Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
cage
Idon't go home, I drive to the cemetery instead.
It's on the outskirts of Iron Peak, tucked against the base of the mountains. Small and quiet, a place where the dead outnumber the living most days.
I park and walk to the section where the military graves are, three rows back, four stones in.
Timothy James Mitchell.
TJ.
I stand here looking at the stone, my hands shoved deep in my pockets. I haven't been here since the funeral three years ago, I couldn't make myself come back.
But India's words are ringing in my head, and I need to be here, I need to face this.
"I screwed up," I say to the stone, to TJ. "India's pregnant, and I'm making a mess of it."
The wind picks up, rustling through the pine trees behind me.
"She thinks I'm only there out of guilt, out of responsibility." I crouch down, brushing snow off TJ's stone. "Maybe she's right."
I sit back on my heels, trying to find the words.
"I don't know how to do this, how to be with someone without waiting for them to disappear, how to want something without being terrified of losing it." My throat tightens. "You guys were supposed to come home, we were supposed to make it out together, and I failed you."
The words I've been carrying for three years finally break free.
"I should have seen it, should have called it off, should have done something different." I press my palms against my eyes. "And now I get to live and you don't, I get to have a family and you don't, I get a second chance and you're in the ground."
Silence. Just wind and distant birds.
"Sarah's right, it's not fair, none of this is fair."
I stand, looking at the stone. TJ would be thirty.
But he’s frozen in time, twenty-seven, forever.
"I don't know what to do," I admit. "I don't know how to move forward without feeling like I'm betraying you, like I'm leaving you behind."
More silence.
Then, from behind me, a voice.
"They wouldn't want you to live like this."
I turn. Dr. Merritt is standing a few feet away, his medical bag in hand, he's probably here making his rounds, checking on the elderly residents in the houses near the cemetery.
"Doc," I say.
He walks over, looking at the stones. "You knew TJ?"
"I led him."
Understanding crosses his face. "Afghanistan?"
"Yeah."
He nods slowly. "I was in Vietnam. Lost my whole squad in '68." He's quiet for a moment. "Carried that for forty years before I figured something out."
"What's that?"
"The dead don't want us to stop living. They want us to live for them, to have the lives they didn't get to have." He looks at me. "You honoring their memory by punishing yourself?"
"I'm the reason they're dead."
"Maybe, maybe not. War's complicated, blame rarely falls where we think it should.
" He shifts his bag to his other hand. "But let me ask you something, if the roles were reversed, if you were in that ground and one of them survived, would you want them to spend the rest of their life alone and miserable? "
I don't have to think about it. "No."
"Then why are you doing it to yourself?"
"Because I'm the one who made the call."
"And you're the one who has to live with it. But living with it doesn't mean stopping living altogether." He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Those boys trusted you to lead them, maybe it's time you trust yourself to live."
He walks away, leaving me alone with the stones and his words.
Trust yourself to live.
I look at the grave again. TJ.
"I met someone," I tell him. "India, she's funny and stubborn and she has chickens that attack her boots." I almost smile. "She's pregnant, with my kid, and I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up."
The wind picks up again.
"But she wants me there, not because she has to want me there, but because she does, and I want to be there. I want it so badly it scares the hell out of me."
I take a breath.
"I can't bring you back, I can't change what happened, but maybe Doc's right. Maybe the best way to honor you is to actually live, to let myself have something good instead of punishing myself forever."
I stand there for another minute, then turn to leave.
As I'm walking away, I hear it, maybe it's just wind. Maybe it's my imagination, but I swear I hear TJ’s laugh, the one he'd give me when I was overthinking something.
And for the first time in three years, the weight on my chest feels a little lighter.
I drive to Sarah Mitchell's house.
I don't let myself think about it, don't give myself time to back out. I just drive.
She lives in a small house on Maple Street, there's a tricycle in the front yard, half-buried in snow, and a wreath on the door.
I knock before I can change my mind. She opens it, and her face goes hard when she sees me.
"What do you want?"
"To apologize, properly."
"I don't want your apology."
"I know. But I'm giving it anyway." I meet her eyes. "Can I come in?"
She hesitates, then steps aside.
The house is small but warm. Photos everywhere. Most of them of TJ. TJ in uniform. TJ with Sarah. TJ holding a baby.
