Letters to the Lieutenant

McKenna

The Labrador bit me before nine a.m. Not hard enough to break skin, just enough to make a point. His teeth grazed the back of my hand with deliberate precision, a sharp nip that said he’d been patient long enough with strangers poking at his bad leg.

“I know,” I muttered, easing my hand free and scratching behind his ear instead. “I don’t like strangers poking at my bad leg either.”

He relaxed immediately. They always did. Animals never needed explanations. They didn’t care if you were tall or loud or shaped wrong. They didn’t measure your waist with their eyes or compare you to your sister or ask why you were still single at twenty-nine. They just wanted steady hands and someone who didn’t flinch.

I was very good at steady.

The dog let out a soft huff and leaned into my touch, his weight warm and solid against my leg. I could feel his heartbeat through his ribs, too fast for rest, too slow for panic. Just the rhythm of something that knew it was being helped but didn’t have to like it.

I understood that completely.

By noon I’d stitched a barn cat who’d tangled with something bigger than itself, drained an abscess on a shepherd mix that smelled of neglect and wet fur, and talked a first-time owner out of Googling her way into panic over normal puppy hiccups.

The clinic hummed around me—phones ringing, the autoclave hissing, the constant shuffle of animals and people moving through crisis. I moved through it like water, absorbing the chaos without letting it touch my center.

By three, I’d pulled on my boots and driven twenty miles to check on a pregnant mare who looked at me like I was the only sensible creature in a five-acre radius. Her dark eyes followed my every movement, ears swiveled forward with something that wasn’t quite trust but was close enough. I checked her vitals, listened to the fetal heartbeat with the stethoscope, ran my hands over her swollen belly. Her skin twitched under my palms, alive with the movement of the foal inside.

I preferred the horses. They didn’t pretend.

When I got home, there was flour dusted across my jeans from the pie crust I’d rolled out before work, white against the denim like a second layer of skin. Dog hair clung to the passenger seat of my car like it paid rent, embedded in the upholstery and floating in the air every time I moved. The house was quiet. Too quiet. It had been quiet for almost a year now.

I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door and stood there longer than necessary, listening to the silence press against my ears.

It had been twelve months since my grandmother passed.

Twelve months since the house stopped smelling of peppermint and old books and whatever she’d been cooking that day.

Twelve months since I stopped being someone’s primary caretaker, since my worth wasn’t measured by how many pills I remembered to dispense or how many doctor’s appointments I could juggle in a single week.

People warned you about grief. They talked about the waves and the darkness and the way it would knock you flat when you least expected it. They didn’t warn you about the space after it. The way it left you with too much time and nowhere to put your hands. The way you’d reach for a routine that wasn’t there anymore, a rhythm that had stopped beating the moment the last breath left the room.

My phone buzzed on the counter, startling me out of the stillness.

Maddie.

I let it ring once before answering my older sister’s call, letting the vibration fade into the granite.

“Tell me you’re not still at the clinic,” she said without preamble. I could hear the hospital noise in her voice—the constant urgency, the way she talked faster than everyone else because there was always something else that needed doing.

“I’m home.”

“Alone?”

I leaned against the counter, the cold edge pressing into my spine. “Yes, Maddie. Still alone.”

She exhaled sharply, the sound carrying clearly through the phone. “You need something that isn’t work.”

“I have book club.”

“You host book club.”

“That counts.”

“It does not.” The words came sharp, but I heard the worry underneath. “You’re in a rut, Kenni. A deep, comfortable rut where nothing ever changes and you never have to take risks.”

“There’s nothing wrong with comfortable.”

I could hear hospital noise in her background—voices shouting over monitors, the rapid click-click of keyboard keys, the constant hum of people moving through crisis. Maddie thrived there. She’d always thrived where things were loud and urgent and obvious, where problems had solutions and you could fix people with enough determination and the right medication.

Spencer thrived where things exploded. Our younger brother had been in the Marines for almost ten years now, jumping out of planes and blowing things up and generally being the person everyone called when something needed to be unmade. He sent postcards from places I couldn’t pronounce and came home with scars he wouldn’t explain and nightmares he wouldn’t discuss.

Lately the Marines had him working as a recruiter out of Fort Worth, which meant he was around more — though he still carried himself like a man who expected things to explode at any moment.

And then there was me.

The middle child. The steady one. The one who stayed home. The one who kept things alive instead of taking them apart, who stitched wounds instead of causing them, who preferred animals to people because at least animals didn’t expect you to perform.

“I signed you up for something,” she said.

I straightened away from the counter. “You did what?”

