“Because you don’t treat me any differently than the other guys on campus, and you never probe about my family,” Jack said. “Which is new to me. And it’s nice.”
“Well, I’m sorry to dent your ego, man, but you are just any other guy,” Javi said. “Sure, you’ve got an extra-helpful sense of how things work around here, but I didn’t grow up in this world. Your name means nothing to me.” He smiled kindly.
And he meant it. Javier didn’t understand why he should place Jack on a pedestal built from the accomplishments of his forebears. But he wasn’t oblivious to Jack’s unique position, either. Javi had pieced together enough of the family history based on a handful of reluctant snippets from Jack and the gossip from fellow cadets: the nine generations of Hunters who had fought for their homeland since its founding, all the honors they had received and donations they had given, year after year after year.
And Javi understood the burden facing his roommate—the added scrutiny, the demand for success—having known his own particular strain of that pressure. Only ten percent of the cadets on campus were Latino. They couldn’t afford to be seen as failures.
“Why are people so concerned with your roommate?” Javi’s father asked on the phone.
“Well, his family is pretty well known in certain circles,” Javi tried to explain. “I guess they see themselves like the Kennedys.”
“And now my son is in the same school as theirs,” his father said. Javi could hear the awe in his voice.
Javier’s parents were incredibly proud of all that their son had achieved, of the man he was fast becoming, and though applying to the academy had been Javi’s decision, it was certainly influenced by eighteen years of listening to his parents expound the virtues of American freedom while sorting food donations at church. They worked long days and weekends at his father’s store, saving up so their child could enjoy the education neither of them had received. But they always carved out time for Mass on Sundays and volunteered at the soup kitchen whenever they could, modeling a life of service and diligence and family, a life that only seemed possible in a place like America, where, despite its flaws, a boy like Javier was free to learn, to play, to rise, to choose.
Javi wanted to choose a path that his parents would admire, something to honor the lessons they had taught him and the way they had lived their lives.
When Javi told them about his acceptance—and the fully funded scholarship—they celebrated with their first family vacation in years.
So Jack and Javi endured four of the toughest years of their lives, but they survived together, and by May they were just weeks away from officially becoming the newest members of the U.S. Army, marking the end of a very strange semester. Jack’s uncle had announced his campaign back in February, to both Jack’s and Javi’s displeasure. （Javier had met him only once, at a Hunter family dinner, but could instantly sense that Anthony was a glutton for power.） And then, in March, two small brown boxes had arrived outside Jack and Javier’s dorm room.
Neither cadet had dared to open the lids after reading the inscription on the box and assuming it was some sort of test from the academy, to see if temptation and curiosity would get the better of them in the final months before graduation. But even after they had learned that it wasn’t a test, that the entire world had in fact received the same chests, the boys still chose not to look. Theirs was a dangerous profession, and the risk ahead was much easier to accept when that was all it was: a risk, not a guarantee.
And in the blissful days of May, the last before graduation, while they tossed Frisbees on the lawn and toasted the end of final exams, neither Jack nor Javier had any idea that the events of June would change everything.
Hank
The rest of May had blurred past for Hank, and his final day at the hospital, a day that he had once thought he wouldn’t see until his hair had turned silver and his fingers were too arthritic to suture a wound, had actually arrived. Anika, one of his fellow doctors, invited him to lunch to mark the occasion.
“It’s not really something to celebrate,” said Hank, as the pair sat down in the cafeteria.
“Well, we’re not celebrating you leaving. We’re celebrating all of your accomplishments from your time here.” Anika smiled and raised her coffee cup.
Hank was glad that he and Anika could part as friends. Given their history, it wouldn’t have been odd for them to strictly avoid each other. But now that he was leaving the hospital, Hank wondered if he would ever see her again, Dr. Anika Singh, the most gifted surgeon he had ever known and the second great love of his life （after Lucy, his girlfriend during three years of medical school, who accepted a residency in San Diego when Hank moved to New York）。 In Hank’s mind, he and Anika were the perfect match. They understood the demands of each other’s livelihoods, they were equally driven, and they pushed each other to become better doctors. Perhaps Hank had pushed a little too hard, since Anika ultimately felt that she couldn’t commit to him the way she was committed to her craft.