The Sister went to war. Her music chops, her marksmanship, her psych degree she folded into neat squares to take with her. In high school, she’d been an actress. She’d been Dolly in Hello, Dolly! Then, poof! She was armed and abroad.

The Sister was the oldest of four siblings. The Brothers—there were three of them—wanted to see the Sister as soon as she returned. They thought about the Sister, about Hello, Dolly!—“It’s so nice to see you back where you belong!”

The family was modern, meaning their father had left them. The Father had been the size of a billboard when they were young, which was many years ago. Yet the week before the Sister returned, the Father called the Brothers and told them, Hey, let’s drive overnight and meet her on base. The Brothers agreed. They emphasized its urgency. Yes, overnight. Yes, without any concern for comfort. As if they’d be sharing something with her.

The day before they left, Brother One spoke through the night with his wife. Brother Two organized himself in boxes in his mind. Brother Three hummed, “Well, hello, Dolly,” and forgot to email any of his professors.

What makes this especially complicated is that the Sister wasn’t the first to go to war. Brother One also served. He was no longer serving. He was done with war and being a soldier. He was going to Work a Normal Job and Be a Good Dad. Everyone loved his decision. When he came home from war there was more pageantry, more public sentiment, but no discussion of war among the siblings. War was a black hole into which they sent their oldest representatives and out of which Brother One and the Sister returned, neither gauche nor eloquent enough to attempt to capture its reality-bending boredom, dread, cursing, and probably pornography. For Brother One at least, everyone assumed and no one said, pornography must have been rampant, around him if not before him and of course it was before him. Soldiers were like that.

Into this context, the Sister was returning quietly. A small team to a small base from a year which only one of her brothers understood, but couldn’t describe. The two younger brothers were likewise not gauche and not eloquent, and so they never asked about what was never spoken. Whole nations have evaporated under such decorum.

Driving in Kansas, the Father swerved to avoid a bottle and Brother One was sent out of time. There was salt in his mouth and someone might shoot him. This kind of bullshit, he thought, only ever happens in cars. He’d returned from war two years prior.

You’re okay, said the Father, and patted his knee, chatting.

Brother One glanced at the younger brothers behind him. Maybe you’ve been in a car like this, where everything that matters is silent. Balling his fists, lips pressed into a single line, Brother One shook his head at the passing objects. Sign. Wheat. Car. Another car. So many fucking, very safe cars. He closed his eyes. He worried that he needed the Father more than the younger brothers. He’d known the Father before the Father moved out, and missed him.

Padiddle, he said, seeing a car with only one headlight. He punched Brother Three on the leg.

Brother Three thought, What is the exact size of a brigade? What are the hardest tests they have to take at Ranger school? What is it like to shoot a machine gun? Have my brother and sister killed people? thought Brother Three. It was the only question, really. The question beneath all the other questions.

Next to him, Brother Two read Brother Three’s mind with ease, but without interest. He was trying to keep all his mental boxes in their proper places, which was difficult. The Father was driving and Brother One was tetchy and Brother Three was lost in speculation, each of their tendencies colliding and jockeying. So Brother Two kept making jokes as if he were a punch-up, even though inside he skittered about like a cat manhandled beyond its limit. I wish we’d left in the daytime, he joked, so we could see all this wheat we’re passing.

Is this getting through to you?

Let me be even more intimate. Let me try. Let me put you inside the car. There is Brother One in the front, too large, too long, taller than his younger brothers by half a foot. Taller than the Father by the same. From where such height? Conspicuous Brother One, the veteran. He was on display. And Brother Two mewing and clowning in the name of ease, battling the quiet curiosity of Brother Three. Unwavering Brother Three, who was born into a knowledge gap. He wished he could go with the Sister or Brother One for part of their tour—even a week of their tour—and inhale the reality. He had a right to know. Brother Two rejected this unsaid buzz, rearranged his mental shelving, honed his jokes.

We really have five more hours of this, thought Brother One. He’d never be able to sleep with his knees crushed against the dashboard. He’d have to close his eyes and pretend to sleep and not think about what he should or shouldn’t be dreaming, about which parts of the veteran experience he was having rather than aping.

The Father kept driving. No one ever assumes estrangement might deepen with age, until it happens. They avoided each other and discussed abstractions. Politics. Religion. The state of movies.

Boring, thought Brother Three. Enough!

Remember, he said, when we caught that water moccasin in Oklahoma, at the lake? You guys killed that thing. I don’t even know why. Then it bit itself because of rigor mortis or whatever. That happened, right?

Everyone laughed. Yes, it had happened. But Brother Three was laying a trap.

