Chapter 5 The Weight of Small Things
The Weight of Small Things
Dorian Lindstrom
(Married to Ray Lindstrom; father to Theo, Savannah, and Amari Grace)
Dorian saw it from across the room the moment Derek took the baby.
Annie had handed Denise over with the practiced ease of a grandmother who’d been waiting for her turn to end so she could get off her feet. Derek accepted his tiny daughter carefully, settling her against his chest, one broad hand spanning her entire back.
And there it was. That look.
Derek held her like she was made of glass and C-4. Like the slightest wrong move might shatter her or set her off. Like he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to touch something so fragile.
Dorian knew that look. He’d worn it himself, nearly thirty years ago.
He made his way through the crowd, nodding at people as he passed but not stopping.
He wasn’t good at the mingling part of these gatherings.
Never had been. Ray handled the social necessities with a dry wit that people found either charming or terrifying, depending on how well they knew her.
Dorian just tried not to hover in corners looking like he was planning escape routes.
Which he was. Always. Even after all these years. But that was beside the point.
Derek had drifted toward the windows, away from the thickest knots of conversation. Dorian joined him there, leaning against the wall a few feet away. Close enough to talk. Far enough to give the kid space.
Kid. Derek was in his thirties, son of Finn, one of his best friends in the world. But Dorian had known Derek since he was in diapers, which made the word kid feel accurate regardless of math.
“She sleeping?”
Derek glanced down at Denise. “For now. She’ll let me know when she’s not.”
“They always do.”
They stood in comfortable silence for a moment. Dorian watched the party reflected in the dark window—the lights, the movement, the blur of faces. Inside, warm chaos. Outside, Wyoming winter, black and cold and absolute.
“You doing okay?”
Derek’s hand shifted on his daughter’s back. The movement was small, unconscious. Protective. “Everyone keeps asking me that.”
“I’m not everyone. So I don’t mean it the way they do, as in, hey, are you exhausted because of the newborn or how are those 3 AM feedings going? Although we can discuss those if you want. But I’m talking about: are you doing okay?”
Something flickered in Derek’s expression. He looked at Dorian—really looked, for the first time tonight—and whatever he saw there made his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
“I’m terrified,” he admitted. “Not of her. Of me.”
Dorian nodded slowly. He didn't offer reassurance. Didn't tell Derek it would be fine, that he was worried about nothing, that the fear would fade. Platitudes were for people who didn't understand. And Dorian understood. The PTSD didn't go away just because you built a good life around it.
“What specifically?”
“What if I have a nightmare and she’s in the room?” Derek’s voice had dropped, barely audible over the noise of the gathering. “What if she cries and I’m not—what if I’m somewhere else in my head and I react before I realize—”
He stopped. Swallowed.
“I put Becky in the hospital,” he said quietly. “You probably don’t know this. Our wedding night. Our first wedding night I woke up and I didn’t know where I was, and I just started swinging—” Another swallow. “I had to take her to the hospital.”
“Actually, I did know.”
Derek looked at him sharply. “You did?”
“Zac Mackay is my brother in every way but blood. So is your dad. So yeah, when there was trouble between you and Becky—even before you made your marriage public, I knew.”
After the incident, Dorian had been the one to sit Zac down and remind him that Derek would never ever have done anything to hurt Becky on purpose.
Zac had known that, of course—Derek had been a good kid all his life, and had grown up to be a good man—but Zac had needed to be reminded before he found his Glock.
“Oh,” Derek whispered.
“I should’ve made more effort to talk to you before now.” He paused. “I don’t do gatherings much. And you kept your PTSD close to the chest for a lot of years.”
“Didn’t seem like something to advertise.”
“No. Never does. Although in my case, sometimes my PTSD decided to advertise itself without my permission.” Dorian shifted his weight against the wall. “Still, I should’ve reached out. Maybe I could’ve helped you some.”
Although at the end of the day, every man battled his PTSD alone.
Derek was quiet for a long moment. Denise made a small sound against his chest, and his hand moved in slow circles on her back, automatic and soothing.
“Does it get easier?”
“The fear?”
“Any of it.”
Dorian considered the question seriously. Derek deserved a real answer, not comfortable fiction.
“It gets different,” he said finally. “You learn what you can control and what you can’t. You build systems. Routines. You figure out what helps.”
