by L. B. Dunbar
“I was totally out of line, and I’m so sorry,” I blurt before he can say anything more.
Levi pauses, hand on the open cooler top, and stares at me. “Uhm . . . I’m not certain what you’re talking about, but I wanted to explain the whiskey.”
“Oh. Oh, right. The bottle on the nightstand.” I lower my head like unscrewing the cap to my water bottle is the most interesting thing in the world, and not because he’s ignoring the fact I almost grabbed his junk last night.
“Anyway, I don’t want you to think I have a problem or anything. I mean, I shouldn’t have taken the bottle to my room like that. It used to be a habit, but it’s not anymore. Not now with AJ.”
“Levi, you don’t owe me an explanation. It’s your life, your son.”
“But I don’t want you to think I’m a bad dad. I don’t do that often, and as I said, I forgot my pills. It’s an honest mistake, but a stupid one, because then I drink to cut the pain, and drinking brings on nightmares. It’s a vicious circle.”
“Were you having a nightmare last night? You were tossing and turning for a bit and muttering like you were struggling.”
Levi turns his head away from me, gazing off in the distance.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say, lowering my voice and toying with the bottle cap in my hand.
“That’s just it. I want to tell you. I want to let you in on my deepest, darkest secrets, but it will make you run for the hills. You’ll never look at me the same again.”
I nod, sort of understanding his position but wishing he’d give me more credit.
“Have you told others what’s happened?”
“Like a therapist?” he snorts, having already admitted to me last night he has one.
“Like Tricia or Leon?”
“Only Leon.” Levi looks back at me. “I couldn’t face Tricia if I told her.”
“My aunt loves you unconditionally, Levi. You’re family to her.”
“Yeah, I don’t deserve her.”
“Why would you say that?”
Levi shrugs, pulling a container of cut fruit and two sandwiches out of the cooler before answering.
“I just never understood what I did to get a woman like her in my life.”
I don’t really have an answer for him. “Why wouldn’t you deserve someone amazing like Aunt Tricia?”
“Because women always leave me.” It’s candid and direct, and it hits my lower belly like a sucker punch. It’s a sad thought.
“Who left besides Alicia?”
“My mom when I was a baby, just like Alicia left AJ.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, knowing how he feels in a sense, and supposing he sees history repeating itself. “I understand.”
Quiet falls between us, and for some reason, my own story escapes.
“I was about four . . . An alarm had been beeping for what seemed like an endless amount of time. I sat on my parents’ bed with my ears covered. I’d been watching television next to my sleeping mother for two shows of my favorite purple dinosaur. The noise incessantly buzzed. “‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ I said. She didn’t like to be woken, but the noise was too much for me. I remember thinking she might yell at me. It frightened me when she yelled. I’d cry, which would make her angrier, but I was hungry. The cereal was in the lower cabinet since my dad caught me on the counter one morning. My parents had gotten into a big screaming match, and I didn’t like that. I could get the cereal myself but not the milk. The refrigerator was too difficult to open. It made my dad laugh when I struggled to pull the large handles with my little arms. My little feet would slide against the floor despite my tugging.”
I weakly smile with the memory of my dad chuckling before helping me. He was always there for me. Always.
“‘Mommy,’ I said louder. She rolled her head and muttered, ‘Five more minutes, Katie.’ Her voice was gruff. Her hand shot out from under the pillow and hit the clock again. I ignored the bottle on the nightstand. She was tired, I thought. She often went out after my dad came home from work and before I went to bed. She’d return in the early hours of the morning, sometimes waking me up.”
In later years, I’d connect the dots to know my mother was having an affair, possibly several. My father didn’t talk about that much.
“‘Katie, I said, five more minutes,’ she grumbled into the pillow, suffocating what sounded like a scream.
“‘It was five minutes, five minutes ago,’ I remember arguing back.
“Fine,” my mom growled and begrudgingly rolled out of bed.
