Chapter 9
NINE
Reeves
The First Line: The mourners who walk directly behind the casket. They do not speak. They let the music do what words cannot.
I wake in one abrupt shift from sleep to awareness. No gradual drift. Just on and off like a light switch.
The ceiling comes into focus above me. It's unfamiliar for a split second, and then I realize it's my bedroom in my dad's house.
I lie still. The sheets are too soft, the mattress too giving. The silence is too complete without the hum of generators and black hawks, or the distant sounds of others moving through camp.
But my mind isn't quiet.
I can't get the image of Charli standing in her driveway last night out of my mind. Grocery bags in her arms, the porch light catching in her hair, turning the brown strands gold at the edges. Her eyes looked at me like I was a stranger who once knew all her secrets.
I sit up, the sheets pooling at my waist.
A flash of memory cuts through of the boy on the bike with training wheels, his small hands gripping the handlebars.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My shoulder protests immediately, a hot lance of pain shooting down my arm. The muscles seize, locked in a familiar vise grip I've been ignoring since Ramadi.
"Fuck," I mutter, reaching for the orange prescription bottle on the nightstand.
I shake out three tablets and throw them back without water. They scrape down my throat dryly, but it's nothing new. Just another routine.
Standing, I roll my shoulder in slow circles. The meds will take twenty minutes to start working. The doctors call it "degenerative damage to the rotator cuff with nerve involvement." I call it the price of doing business.
Just a sore muscle, I tell myself.
I head for the shower, cranking the water as hot as it will go with my left hand. Steam fills the bathroom as I step under the spray. The water hits my skin, and I brace my good arm against the tile.
Charli built a life without me. And there's a child who looks about five years old riding bikes in front of her house.
Five years.
The math isn't complicated.
The kitchen is empty when I step in. It's quiet in that heavy way old houses get when they're holding their breath. The coffee maker sits ready, programmed by Ms. Landry for me. I revel in the small mercies.
I pour the black liquid into a mug with mechanical precision. I don't use cream or sugar. The routine is a comfort I don't need to think about. One less decision in a morning already crowded with thoughts I can't shake.
The first sip scalds my tongue, but I barely register it. The pain in my shoulder has dulled to a steady throb, familiar background noise I've gotten used to ignoring.
I sit at the kitchen table, staring at the steam rising from the mug. Sunlight cuts through the windows in sharp angles across the floor. Everything is too still.
The letter.
It sits upstairs, folded carefully in my duffel. Six years old, but still crisp, like a time capsule I never bothered to open until yesterday.
"Shit."
I push back from the table and head upstairs. My footsteps echo through the large house. No one else is here, which suits me fine. The fewer people asking questions, the better.
The letter is exactly where I left it. I unfold it carefully, smoothing the creases with my thumb. The paper is more delicate now, important in a way it didn't seem when I first found it.
Charli's handwriting fills the page. It's neat, controlled, just like her.
I'm pregnant. I know you don't want this life. I'm not asking you to change your mind.
The words hammer at me differently now, with the image of that kid on Magnolia Lane fresh in my head. Dark hair, the way he glanced back over his shoulder while riding that bike.
I run the timeline through my head without meaning to. Six years since I left. Six years since this letter was written. The kid looks about that age.
The math is too neat to ignore.
"Goddammit."
I fold the letter again, pressing the crease flat with my thumb. The paper feels hot in my hands, as if it might burn through my fingers.
Do I have a son?
My phone quivers against the kitchen table, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room.
I grab it, glancing at the screen. An unfamiliar number with a Virginia area code.
"Stone."
“Petty Officer Stone, this is Lieutenant Commander Kaplan from Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth. Do you have a moment to discuss your imaging results?"
My back straightens automatically. "Yes, Sir."
"I have your shoulder scan from three weeks ago. I apologize that I'm just getting around to looking at it. It wasn't labeled as urgent, just routine, so it got pushed to the bottom." Papers shuffle on the other end.
"There was no urgency, Sir."
"The results are more concerning than a routine scan. There's significant inflammation around the rotator cuff, and we're seeing nerve compression at the C5-C6 junction."
I pace to the window, phone pressed to my ear. Morning sun spills across the yard where my brothers and I used to play football until someone bled.
Suddenly, I can see a kid in that yard.
"What are you saying, Sir?" I keep my voice neutral, clinical.
“This isn’t just a matter of rest and physical therapy.” Kaplan’s voice shifts, careful and controlled. “Your surgery was over a year ago. You should be showing more signs of improvement by now. The damage shows signs of being degenerative. Continued strain could lead to permanent impairment.”
I think about the ropes course. Open water. The strain in my shoulders when I push through the last stretch. I can do the work. I know I can do the work. It’s the part where they decide I can’t, that tightens everything in me.
“We’ll need you to report for further evaluation when you return next week. Until then, I’m recommending limited duty status.”
