It was a September morning in 2017. I sat in a rocking chair on our front porch in Nashville, working on the manuscript of my novel. I should have been focused on finishing my edits so my agent could send the book around to publishers. But what really held my attention was the stream of neighborhood children walking to school, holding tight to their parents\u2019 hands. Seeing those children was a source of both joy and pain.<\/p>\n
My husband, Patrick, and I got married in 2010. We dreamed of having a big family\u2014I wanted four kids; he wanted five. For the past four years, we\u2019d been trying to have a baby. Years of doctors\u2019 visits, pregnancy tests and infertility treatments. Years of tears and prayers, so many prayers. But nothing helped. And now my novel seemed stuck too.<\/p>\n
For as long as I could remember, I\u2019d wanted to write a novel about West Point. My father was an active-duty Army officer who taught systems engineering at the Academy, and I was born on the campus, the youngest of three girls. We moved away when I was a year old, then back in time for me to attend middle school on campus at the Department of Defense school for children of faculty. We lived there until I was 16, and I still consider West Point my home, even though it\u2019s basically a national monument.<\/p>\n
Growing up at West Point was like growing up at Hogwarts. The school is perched high atop a hill overlooking the Hudson River, 50 miles north of New York City, and the gray stone buildings look like castles. The rousing sound of cadets singing cadences would wake me at 6 a.m. every day as they ran by my house in squads of 20, and dusk was announced by the firing of a single cannon.<\/p>\n
West Point was a great place to be a kid\u2014there were parades, pep rallies and bonfires, cadets jumping out of planes and blowing things up. Although the campus housed some 7,000 faculty, staff, family members and cadets, the community was tight-knit. My family had an open-door policy for cadets, and a group of five to 10 came over every weekend to hang out and watch TV and feel as if they were at home. My mom led the women\u2019s basketball team\u2019s Fellowship of Christian Athletes Bible study<\/a>, and I loved listening to them tell funny stories of life at West Point. One cadet painted my face in camouflage and taught me to march with a broom for a weapon.<\/p>\n Even our Sunday school program was run by cadets. We attended church services in the beautiful Cadet Chapel. Though young, I took my faith seriously, often reading the Bible on my own, asking God to explain the Scriptures. The tragedy of 9\/11 proved to be a double whammy for our family, as cadets we knew and loved would be going to war. One we\u2019d hosted was killed in action in Iraq; another, in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n