empty bed, the single dust mote drifting through a shaft of moonlight, wondering how a woman of forty recalibrates after serving a term of service so absolute, so all-consuming—what *is* civilian life after that particular campaign? I just… I don't know what to do with all this excess capacity.