Chapter 10
The rigamarole of the pomp and ceremony I’ve had to endure, from permitting my father’s desk to be dropped in black crepe to delegations of corrupt cocksuckers coming to pay their respects, is about to do me in.
The only thing that caught me in the gut was seeing the flag flown at half-mast and knowing it was meant for him, them.
That’s when the insidious pain started crawling through every pore of my body.
I was unable to escape it as I wandered through my childhood home in Virginia Beach as I stared at meticulously framed photos of the three of us from when I was a baby through my growing years.
Tears streamed down my face at the pride evident on theirs when I graduated from the Academy and then the image of me they took when my commander pinned on my trident after I earned my Navy Special Warfare Operator rating.
Moving down the row of photos, I touched one my mother had framed of us after I returned from my mission down in Mexico, where I was trying to recruit college students in border schools to work for the Agency to help stop drug cartels.
When I met her.
Shoving Bethany McCallister to the back of my mind, I took the picture off the wall and stared at the smirk on my father’s face—a twist of the lips I inherited.
My mother’s silver eyes twinkle up at me from the two-dimensional image capturing the love and laughter I had until just a few short weeks ago.
Is this what you felt after you lost your mother on the Sea Force, Bethany McCallister? The rogue thought races through my head and I shove it back—way back—because right now, I can’t unpack what happened that night in Mexico. Why I started talking to her.
More importantly, why I stopped.
The only thing I can think about is my parents are gone, and I’ll never have another chance to tell them I love them.
Grief is a constant companion. If I had my way, I’d force every reporter trying to flash a camera in my face as I exit the back of the limousine carrying me to their gravesite to jump in the hole waiting to lower their caskets into the ground.
I don’t care that my father was Senator Albert Thornton—senior senator on the Senate Appropriations Committee, or that my mother, Lorraine Parker Thornton, was a well-respected pediatrician.
Right now, all I care about is they’re gone.
In my full dress uniform, with my trident pin gleaming on my front left breast, I make my way to the viewing area.
I note that in addition to the paps, there are more people than just the leeches my father worked with.
Some of my former team members have made it and—I’m so grateful—friends, including Cal and Libby.
Maybe, just maybe, I can make it through everything I have to do today as a son, a former SEAL, and as the face to the nation.
I stand at the edge of the gravesite, my fists clenched so tight that my nails dig into my palms, but I don’t care. I can’t feel anything except the gnawing emptiness in my chest and the weight of my broken heart.
The honor guard waiting to honor my father stands at rest in formation, rifles held at their sides, ready to send my father off—and my mother along with him.
One flag-draped coffin, one draped in roses, both centered beneath the tent, looked surreal.
There was no way they could hold the love, confidence, and memories my parents had bestowed upon me.
My gloved fists clenched at my side. Especially when none of it made any sense.
As a SEAL, I had buried brothers, men I fought alongside. But this... burying my parents? The man who taught me to stand tall, to face the world head on? The mother who reminded me every time I came home from a mission I still have a heart? This was different. This was unbearable.
The priest’s voice echoes through the quiet crowd, reciting prayers, but I don’t hear a word. I stare at the coffins, my mind replaying every life lesson, every stupid teenage argument. My first tear falls.
Then I recall how my father would clasp me to him each and every time I strode through the front door after every mission, the way I’d scoop up my mother right after.
Now, I know why those moments were so precious.
It was because I wasn’t just feeling their love more in those moments; I also felt their relief in my safe return.
How foolish was I to take theirs for granted?
I blink against the sun, the glare bouncing off the polished wood of the casket.
My jaw tightened as I forced the memories away.
I’m angry. No, more than angry. Not at them, but at the whole damn situation.
At how a man who was once a combat veteran, who survived war zones and firefights, who’d made it through some of the most dangerous missions imaginable, had been taken out by something as mundane as a car accident.
It’s a goddamn irony that I can’t swallow.
As the final words of the eulogy fade, the honor guard steps forward, the rifles snapping into position. I flinch at the sound of the gunfire—each volley echoing across the quiet cemetery, each crack of the rifles driving home the reality of what is happening.
The honor guard folds the flag with precise, practiced movements until they finally hand it to me.
I don’t want it. I want my family back. I want them alive.
I want to tell everyone to go the fuck away so I can release the sounds desperate to escape from the depths of my soul.
But I bury that deep, take the flag, gripping it like it is the last piece of them I have left.
I look down at the flag in my hands, my gloved fingers catching on the folds in the fabric.
Eventually, people start to leave, murmuring their condolences as they pass. I barely hear them. I don’t want their sympathy. I don’t want their words. I just want them back. “Thorn,” is said softly in a sweetly southern voice, accompanied by a heavy hand on my shoulder.
My head twists to the side only to find a concerned Libby and Cal.
Somewhere in my numbness, I’m only mildly surprised to find Libby’s cousin Sam Akin and his wife, Iris, directly behind them.
I never even noticed them in the crowd. I am physically unable to do anything but stare at my parent’s coffins.
My voice cracks as I manage to force out, “Thank you all for coming.”
Cal’s hand comes down on my shoulder. “Let us know if you need anything, man. We’re here for you.”
Eventually, everyone left—including the media. I don’t know how long it took. I do know I watched as the undertakers dug their graves, the wind carrying the scent of freshly dug earth.
Finally, it is just me, alone in front of the grave. I look down at the flag in my hands again, and I can’t stop the tears this time. They fall, hot and heavy, as I sink to my knees beside the freshly dug graves.
I stay there until the caskets are lowered, my head bowed, my shoulders shaking.
Finally, I reach out and pluck two perfect red roses from the arrangement that blankets my mother’s casket. Kissing each one, I fling them on top of their coffins. “I love you both. I always will.”
That’s when I decide, if love is going to cause this much hurt, I never want to feel it again.
Ever.