Chapter Eight #3
His voice low and even, he painted a picture of life during deployment, of how the boredom sets in, but how the soldiers fought to stay sharp and alert, never knowing when hell could open up.
“Then one day you prepare for a simple intelligence sweep. After the SEALs clear out the bad guys, you’ll go in, grab whatever could contain useful information and get out. Routine, you think.
“You and your buddies head in. In some ways, you’re closer to these men than your family because you’ve been through so much together.
You and your partner head in one direction.
Your best friend and his partner go off the other way.
That’s the last thing you remember before the bomb goes off.
When you wake up in a field hospital, you learn your best friend threw himself on the suicide bomber to save the rest of you. ” Owen’s voice cracked, and he paused.
Tears pooled in Carly’s eyes at the anguish and unimaginable pain woven through Owen’s voice.
“A few days later you’re home, only your body and brain don’t work like they used to.
Worse, everyone you see mentions Landon.
The images of what happened haunt you, and the intensity of the pain can’t be put into words.
But what nearly levels you, is not knowing how to face his wife after you promised to bring her husband home safely.
People say you’re lucky to have survived, but you don’t feel that way. ”
The weight Owen carried slammed into her. Her heart cracked. How did he get up in the morning knowing what he had to bear?
Strength of character and refusing to let the terrorists defeat him. That was how he did it.
No wonder he refused to accept he might not return to active duty. Admiration for him washed over her.
“When I walked into these offices the first time, the skies opened up in a Texas gully washer. The wind made it sound like a freight train would barrel through the walls. The rain pelting against this damn ceiling sounded like—”
Her eyes sprang open. “Like BB-gun pellets.”
He shook his head, his face pale. “Machine gun fire.”
“I’ve been an idiot. How could I fail to see that?”
Tears stung her eyes and spilled down her face for veterans who’d endured such pain, sacrificed so much for their country’s freedom, and how this space affected them.
And her actions had exacerbated those problems for Owen when he came to the office.
Her lack of sensitivity hit her hard. “That first day, you were different because of the weather and the sounds here. I should’ve realized. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“It’s hard to see those things when it’s your office and you’re here every day.”
“Then I made matters worse by arguing with you and pushing you. Why didn’t you tell me how this place made you feel and what I was doing?”
“It took everything I had to keep from splintering apart and all I could do holding it together.”
“I wish could tell you how to cope with what you experienced and losing Landon, but the truth is you’ll never forget. Some days the pain over losing Mom is as fresh as it was the day she died. It’s always a part of me. I’ve just learned to live with it.”
“I knew coming home without Landon would be hard, but it’s worse than I imagined. It’s like part of me is missing. If I’d been with him—”
Pain radiated off Owen in waves, reaching out to her. He stiffened and paled as if the memories consumed him again, and the urge to wrap her arms around him and cradle this strong, determined man and ease the pain he tried so hard to conceal from the world overwhelmed her.
“Could be nothing would’ve changed or you both would be dead.”
“Or he might be alive.” Self-loathing and guilt dripped from Owen’s voice.
Unable to bear him like this, she slid her arm around his broad shoulders.
He rested his chin on her head and his hand held onto her forearm.
For a minute, she couldn’t breathe as his anguish radiated through her.
She should say something, but words felt so inadequate. Her hand brushed the back of his neck.
He pulled away as if she’d slapped him. His gaze vacant now, he turned away. “Sorry about that.”
Not wanting to embarrass him further, she said, “People need to realize how important it is we get new space. When the weather’s good, the best you can say is this office is claustrophobic, but you’ve helped me see how this office is about our clients.
This space has to be comfortable and not exasperate their issues.
” She gazed at Owen. “But I’m not sure how to make people see that.
While I can empathize, I can’t stand in veterans’ shoes to see this space the way they would.
The way you do. Will you help me? I want to do this right. ”
“Sure.”
She started typing Owen’s story, asking questions when she needed clarification. Occasionally he added details or made corrections. Together they created a picture to help her audience stand in her clients’ boots as they hobbled into their offices on a rainy day.