"That's Emma," Sarah says, seeing where I'm looking. "She's five now."
"She looks like him."
"She has his smile." Sarah crosses her arms. "Say what you came to say."
I take a breath. "I'm sorry for the decision I made that day, for not bringing him home, for surviving when he didn't."
"Sorry doesn't help."
"I know, but it's all I have." I pause. "I've been punishing myself for three years, living alone, avoiding people, avoiding life, because I thought that's what I deserved."
"It is what you deserve."
"Maybe, but TJ wouldn't have wanted that."
Her eyes flash. "Don't tell me what my husband would have wanted."
"You're right. I'm sorry." I run a hand through my hair. "But I knew him, and he'd be pissed if he knew I was wasting my life feeling guilty instead of actually living."
She's quiet for a long moment. "There's a woman, India."
"Yes."
"She's pregnant."
Word travels fast in this town. "Yes."
"And you're going to be a father."
"If she'll let me."
Sarah sits down on the couch. "I hate you."
"I know."
"I hate that you get to have a family when mine is gone. I hate that Emma asks about you sometimes because TJ talked about you so much. I hate that you survived and he didn't."
"I know."
"But hating you doesn't bring him back." She wipes her eyes. "And I'm tired, I'm so tired of being angry."
I sit in the chair across from her. "I can't change what happened, I can't bring him back, but I can tell you that I think about him every day, about all of them, and I'll carry that for the rest of my life."
"Good, you should."
"But I'm not going to let it destroy me anymore, and I don't think TJ would want me to."
She's quiet for a long time. "He talked about you, before that last mission, he said you were the best leader he'd ever had, that he trusted you completely."
The words hit harder than her anger ever could.
"He wouldn't want you to stop living," she continues. "He'd want you to have everything he didn't get to have."
"I don't deserve it."
"Maybe not, but you have it anyway." She stands. "I can't forgive you, not yet, maybe not ever. But I don't want to keep carrying this anger either."
"I understand."
"Take care of that woman, and that baby, don't waste the life you have."
I nod, not trusting my voice.
She walks me to the door. "TJ would have liked her, India. He always said you needed someone who could keep up with you."
I almost smile. "Yeah, he would have."
I drive back to my cabin in a daze.
The conversation with Sarah wasn't forgiveness, but it was something. Permission, to stop punishing myself, to actually try.
At home, I sit by the fire and think about what Doc said, what Sarah said.
Trust yourself to live.
Don't waste the life you have.
I've been so focused on what I lost that I haven't let myself see what I could have.
India, a baby, a family, a life.
But only if I stop treating it like an obligation and start treating it like a choice.
I want this, I want her, I want to be a father. Not because I have to, but because I actually want to. The realization is terrifying and freeing at the same time.
I grab my keys and head back out.
It's after eight when I get to India's cabin, the lights are on, smoke rising from the chimney.
I knock, and after a moment, she opens the door. She's wearing the same pajama pants and oversized sweater from this morning. Her eyes are red like she's been crying.
"Cage," she says. "What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?"
She hesitates, then steps aside.
I walk past her, then turn to face her. "I figured it out."
"Figured what out?"
"What I want."
She crosses her arms, guarded. "And?"
"You. I want you."
Her expression doesn't change. "Because you feel responsible?"
"No. Because I care about you, because I can't stop thinking about you, because the idea of not being in your life terrifies me more than the idea of screwing this up."
"Cage."
"I've been punishing myself for three years, convinced I didn't deserve happiness or peace or anything good, and then you happened, and I tried to tell myself it was just obligation. Just responsibility, because that was safer than admitting I actually wanted it."
I step closer.
"But I do want it, I want you. I want this baby, I want to figure out how to be a family even though I have no idea what I'm doing."
"What changed?" Her voice is shaky.
"I went to the cemetery. I talked to TJ, I talked to Sarah." I swallow hard. "And I realized they wouldn't want me to keep living like this. They'd want me to actually live."
Tears spill down her cheeks. "I can't be your redemption arc."
"You're not, you're the person I choose, not because I have to, not because I feel guilty. Because I want to."
"You want me."
"Yes."
"Not the baby, not the responsibility, me."
"You, the baby, all of it." I cup her face, wiping away her tears. "I'm choosing you, India. Consciously. Completely. If you'll have me."
She stares at me for a long moment. "You mean it."
"Yes."