“I remember my mother stumbling to the kitchen in a fog of sleepy confusion, much like I do when I’m woken too early. She dramatically tugged open the cereal cabinet. She slammed the cabinet door after removing a bowl and slapped the bowl in front of me. I flinched. I’m sure I did. She pulled too hard on the refrigerator door, and it shook. When she poured the milk into the bowl, the cereal spilled out with a splash. I started to cry.
“She yelled at me. ‘Stop crying!’ She even swore. I’d heard the words before and only knew they were bad because my dad would correct her.”
Pausing, I take a breath as the memory fills my head, and my heart races with the anxiety surrounding the past.
“I cried harder. I couldn’t help myself, but I tried. I tried so hard to stop. The struggle to suppress the tears was an unwinnable battle. She slapped me across the face.”
I raise a hand as if I can still feel the sting of it imprinted on my cheek. Levi’s been watching me as I share my deepest, darkest secret, but I’m lost to my memories. Sitting straighter, I plow through to the end of my story.
“‘I said. Stop. It,’ she yelled at me with her hands on my shoulders. I tried to apologize, but I couldn’t get myself under control.
“‘Shut up,’ she screamed at me. ‘Just shut up.’ She slapped me on the other cheek, and I froze. I stifled my cries and stopped my words. Then she left. For hours, she was gone before my father found me home alone. I didn’t speak again for years.”
The memory roars to life, real and raw, and I’m still holding my cheek as if the slap happened a moment ago, and the sting still vibrates. I haven’t told anyone that story in years.
“I understand being rejected by the person who should have loved you the most.”
6
[Levi]
“Jesus,” I hiss. I’d been watching her as she told her story. Her face blanching with every detail. This date has certainly taken a sour turn, and I’m shit because I brought us to this point. “I’m so sorry, sweet girl.”
She blinks at the endearment and weakly smiles without a trace of enthusiasm behind it. I want to hold her. I want to tug her to me, cover her with my body, and tell her it was never her. No one could not love that sweet freckled face and those deep blue eyes. Whatever the issue was, it was all her mother, not her as a child, and that woman, whoever she was, missed out on a great adult as well. Katie is an amazing human being.
“Anyway, wow, I didn’t mean to spill all that. That . . . sucked the cool out of this day.”
I chuckle a little at her brush-off of something so serious and painful. Maybe she can handle my darkness, but I still don’t want to taint her light with it.
“The cool out of this day,” I tease.
She shrugs. “Sure. That ride was so fun, so calming, and my story, just . . .” She makes a thumb’s down motion.
“You didn’t ruin anything, and thank you for being so honest. I’m sure that was difficult to share, and I’m honored you told me.” I mean it, I am honored. It’s hard to share your past with someone, especially when you want to make a good impression, and Katie is uninhibited in that manner. It’s refreshing, actually.
She unwraps her sandwich and smiles at it, like I got it right. “Tricia made them.” I can’t really take credit for knowing what she’d like on a sandwich. Tricia’s good at memorizing details about people. For Katie, it’s two slices of turkey and one piece of cheese cut in half on one slice of bread,
making it look more like half a sandwich. She also likes cantaloupe and pineapple with strawberries, but no watermelon or blueberries in the mix. Leave it to Tricia to know all the details.
“Anyway, I have a question for you.”
Katie hesitates as she lifts the sandwich for her mouth.
“Why did you ask me all those years ago if I was going to be a hero?”
She lowers the sandwich without taking a bite. “That is not what I thought you would ask me.”
“What did you think I’d ask?”
“Your question is going to be easier to answer.” She dismisses the vagueness and begins. “When I was little, I loved fairy tales. Like loved them. I blame my mom, Emily mom, not the woman who had me.”
She pauses so I understand. “Anyway, I always thought I wanted a hero to save me, like those fairy tales, but Mom reminded me over and over that the power to be saved is within me, and while those fairy tales were fun . . . I mean, who doesn’t want to dress like a princess and be saved by a man offering glass slippers . . . it really was within me to be my own savior. She actually saved me when I was that quiet child. The spell of silence was broken when we met her, as you can hear.”