“Limited duty,” I say.
“Desk assignments and training oversight. Shore rotation until we complete a full workup.”
My hand tightens on the counter, pressure building up my arm into my shoulder.
“And if the evaluation confirms your assessment?”
A pause. Not long, but enough.
“We’d be looking at medical reclassification. Possibly a medical discharge, depending on your response to treatment and the options.”
“I understand.”
Appointments, paperwork, timing. I answer, but none of it sticks. When the line goes dead, the kitchen goes quiet in a way that feels louder than it should.
A desk. Or a discharge. And a kid who might be mine.
I set the phone down, then pick it back up and call Gabe before I can think about it too much.
He answers on the second ring.
“What, dickhead?”
“You busy?” I ask, bracing my hand against the counter.
“Depends. What’s going on?”
I look out into the yard. “Just got off with Kaplan. He’s talking limited duty for now because of this goddamned shoulder injury. I've got to get more tests next week. Might turn into a reclass.”
There’s a short pause on the line, the kind that tells me he’s already a step ahead of what I’m saying.
“Yeah,” Gabe says. “That’s how they start.”
“I can still do the work. It pisses me off that someone is trying to dictate my career based on images, not my performance.”
“I know you can. That’s not what they’re measuring.”
My grip tightens slightly on the phone. “You try to stay in?”
“For a minute,” he says. “Then I realized I wasn’t arguing a decision. I was reacting to one that had already been made.”
I let that sit, my eyes tracking the fence line outside.
“They offered you a desk,” I say.
“They did.”
“Why didn't you take it?”
“Because it’s not the job,” he says, calm and certain. “You don’t need me to explain that.”
“You’ve got a little time,” he adds. “Use it to decide what you’re going to do if it doesn’t go your way.”
“That’s not the outcome I’m planning on.”
“I didn’t say it was,” Gabe replies. “I said be ready for it.”
I drag a hand across the back of my neck, the tension sitting there.
“Come by later if you want,” he says. “We’ll grab a beer.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Alright.”
The line clicks off.
I stand there for a moment with the phone in my hand, then set it down and reach for my keys.
Limited duty. Medical reclassification. Discharge.
My fingers find the ibuprofen bottle again. Two more pills join the others I took upstairs. I wash them down with cold coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste.
What the fuck am I without the Teams? Six years building something that made sense. Clear objectives. Defined purpose. Brotherhood that didn't require explanation.
Now this.
And Charli.
And a kid who might be mine.
The kitchen clock ticks away each second with mechanical precision. Just me, a cold cup of coffee, and the thin, folded paper sitting on the table beside my phone.
The evidence stares back at me. Two flat rectangular objects holding more questions than answers.
The conversation from last night replays in my head. Her standing in that driveway. Me sitting in my truck. We talked about my father's death. About my deployment schedule. About nothing that actually mattered.
I rub my palm against the stubble on my jaw, hearing the scratch against calloused skin.
It should be simple. A direct question with a yes or no answer. Is the kid mine? That is all I need to know. Problem identified, solution executed. That is how I operate.
So why the fuck did I drive away?
The uncertainty shoots through my body, more prevalent than the pain radiating from my shoulder. If that kid is mine, I have missed five years. First steps. First words.
If he is not—
I shake my head, my jaw tightening. Either way, I need the truth.
This is not a mission where I can afford to wait. This is my life. And possibly someone else's.
The clock ticks as the coffee cools beside me. The house stays too still around it.
I reach for my phone and pull up her contact. I never deleted it. I left it there like everything else I walked away from.
My thumb hovers over the call button, close enough to press, not close enough to commit. My pulse picks up, the same edge I get before breaching a door, except this time there is no plan behind it.
Calling is too direct. It leaves no room to adjust.
I switch to the message thread instead. It is empty. We sent thousands of texts, and now there is nothing left of it.
For a second, I consider leaving it that way. In a week, I go back to base, or whatever desk they put me behind. I know how to leave things unfinished. I have done it before.
I start typing.
We need to talk about the boy I saw at your house.
Too blunt. I delete it.
I got your letter.
Too vague. I delete it.
Is he mine?
I stare at the words, then clear the screen again.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. The words need to be right. Clear enough to get answers, but not so direct that they slam doors shut. I'd approach any tactical situation with careful planning. This deserves the same precision.
I should have asked you something yesterday. Do you have time to meet before I leave for deployment next week?
Simple and direct, leaving room for her to respond however she needs to.
I read it three times, checking each word with the same care I'd give a mission brief. Then I press send before I can overthink it more.
The message disappears into the ether. And now our text thread is no longer empty.
The screen goes black. Just like me.
I set the phone down beside Charli's folded letter and lean back in the kitchen chair. The question I couldn't ask yesterday now sits between us, a live grenade with the pin halfway pulled.