The moon hid behind the clouds. Right before we left the house, a heavy rain started falling. We grabbed umbrellas and left, going through the back toward the hill from which we could see the airport and runway. Of the rain, I thought: tears; my homeland weeping for its son. My umbrella was bigger than the others’ and scraped at the overhang and ceiling of the outside kitchen.

I followed my dad and little brother through the back, then down the lane between the few neighbors’ houses, then up the hill. I had to be careful, because I didn’t have a flashlight and relied on my brother’s. At one point a misstep landed my foot in a shallow ditch, and I hurried before my brother so I could proceed in the light of his flashlight, though he seemed not to be training it on the path ahead but letting the light dance around as his arm swung. At one point my dad pointed out the plane, but I couldn’t see it; maybe it was blocked by the brim of my umbrella, or maybe I was looking the wrong way. When we were near to the crest of the hill, I finally spotted the headlights of the plane. It was coming in to our right, and was very close.

“Look! There it is!” I said.

“Where?” said my dad.

“There! Hurry!”

We got to the top of the hill about ten seconds before it landed, and the rain died. I folded my umbrella, and then the plane touched down. It was loud but I didn’t cover my ears. It didn’t seem right to do so. My father and brother waved salutes with their flashlights. When the rain drizzled to a stop a breeze took its place, and while we didn’t feel it down below, up in the atmosphere it pushed the clouds away from the moon. I asked my dad when the full moon would be. Tomorrow, he replied. But already it seemed perfectly round, its face bright.

He sat down, and we waited for the plane to turn. I thought of how strong the moonlight was. It cast our shadows on the ground.

The plane slowly taxied back down the runway, toward the airport. My father directed my brother to cross his flashlight beam with his as the plane passed us the second time. As it neared he stood, and again they saluted with their lights, my brother still holding his umbrella over his shoulder. The plane passed slowly, and the emergency runway crew (two fire trucks) and another car, followed it at a distance. The plane crawled like a snail at the last turn off the runway, on the slight incline that led to the tarmac. It eventually came to a stop. We waited. We watched the plane. The runway lights went off.

“Will he get a 21-gun salute?” I asked my dad.

“Yes,” he said.

My brother: “What’s that?”

Dad: “Seven men line up, and each fire three times.”

“Three times,” I said in unison. “Do you get the Purple Heart only when you die, or also for injuries?” I asked.

"For injuries too,” said my dad.

“And he got a… something star?” I asked.

“A bronze star,” said my dad.

I surveyed the dark runway. Then my dad said:

“You know that rain the fell right before we left? It’s called the tears of the ancestors. Whenever a Palauan dies away from home, and they’re brought back in a canoe or boat, right before or when they reach the landing or dock or beach, a brief rain will fall. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen tonight, but…”

“It did,” I said. “Wow. Is that like, real? It really happens?”

“Yep,” he said.

Then he sat in a chair my uncle (our neighbor) had placed up there. My brother and I stood for a bit longer. Then we sat on the ground. Eventually the plane’s engines began to power down.

“It’s going to be eerily quiet,” said my dad.

Everything did quiet. I could hear crickets and a party in the valley across the runway. I commented on this.

“There’s a band,” my dad said. That’s what it sounded like. We could hear the thumping bass, and the occasional scream or cheer.

“These days,” he said, in a way that sounded like he’d also shaken his head in disappointment. “Before, when something like this was going on…” I knew he meant that the partiers weren’t being appropriately somber on this night. I looked across the runway at the houses, and silently agreed.

I squinted, but that didn’t work, and my glasses bent the lights in rays that ruined my view. Eventually I figured that if I tilted my head downwards and looked through the top of my glasses, I could see pretty well without squinting. Dark figures moved on the tarmac. My dad asked if the back of the plane was opening yet; no, not yet, I don’t think, I said. We waited, and figures walked around the plane. I updated from time to time: there are two figures in front of the plane; there are two figures behind it; the back doesn’t seem to be opening yet.

We waited, and an ant bit my left middle toe. A mosquito bit my elbow. I said something about it, and my brother said he also had a lot of bites. We waited, and then heard a sound like a mechanical lowering.

“The back is opening,” I said. My dad agreed. “You can hear it,” I said.

As we sat, my dad again switched on the flashlight and signaled toward the runway. He moved it in circles.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He said: “It means, ‘We welcome you back, although you are not yourself.’”

At some point some people showed up at the rear of the plane, near what must be the lowered ramp. When I described them (three people lined up on each side, a space between them that was probably the ramp) my dad said they were the color guard. At one point, the three on the right seemed to step backward in unison about ten feet, then move forward again. I remarked upon this, but my brother just said that there were people moving. Though still I think it might have been some sort of ceremonial thing.

I grumbled at my insect bites, and my dad told us to stand up and shake off. We stood, and he did also, and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said. “Aren’t we going to stay to see him come out?” So we stood and waited. My dad again signaled with the flashlight, and my brother and I moved out of the way so that we wouldn’t block the light. He turned it off, and said that by now they’ve seen the salute.

Finally, something big seemed to emerge from the back of the plane, dark like all the other figures.

“I think that’s it,” I said. I turned to my brother. “Do you see something big moving?” “Yes.”

“Is it big and rectangular?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it,” I announced. And so we watched the fallen soldier return home, and I thought, you shouldn’t have come back this way.

We turned to leave, but I stopped and looked at the moon. The clouds were no longer anywhere near it but stuck to the horizon; a large clearing all around it. Still I looked at it as I followed the others down the hill, and for the first time I saw its face (having looked for it at various times in my life but seeing nothing but an uneven surface), and it seemed to smile.

Welcome home.