Remember, he said, the backpacking trip with [the Sister] four years ago, the last trip before [Brother One] got married—when [the Father] almost died of appendicitis?

Yes, they laughed. Yes, they remembered. They spoke over each other, as if inspired.

They remembered the crawlspace beneath the Father’s father’s home. Their dead uncle’s hidden trunks of guns. He’d been Navy, their uncle. No one’s perfect. He’d been six-foot-eight, another aberration of altitude. Haha, they laughed. Like a mountain. Altitude. And there was the other hidden trunk of girly mags. Their father in the dirt with them. The fun Father. The lake Father. He’d brought the guns back to his apartment after that trip. Brother Two remembered especially. The Father dragging the trunk of guns into his small two-bedroom apartment, and the brothers and the Sister coming over earlier than expected. He didn’t even notice he was pants-less when they walked in. Oh, hi, he’d said. Oh, hi!? A man in his underwear from the heat of his make-do, divorced-dad apartment. The guns fanned around him for cataloguing, aimed at the entire world.

Hey, said Brother Three—he could smell his chance.

Hey, said Brother Three, what about, I mean, what kind of guns did they have in [. . .]?

Brother One paused and no one else spoke. He tapped his fingers. He tapped his feet. He sucked at his lower lip and raised his eyes in thought. He became a symphony of tics, his digits tapping and his feet wriggling and his tongue flashing over his lips. They could feel the electricity dancing off of him.

I want to hear this, thought Brother Three.

Oh shit, thought Brother Two.

The Father said nothing.

Finally, Brother One opened his mouth and hovered over his body.

You know, weirdly, he said, we used to kill dogs now and then. Like the water moccasin, you know. It felt pretty normal. Exactly like how we went to the lake, or we’d go to camp or whatever, and we’d be wild hillbillies right until we came back to civilization. And the dogs weren’t a part of civilization. They were like rodents. That’s how everyone felt. My translator was the worst. But the minute you come home, you’re like, damn. I killed dogs. I like dogs. Like, one time—or let me start over. That’s not how an Army story starts. They all start the same. It’s, No shit there I was. Okay? So, no shit there I was, some sort of nighttime patrol. I don’t know why I’m laughing. Anyways, I had to take a dump. Like I really had to go. We were in [. . .], and I told my driver to pull over and the major ahead of us was furious. You know. Don’t stop you pig-fucking idiots, do not get out of the vehicle, oh my god, you are all so dead, and so on. But there was no helping it. He was a baby about patrol anyway. Never wanted to go out, and that was our only job half the time. Do your job! You know? I’d almost peed myself once that month. A lot of us did at some point. But shitting? Shitting? So I got out of the vehicle and had my nine-millimeter in hand. I’m squatting with my gun, balls to the cold—or, geez. Sorry. I never used to speak like this. I feel like I’ve been dragged into some sort of caveman routine. Anyways. That night, I’m squatting with my gun. The wind throws something against my ass. Trash. Weeds. I dunno. I remember the brush of it. I jumped. We were being shot at is the short end of things. I heard it after I felt it. I had tissues on me and wiped up and we got out of there just fine. We didn’t really engage. But we were on our way to help some MiTT crew. I mean, when Mom told me that [the Sister] was going with a MiTT team I was pretty worried. I’ve been worried all year. Those were the guys we always rolled in to save, guns hot. I hate that phrase. Guns hot. Everything was always fucking hot. It doesn’t make any sense. All these phrases are just waiting there for me. Fucking cues and lines. There’s no way to talk about anything without sounding like voiceover. Anyways. So this night I’m talking about, you know, I was sort of monitoring the extent of my sweat stains. I was the biggest guy everywhere we went. I could tell you how much IV fluid I’d need based on my pit stains. Put that in a fucking movie. —Well, we’re in [. . .] and it’s night. I’m done shitting. We’ve avoided the gunfire. But CIA has called us over to a tract of buildings. The CIA! Not that he announces his institution or his position or whatever. We’re told it’s some CIA guy and he’s not in regs and yadda yadda, you know? The funniest part is how much he looked like someone I’d see on TV, but much nerdier. And an asshole. He was so one of a kind. Like, we’re about to be on the same mission with the same brief, and he’d say he couldn’t talk about the specifics. What a dick. Anyways. We get to where we’re going and it’s the usual issue. A bunch of low buildings with no lights and reports of very bad things and very bad people inside who want to do even more terrible things. They’re making IEDs and they’ve tortured some local collaborators and worse. The buildings are a kind of mud concrete, you know. Durable but not industrial. Like, I dunno, you’ve seen a movie. Thick walls. And do you know what a fifty-caliber looks like going through those? Because I’ve sneezed with more effort. A fifty-caliber unmakes walls. Like it doesn’t go through anything. It blows them up with lead-per-millimeter. They shot at us, and we unmade them. Like, I’m trying to tell you something without you thinking it’s anything but what it is. Bad guys. Not good people. Except, you know, there were other people with them. All kinds of people. I mean, we pulled children from that building. We didn’t touch them ourselves. We just sat around and cried or puked or some guys were confused and joked around. I don’t know what else we were supposed to do. I had to go in and see who we’d killed, and there is no way for me to say children, or a girl, just one little girl, and for you not to picture some glib, cable news bullshit that turns her into less than herself. The CIA guy and our bosses and intelligence from months down the road, like in the future, all assured us that terrorists were now dead, and that they’d used a random family as human shields. They hadn’t known about the family. Can’t you, like, see the article of that even as I’m saying it? You’re reading, in your head, either a story about casualties or an opinion piece on the unnecessary death of innocents—which is an understatement, a joke, that’s just someone getting paid for a word count. I was there and I’m reading the same story. I’m sitting at home a year later reading the same news, and I’m seeing casualties explained, targets explained, I’m reading about myself in a way that is not myself. I don’t want to be profound here. I’m saying I’m still getting my head around it. And that we shouldn’t expect too much of [the Sister]. She was on a freaking MiTT team, dude. She was in people’s houses drinking their coffee and trying to talk the women into telling us which men were sniping police officers at night. She was the people we came in hot to save. She was with the Rangers probably, and with Special Forces for sure, trying to get the intel that only a woman can get. I know she got blown up at least once in a vehicle train. We’ve got another classmate there right now. Or, like, someone I still talk to. There are a bunch of classmates there all the time. But I heard it from him. She’ll have a bronze star at some point. But she’ll also be totally normal. Maybe she’s become less and less normal. I dunno! It’s a black box, dude. Like, she’ll still be such a girl, her princess shirts and stuff. Like how people never believe us when we tell them about her. People meet her and don’t think she’s in the military unless she’s in uniform. Which is such horseshit. Everyone’s in the military. Muslims and rich kids and the Ku Klux Klan and socialists and just so many morons. And, yes, girls! God. And I’m just telling you, I’m trying to say I can’t explain the reality of whatever without saying, fuck, whatever. I can’t. I can’t tell you how much I felt for my soldiers, who were basically criminals. I mean, I never think about any of this shit. I work. I sleep. I parent. I dunno. I just hope she’s okay, I guess.

