More Than a Voice on the Phone

For two years, six-year-old Emma Reyes knew her father only as a voice on a satellite phone. Staff Sergeant David Reyes had deployed to Afghanistan before Emma could form lasting memories of his face. She heard his voice every Thursday evening — warm, steady, full of promises that he loved her and would come home. She drew crayon pictures of him from photographs, but the man in those pictures felt as far away as a character in a storybook.…