"Military Secrets" by Kit Reed

First appeared in Sheila Williams's Asimov's. Reprinted in the novel, Where.

Jessie's father is MIA, missing in action, during the war. This wouldn't be so bad if other kids' parents had had a similar fate. She's stuck in a limbo, ever waiting for her father to return. As the only child missing her father, she feels

Without more context, this story is likely labeled interstitial. The finale resonates with palpable potency: These kids dispossessed of their fathers, trapped in a bus riding around nowhere, frozen in childhood, lost.

This does not enlighten the novel, Where, but it is a fine addition: People trapped somewhere they know not where.