Carly had always approached Horses for Heroes’ work from a clinical treatment perspective. For Owen and vets like him, this agency was a lifeline. Being entrenched in numbers and paperwork over the last year, she’d forgotten that simple fact. “Thank you for helping me connect too.”
The front office door creaked open. Carly quit typing and turned as Holly stepped inside. The petite woman glanced at Carly and Owen huddled together at her desk and blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not,” Carly blurted out, her face probably equally red as she scooted her chair away from Owen before she introduced him to her assistant. “Owen’s helping me revamp my presentation for the retired teachers this afternoon.”
Not the least bit uncomfortable, Owen greeted Holly with a warm smile, a polite nod, and a “pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Then he returned his attention to Carly and the computer. “Do you have a design plan for the new offices?”
Carly shook her head. “The board refuses to approve any expenditures, even for preliminary designs, until we have a campaign underway and determine its feasibility.”
“That still burns me up,” Holly said, from behind her metal desk across the room.
“All Carly asked for was a thousand dollars. She’d talked to TWU and wanted to hold a contest for architect majors.
Students would submit a design after having it reviewed by a professor.
The board would determine the winner, who’d receive a thousand-dollar scholarship, and would work with us during construction, but the board said no. ”
“Their decision seems short-sighted considering people are more likely to donate when they can see plans or a model of what they’re working toward,” Owen said.
“That’s our board for you,” Holly snapped.
As Carly and Owen continued retooling her presentation, instead of being miffed at him taking over, she found herself grateful.
No matter what she did, fundraising made her feel as if she was a vendor peddling her wares on the street corner trying to catch people’s attention as they scurried past her.
When they reached the slide on the VA study estimating an average of twenty-two veterans committed suicide every day, Carly said, “I always highlight this statistic. Most people have no idea how many veterans become so desperate they give up on life.”
Owen’s eyes clouded with grief, he showed her a picture on his phone.
A group of soldiers in dusty fatigues, arms crossed over their broad chests, shades perched on their noses, combat boot-clad feet braced shoulder-width apart stood in the desert.
“Here are some of my unit buddies the last time I was deployed. They’re some of the best men and women on God’s earth.
They would’ve given their life to save my ass without hesitation.
Tomorrow, all of them plus ten more could be gone because of suicide. ”
The reality of the statistics in terms of living, breathing faces of men and women who’d served their country, twisted Carly’s insides into a painful knot.
“You have to add that picture,” Holly said, her voice cracking, as she stood filing papers in the cabinet beside her desk.
The contact broken, Carly said, “Owen, do you mind?”
He shook his head and emailed her the photo for her to add to her statistics slide.
As Carly and Owen continued tweaking the remainder of her program, Holly worked at her desk answering the phone and seeing to the day-to-day necessities while occasionally adding a comment.
When Sarah Hampton arrived with a donation of bridles and horse blankets she and her husband no longer needed, Holly and the donor took the items to the barn. Carly turned to Owen. “How do you suggest I wrap this up?”
Owen ran his knuckles over the stubble on his chin and his gaze moved around the office, noting the veterans’ pictures on the walls. “I remember a story your mom told at career day when we were freshmen. She talked about a vet whose picture hung above her desk.”
Carly remembered Timothy Wolford well. She glanced toward the far wall where her mother’s desk had once resided, and the picture of the Marine still hung.
“He was the first client I worked with as a sidewalker. I remember how proud I was to be part of his team. Mom would say whenever she grew weary of fundraising or paperwork, she gazed at Tim’s picture and remembered what he told her.
He said if it hadn’t been for Horses for Heroes, he wouldn’t be alive. ”
One day after his hippotherapy session, Tim and her mother sat in her office having coffee and chatting.
He told her he’d been sitting at the kitchen table in his apartment staring at the prescription of pain pills he’d picked up at the pharmacy.
“He’d decided the life he had wasn’t worth living.
As he reached for the medicine bottle, his phone rang.
It was Mom saying his application had been accepted, and she wanted to schedule his first session. ”