She smiles more genuinely and waves a hand around her mouth to indicate her current talking. The attention to her lips distracts me, and once again, I want to kiss her. I want to know if she will still kiss me like she did all those years ago. I also want to know what else she can do with that mouth.
“I love hearing you talk,” I blurt, and she laughs.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all. I enjoy listening to you.” It’s a strange compliment, and I sound ridiculous saying it. “So hero worship,” I clarify.
“Something like that. You were going off to war, and I figured you’d be a hero somehow before you returned.”
I’ve been leaning on my arm, lying stretched out on my side, but I sit up at her words.
“I am no hero.” The words are sharper than I expected but no less harsh in their truth.
“Why not?” she whispers, and we’re back to my darkest secrets.
“Maybe another day,” I tell her, and her quiet tells me she doesn’t like the answer. Instead, I ask another question. “Did you find another hero?”
Katie looks off in the distance. “Nope. Still waiting on that one I wanted when I was a girl.” When her eyes land back on me, the blue smolders like swirling seas, and I want to reach for her once more. I want to know why she didn’t touch me last night as I lay there spread out and hard as a rock before her. Did I repulse her? Did she not want a damaged man?
Of course, there are other reasons. I’m a single dad, and I work a job I don’t love but pays my bills. I’ve got a small apartment and live down south. I have nothing to offer her, yet I want to give her everything. I want to be the hero she deserves.
She takes a bite of her sandwich as an awkward silence falls between us, and then I swallow hard before I share my story.
“It was hot as hell, and we weren’t supposed to be there . . . I’d followed General Rikkers’ orders to a T. Get to the church, secure the perimeter, wait for the retreat. Our enemy was near, so near I could almost hear them breathing. But we didn’t expect what we’d found. The church wasn’t empty. It must have been converted to an orphanage or something because it was filled with kids. Tons of kids and a few older women cowering, trying to keep them silent. The instant we entered, all hell broke loose. The kids wailed, and the women cursed us. Slowly they separated, to reveal one child wrapped in explosives.”
The gasp of her breath tells me I’m hitting the mark. This is no hero’s tale.
“The kids were crying and crying and crying. We didn’t know what to do at first. We needed to get them out of there. We knew the place wasn’t secure enough. Our only thought was to remove the children and get them down the alley as fast as possible. Murphy went to work on the kid with the bomb while Williams, Mont, and I began shuffling kids out a back passage. The women still screamed at us, and Williams was losing his shit, trying to get them to be quiet. It was a total clusterfuck. We all knew the sound would alert those closest to our presence. I’d made it no more than ten yards when the church exploded.”
Katie stares at me, and I keep going, rushing to finish this confession.
“I couldn’t get them out.” My voice lowers. “The kids. My men. My friends.” I take a deep breath, numb to this tale. “Something sliced my leg, the force enough to break it. I didn’t know at the time as I’d lost consciousness at first. The noise, the sound, I couldn’t think, and when I woke, all I saw was the bone and the blood.”
Memories fill my head. Crying out for doctors. Hearing my brother’s voice in my mind. Dreaming of her.
I want to be a hero.
I wanted to be one.
For Katie.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest.” Her voice is weak, frightened, like those children. My heart breaks all over again for what I’d seen and been unable to fix.
“I couldn’t save them.” My voice cracks. “I didn’t save them.”
“It’s okay,” Katie whispers.
“But it’s not,” I say, dismissive of my past. “It’s not okay. They all died, except for me. All of them. Do you know what it’s like to be the only one alive? The only one to live? I should have died with them, Katie. I shouldn’t have been the one who survived. Williams had a family. Murphy was engaged. Mont was practically a kid himself. Rikkers could have retired when the tour was over. I . . . I was no one. I had nothing.”
“Do not say that,” she states, her voice harsh. “Don’t ever say that.” She drops her sandwich, and her arms surround me before I can stop her. I shouldn’t want her touch. I shouldn’t need her hug, but I welcome the embrace as she holds me like no one has. Her arms are tight around my shoulders, hands flat on my shoulder blades like she can’t hold me close enough in our seated positions. My head dips, dropping my face into her neck, and I inhale her floral freshness. She’s all that’s good and pure in this world, and I just killed this afternoon.