“Like Jasper, my service dog.” Derek gestured across the room where the dog was lying near the door, completely uninterested in the chaos around him.
“When the really bad nightmares are coming, he knows before I do. He wakes me up before the dreams get too much of a grip on me. I’ve needed him less lately, but—”
“But you still need him.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not weakness. That’s using the tools you’ve got.” Dorian’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Service animals’ work. I’ve seen the research, seen the results. There’s no shame in having help.”
A small body hurtled past them at knee height, shrieking with laughter. A second followed half a beat later, equally loud, equally chaotic.
Dorian stepped back reflexively. The kids—preschool age, maybe three or four—circled around Derek’s legs like he was a slalom pole, then took off toward the kitchen without slowing down.
He had no idea whose children they were. The extended family had grown past the point where he could keep track of every offspring.
Dorian shook his head. “I don’t even know who’s who anymore.”
“Pretty sure the one in the reindeer sweater belongs to someone on the Harrison side.”
“They all look the same to me when they’re moving that fast.”
The kids had reversed course and were now tearing back through the main room, weaving between adult legs with the precision of tiny drunk drivers. One of them clipped Finn’s knee and kept going without acknowledgment.
“This is what happens,” Dorian said, “when you give children unlimited sugar and let them stay up three hours past bedtime.”
“Bold strategy.”
“Go eat Aunt Ray’s brownies,” Dorian called after them. “The ones on the left side of the dessert table.”
Derek snorted. “That’s cruel.”
“I sure as hell don’t want to take them home. Might as well put those ticking-time-bombs-on-legs to use.”
The kids disappeared around a corner, their yells fading to a manageable background frequency. Dorian settled back against the wall, and the conversation resumed as if it had never been interrupted.
“Bear and I went up to Montana a few months back,” Derek said. “Resting Warrior Ranch. Pawsitive Connections. You know them?”
“I know of them.”
“The work they’re doing with service animals—it’s incredible.
Not just dogs. Horses, llamas, damn near everything.
Like what Eva’s trying to build here at Linear.
They’ve got this whole program for veterans, matching them with animals, training them together.
” Derek’s voice had shifted, some of the tightness easing out of it.
“It helps. Being around people who are doing something concrete. Something that works.”
“Your brother’s got plans for that?”
“Bear wants to incorporate more of it into the kids camp next year.”
As if summoned, Bear appeared at Derek’s elbow. He’d been working the room all evening—Dorian had tracked his movement peripherally, the way he tracked everyone’s—but now he stopped, something in his brother’s posture apparently catching his attention.
“You two look serious. Should I be worried?”
“We’re solving the world’s problems,” Derek said. “You’re interrupting.”
“Story of my life.” Bear leaned against the wall on Derek’s other side, completing their small cluster of semi-isolation. “What are we solving?”
“Service animals. Your kids camp. Whether you’re actually going to do it again next year or if that was just talk.”
“Hell yeah, we’re doing it. We’re confirmed for July.” Bear’s expression shifted into something more focused, more invested.
“You’ve got the funding?”
“Working on it. Gavin’s helping with the grant applications. And there’s a foundation out of Colorado that’s interested—”
“Bear!” Charlie’s voice cut across the room with surgical precision. “The dishwasher is doing something and there are bubbles starting to cover the kitchen floor and your father is just standing there looking at it!”
Bear closed his eyes briefly. “The dishwasher is not my responsibility.”
Somehow Charlie heard, even across the room. “Everything is your responsibility when there’s a flood in the kitchen and you’re the most handy guy here!”
“What about Uncle Baby? He’s also a mechanic…” He stopped, sighed, pushed off the wall. “I’ll be back. Don’t solve anything important without me.”
He headed toward the kitchen, where a concerning amount of foam was indeed visibly creeping across the floor. Charlie’s voice rose in pitch as she directed operations. Finn’s lower rumble offered something that sounded defensive.
“Ten bucks says Bear ends up soaking wet within five minutes,” Derek said.
“No bet. That’s a certainty.”
The moment settled back into something quieter. Denise stirred against Derek’s chest, made a soft mewling sound, then relaxed again. His hand never stopped its slow circles on her back.
“When Amari was born,” Dorian said slowly, “I didn’t sleep for two weeks.”
Derek looked at him.