“It’s not weird,” she rushed on, sensing the refusal before I could form it. “It’s one of those service member pen pal programs. You write letters. Send care packages. You like writing. You like helping people. This is literally built for you.”

I stared at the wall, at the water spot that had been there since before I bought the house, at the way the afternoon light caught the dust motes floating in the air. “No.”

“Kenni.”

“No.”

“You’re not dating.”

“Correct.”

“You’re not traveling.”

“Also correct.”

“You bake. You work. You rewatch the same three documentaries about wildlife rehabilitation until you can quote them from memory. I’m trying to widen your world.”

“My world is fine.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, long enough that I thought we’d lost connection. Then Maddie’s voice softened, losing its frantic edge. “You deserve something that isn’t just fine.”

I hated when she did that. Hated the way she saw through my defenses without even trying, the way she pulled out the truth I kept buried under layers of routine and rationalization. Hated that she was right.

I pushed off the counter and walked into the living room, collapsing onto the couch. The silence pressed in again, heavy and expectant. The dog jumped up beside me, resting his head on my thigh with a sigh that said he was done with my emotional crisis and ready for attention.

“It’s just letters,” she added. “You don’t even have to use your full name.”

That part caught.

Letters were safe. Letters were contained. Letters were distance. You could say things in a letter you could never say face-to-face. You could be honest without vulnerability. You could reach out without letting anyone get close enough to hurt you.

“Is it American?” I asked carefully.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I’m not writing to someone in this country.” The words came out faster than I intended, a flash of something I didn’t want to examine.

Maddie laughed. “You think a Marine from Kansas is going to show up at your clinic?”

“I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.”

“Okay, drama queen. It has UK options too. Australia. Canada. You can literally pick across an ocean.”

Across an ocean.

The words settled in my chest like something familiar. Different time zone. Different continent. No risk of running into someone at the grocery store. No chance of awkwardness bleeding into real life. No obligation to continue beyond what I wanted to give.

Completely safe.

“I’ll look at it,” I said.

“That’s all I’m asking.”

After we hung up, I sat there for a full five minutes, listening to the house settle around me. Then I opened my laptop.

ForcesPenPals.net

The homepage was aggressively cheerful. Smiling soldiers in uniform, posed against flags and barracks. Red, white, and blue banners that suggested patriotism was the only acceptable motivation. Testimonials about lifelong friendships and marriage announcements that made my stomach twist in a way I didn’t want to examine.

I clicked “Write to Any Service Member.”

A drop-down menu appeared, listing countries and branches. U.S. Army. U.S. Navy. Marines. All too close, too likely to lead to connections I wasn’t ready to make.

I scrolled.

United Kingdom Armed Forces.

There it was.

Far enough that nothing could get messy. Far enough that I could reach out without the risk of reaching back. Far enough that I could pretend this wasn’t really me, just some version of myself I was trying out for size.

I selected it.

An address to send any mail appeared, along with guidelines about what could and couldn’t be included. No alcohol. No religious material. No explicit content. Practical rules for impractical things.

I stared at it.

What do you say to someone you’ll never meet? What do you offer a stranger who might not even read what you write? How do you bridge an ocean with a single piece of paper?

I got a piece of stationary out, leftover from when my brother Spencer was in boot camp for the Marines.

To whoever ends up with this—

No. I crumpled up the paper and tossed it toward the trash can. It bounced off the rim and rolled across the floor.

Too formal. Too distant. Too like everyone else who wrote to soldiers with careful platitudes and generic encouragement.

I tried again.

Hi.

I crumpled another piece up. This time I made the basket, but I felt no satisfaction.

I wasn’t good at introductions. I was good at stitching wounds and calming animals and keeping things alive. I was not good at explaining myself, not good at turning the quiet competence I’d built my life around into something that made sense to strangers.

I tapped my pen against the paper and forced myself not to overthink it. To write like I talked, like I thought, without filtering everything through layers of caution and self-protection.

To whoever ends up with this—

I’m a veterinarian. I have flour on my jeans and dog hair permanently embedded in my car. I’m not very good at talking about myself, but I am very good at keeping things alive. If you’re somewhere dusty and loud and far away, I hope this makes it quieter for a minute.

I paused, reading the words over. They felt honest in a way I wasn’t used to being honest.

My heart was beating too fast for something so small.

I added:

I chose the UK option because it feels safely across an ocean. So if you’re reading this, you win by default.

That made me smile.

I signed it simply:

— McKenna

No last name. No photo. No expectations. Just ink and distance, carefully measured and contained.

I folded it, stuck it in an envelope. I’d mail it off tomorrow.

Across an ocean is far enough that nothing can go wrong.