“And that concludes the sour part of our date.” I’ve thrown my voice to sound like a radio announcer.
You win. You’re a loser because your team died.
I’m not quite so cavalier about it, but I’ve had years to come to terms with my situation and meds for the times I can’t. Yet, nothing feels as good as the arms of this woman around me. Not even riding that horse earlier, reminding me of horse therapy, felt as good as this moment.
Katie leans back. “Oh, is this a date? I feel like I’ve just attended a therapy session.” Her voice teases, breaking the tension around us, and she chuckles, though it’s without humor.
“Who would want this to be a date?” I tease. “All the cool was sucked out of this thing.”
Katie chuckles harder, her arms slipping down my biceps, and I feel the loss of her. She’s retreating, and I want to pull her back to me, but I sense how raw we both are with our honesty, and I let her leave me. She slides back across the blanket and opens the fruit container instead.
We spend the next minutes trying to recover this withered date with small talk about how one day I’d like to own some land and have space for AJ to run around like a tyrant. We also discuss the remaining events for Tom’s party week, and a strange sense of finality comes to me.
This week will end, and my time with her will be up before I can try to be the hero she deserves.
Then again, I’ll never be a hero, and she doesn’t need one anyway.
She’s been the hero of her own story.
+ + +
When we finally return to the house, the living room is full of women getting their nails painted, and Katie tells her mother she’ll be back in a minute to join them. Tricia put AJ down for a nap, and I’m so grateful for her continued care of him, giving me a bit of a break these past couple of days. I walk with Katie to our upper-level rooms, and we both pause in the hallway. I want to reach for her bu
t hesitate. Stopping to stare at one another, I feel the tension from our earlier conversation circling us. I want to kick myself once more for things getting so heavy, sharing our sad histories, when the day was intended to thank her for last night and explain how I’m not a lush like I’ve come across.
“Well, I’ll see you later,” I say, sounding like I’m uncertain how to end a date.
“Oh, is this a date?” she’d asked. Hell yes, I wanted it to be a date, but maybe it was better to consider it two people who grew up in the same circle sharing some time together.
Yeah, I didn’t like that explanation, but I didn’t know how to explain myself. Instead, I step closer to her, place my hand on her hip, and lean in to kiss her cheek.
“Thanks for spending some time with me.” I slowly pull away from her, dragging my scruff-covered jaw against her cheek. Those wide expressive eyes look up at me, a little stunned, a little dazed. She doesn’t speak, and I step away. Katie nods, reaching behind her for her doorknob and turning it. The door opens, and she steps back, giving me a cautious wave. Tipping my chin at her, I force a smile and turn for my own room. As she’s disappeared into her room, I stop at my door, bang my forehead lightly against it, and close my eyes.
“You are such an idiot,” I mutter to myself, knowing I just blew it with my brutal honesty and war story. It’s a lot to take in, and there are moments when I think AJ is missing his hearing because of what I’ve done. The child suffers the sins of the parent. The screams of those children will forever haunt me, but my son won’t hear a sound unless I decide to get the cochlear implants when he’s one.
“Levi?” Katie’s quiet voice lifts my head, and I spin to face her. I don’t have time to think before I feel her hands on my chest, slipping up to my nape. Soft words from her brush over my lips.
“Thank you for today.”
Thank you for your service. It’s the same breathy voice she used when we were in the alley. Then her mouth is on mine, crushing her lips against me. Our lips move in tandem, chasing each other before she starts to pull away, and just like that night, I won’t let her go. Digging my fingers into her waist, I pull her to me, pressing my hard length against her softness. The kiss is so powerful she’s arching back, but our lips remain attached, seeking, searching, begging for more. Her tongue rushes forward, and I open, welcoming her charge. Her hands slip around the back of my head, holding me to her as her body dips underneath mine. Our mouths kiss and kiss and . . .