He was crying.

Everyone was quiet for some time. Brother Three was still sorting out military acronyms, all of which I’ve spared you. But it’s hard to get to the worm in the apple, the sin in the mission, without wading through all the worn BDUs, the limited BAH, the APO, APRTs, tragic CCPs, the TDI, DTO, and DOA. Brother One had talked about Bradley. His savior Bradley. He talked about being inside Bradley. Which almost made Brother Three laugh. He was still in college. But of course Brother One meant that he drove a Bradley. It was only called a tank if you weren’t in the military.

Almost asleep, Brother Two was planning the type of beer he’d buy for the Sister. He was deciding at what hour he’d ask the Father to let him drive. He felt Brother One’s story stretch inside of him. He told God, I am not always sure You exist.

There is no sufficient way to talk about an empire from the inside. But we can’t say nothing.

The Father was still driving. Not as fast, though. He couldn’t articulate a reason for the decrease in speed. It was instinct. It was late and dark and he’d been driving for a long time. The slowing might be from strain, fatigue. But that wasn’t the case. The Sister was coming home, and once they found her, the trip would be over. The shared space, the cramped inclusion of the car’s habitat, would be shed.

Brother One re-gathered himself from the air. He broke the silence. Coming home was great, to be honest, he said. He even joked about his layover in Germany, about his wife traveling Europe with him and being mistaken for Greek in Spain, Spanish in Greece, but always Italian in Italy. She wasn’t any of the above. Maybe he’d also betrayed himself a little, he thought. Mostly, he was tired.

I’m tired, too. I love these people, and I hate the war.

The Sister was still far away. The Sister, the Sister. The first story she ever told about the war, a real story, was to Brother Three the weekend he got married. Yes, I really was blown up, she told him. My vehicle was hit on the way out of a security gate and I went flying through the air and all I could think about was how it was your birthday. Seriously. I can’t die, I remember thinking, or I’ll ruin your birthday.

She stayed in the Army for twenty more years. ■