45. Garrett
GARRETT
The following Wednesday, I turn on the news, intending to watch it for only a few minutes. For a thriller author, it’s often a good source of inspiration for stories or scenes in a book.
Peony is in the kitchen, pretending to help Athena make dinner. Neither of them are paying attention to the TV, the volume turned low.
Athena hasn’t seemed quite as “off” over the past couple of days as she did at my parents’ house last Thursday. But even after I found her pacing on my parents’ driveway, working out a stitch in her side, she’s been twitchy.
A picture of a man in Marine dress uniform appears on the TV screen, and the single beat of my heart thuds so hard, my chest wall reels at the impact. I know that man.
Tyson had gotten the stomach flu during my final deployment.
Instead of going on the mission he had been assigned to be part of, he’d stayed behind while he recovered.
And I’d taken his spot. It was the mission that cost Cooper and Clarke their lives.
Cost each of their families a son, a husband, a father.
The mission where I failed to protect them.
The woman newscaster on the TV is explaining that First Lieutenant Philip Tyson died during a militia attack in Syria. His funeral is scheduled for next week in Alabama.
Heart heavy, I turn off the TV and pull on my everything-is-fine mask. For my daughter’s sake.
Athena removes a casserole dish from the oven and places it on the granite counter. Peony removes a plate from her toy oven and puts it on the toy counter.
I crouch next to her. “Mmm. Dinner smells delicious.” I point to the empty toy plate. “Did Zara teach you how to make that?”
Pride beams in Peony’s smiling face. “Zawa.”
“That’s right,” Athena says. “Just like she taught me how to make Southern baked mac and cheese yesterday, when Peony and I went to her apartment.”
Cooking seems to be the only common ground between Athena and Zara. The cooking lesson—Athena’s suggestion, not mine—was a tiny step toward them possibly becoming friends. Eventually.
I straighten to my feet. “Mmm. It smells good.”
I help to set the table and buckle Peony into her booster seat. “How are things going with getting your replacement ID and Social Security Number?” I ask Athena. It’s been almost two months. “Any word on them yet?”
Athena places the casserole dish in the center of the table.
“Nothing yet. You know how bureaucrats are always getting tangled up in red tape? Guess this time they used duct tape. And that stuff’s impossible to untangle.
” She slides me an amused smirk and returns to the stove.
“I’m sure they’ll get around to them soon enough. ”
The early evening sunlight kisses a warm glow on Zara’s face, highlighting her beauty. After hearing that Tyson is dead, more than ever, I crave to get lost in one of her kisses.
But Peony is sitting in her car seat, waiting to be removed, and I don’t need her to witness me kissing Zara. It might not mean anything to her now, but there probably will come a point when she’ll wonder about why Zara and I kiss.
Maybe not now.
Maybe not next month.
But it will eventually happen. And the reason I’m kissing Zara is a discussion I’d rather not have with my daughter. At any age.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of walking here.” Zara closes her eyes and tilts her face to the sun. “It’s so peaceful.”
“It is.” The quiet that’s only experienced when surrounded by nature—the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze, the drone of a flying insect near my head—fills me with the same peace. It’s the tranquility only felt in the mountains or by the lake or on Wilderness Warriors property.
I unclip Peony’s harness and remove her from the car seat. Her attention is on a bird of prey circling over the meadow.
She points at it. “Bird.”
“That’s right. The bird is looking for dinner.” Likely a poor unsuspecting field mouse hiding in the wild grass. But I’m not planning to explain that circle-of-life lesson right now to my daughter. Let her learn it from The Lion King .
I set her up in the carrier and hoist it onto my back. I adjust the shoulder straps and snap the chest strap into position. Peony rocks in the seat, hinting for me to get going.
Zara and I begin our hike on the dirt path that cuts through the meadow. The path is wide enough, in most places, for us to walk alongside each other.
I brush my knuckles across Zara’s hand, needing her soft skin to ground me against the memories that haunt me when I least expect them. Peony happily chats away, oblivious to the physical connection between Zara and me.
“Is that so?” I say, pretending we’re having a conversation. Her chatter is an endless babble of incoherent words, along with clearly spoken words and ones I can easily decipher.
But as much as I try to remain present, to listen to my daughter, to remind myself I’m on U.S. soil, not enemy soil, my thoughts return to the smoke-and-dust-filled Afghan house, when I watched the light in Clarke’s eyes extinguish. I had begged him to hold on, told him help was on the way…
Warm, soft fingers squeeze my hand. “Are you okay?” Zara’s smooth, honeyed voice eases into my thoughts. Her voice doesn’t banish the memories grinding in my head, but it does quiet them for a beat.
I nod, my gaze on the path.
She squeezes my hand again. “I’m here if you want to talk.”
The memory tightens around my chest like a band of fire. Its smoke pours into my lungs, fills the empty spaces. Suffocates me. I stop walking, close my eyes, and draw in a lungful of pine-scented air, grounding myself for the first time since learning Tyson is dead.
I take another long breath, relieved the ground doesn’t drop away from under my feet, and reopen my eyes. “I found out today one of my Marine brothers, a close friend, recently died. During a bomb attack in Syria.”
“I’m so sorry, Garrett.” Compassion, not pity, shines back at me from her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes, further grounding me.
“The funeral is next Tuesday. In Fort McClellan. Alabama,” I ramble on, unsure how to respond. Too many people I know have been dying lately. People whose lives have been prematurely cut short.
“Are you going?”
“I am.” I owe it to Tyson. He saved my life more times than I care to remember.
“Then I’ll come with you.” Zara says, with the same fierce certainty she had when she stood up to my elementary-school bully without a second thought.
“You don’t have to do that. You’re busy with the renovation and the grand reopening.”
She strokes my hand. “You’re right. I don’t. But I want to.” Her eyes brim with understanding, as well as another emotion I don’t bother to examine too closely. Possibly…love? No, it can’t be that.
Going to Tyson’s funeral will be tough for many reasons. Cooper, Clarke, Tyson, and I were a tight-knit group, but I couldn’t even go to Cooper’s and Clarke’s funerals—something I’ll forever regret. I had been in the hospital at the time, recovering from the explosion that stole them from me.
“Thank you,” I whisper to Zara. “I would like it if you came to his funeral with me.”
For the briefest of seconds, denial lets me have a taste of another set of words—words about how I really feel about my best friend. Shit, I think I’m falling for you, Zara.
The words are quickly locked away, the box tossed into the deepest lake. And once they’re gone, the only taste left in my mouth is the sour mix of fear and grief, regret and relief.
Fear I’ll fail her like I failed Cooper and Clarke. Like I fear at some point I’ll fail my daughter.
Relief Zara isn’t falling for me—because it would only be messy and complicated if she did.
And more complications are the last thing either of us needs.