The Price of Valor

by Susan May Warren

  A mile up the road, he’d worked himself into a full boil.

  Really, Signe? After everything? Last night he’d even reached inside himself, bared his heart to her. “I can’t give myself to you again, can’t hold you in my arms and survive you walking out of my life.”

  What a pansy. He’d even alluded to how he’d been taken apart after he thought she’d died.

  Not again. He’d survived by wadding those feelings into a hard ball. By not letting them escape into the open and wreak wounds and scars all over his life. He’d survived loss and rejection over and over again. His mother, his malicious stepmother, his family. His team in Afghanistan. His career with the SEALs.

  He could survive this.

  The bike hit a rut, a culvert running under the road. The wheel jerked, turning toward his weak wrist.

  He didn’t have the strength to right it.

  The bike turned over and Ham went flying. He had the presence of mind to duck and roll, and he landed, bruised and sore, in a soft puddle of marshland.

  As mud seeped into his clothing, Ham stared at the gray sky and just tried to breathe.

  And because he was alone, because he was lying in a ditch on the side of the road, because somehow, he hadn’t actually escaped the dark, cold cellar, he let out a shout.

  More of a scream, but it rent the sky, fracturing the morning.

  A swell of sparrows lifted from nearby, startled.

  Yeah, well . . .

  Not far away, a car crunched dirt as it pulled to the side.

  Perfect. Now he’d have company in his misery.

  The door shut and Ham rolled over, groaning, trying to push to his feet.

  “How hurt are you?” Pastor Dan Matthews was jogging toward him, wearing a suit, dress shoes, and a jacket. “Ham?”

  Ham had made it to his knees and now realized he’d probably banged his shoulder pretty good. “Yeah.” He sat back on his haunches and unsnapped his helmet strap, worked off the helmet, and let it fall into the grass.

  “Your front wheel looks bent,” Dan said as he crouched next to Ham.

  “I hit the culvert. Couldn’t correct.” He held up his casted wrist.

  Dan frowned. “What’s going on?”

  Ham closed his eyes. Shook his head.

  “I’m on my way to services in Portage, but I have a few minutes to give you a lift home.”

  Ham looked at the man. In his midforties, Dan had a quiet, no-nonsense preaching style. Usually got right to the bones of the problem.

  So, “My wife left me. Again.”

  Dan didn’t even blink. Just a quiet pursing of his lips. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not really a surprise.” Ham grabbed his helmet and forced himself to his feet. “I’m just angry that I didn’t see it coming. Again. That I talked myself into believing that this time would be different.” He walked over to the bike. The front tire was bent, the fender broken.

  So much for stopping Signe at the border.

  Dan helped him haul up the bike.

  “Don’t get your suit dirty,” Ham said.

  “The suit isn’t sacred, Ham. But your soul is.” Dan pushed the bike with him from the ditch.

  “My soul isn’t in any danger.”

  “Isn’t it?” Dan wheeled the bike with him to his F-150. “You might be calm on the outside, but I see a storm raging inside. Let’s talk about again. My wife left me again.”

  Ham held the bike while Dan pulled down the gate. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “At the beginning?”

  Ham gave a harrumph. Moved to lift the bike into place.

  “I got this, Ham,” Dan said and lifted the front of the bike onto the bed.

  Right. Ham stepped back and let Dan lift the back tire onto the bed, although he grabbed the tire with his good hand. Hid a wince as he lifted.

  Yeah, maybe he’d done some real damage to his shoulder. Felt okay, though, to hurt on the outside—to match the agony inside.

  “We got married on a whim, about fifteen years ago. It was a rash decision, based on impulse.”

  “You loved her.” Dan got the bike into the back, then climbed up to the bed.

  “We were childhood friends, and it grew from there. I’m not sure when I started loving her.”

  “And you never stopped.”

  Unfortunately. “Even when she left me to . . . work overseas.”

  Dan set the bike on its side.

  “I found her years later, and we . . . well, that’s when Aggie was conceived.”

  Dan smacked the dirt off his hands. Looked at him, no judgment in his eyes. “And?”

  “The short of it was that she left me again. She had her reasons, but I spent the last ten years thinking she was dead. And I didn’t have a clue about Aggie.”

  “Wow.”

  “I only found out the truth recently and I went to . . . get her. I thought we had a chance. I mean, she’s been through a lot, but we’re still married—although—” He stepped back as Dan jumped off the bed. Ham noticed his dress shoes were caked with mud.

  “Although?”

  “She married someone else in the meantime. Someone bad.”

  Dan raised an eyebrow.

  “He’s dead, so . . . but . . . I don’t know. She has scars, that’s for sure, but last night . . .” He looked away.

  “Last night?”

  “Whatever. She said she would be here this morning, and she’s not and I think she’s headed to the border. With Aggie.”

  “Huh.”

  “I’m just tired of the lies.”

  “And angry.”

  “Of course.”

  “And hurt, and you have every right to be.” Dan pulled out a handkerchief, handed it to Ham. “You’re bleeding.” He indicated a place on Ham’s chin.

  Ham pressed his fingers to the wound and found a nick where his chin strap had been. “It’s nothing.” But he pressed the handkerchief to it.

  Dan closed the tailgate. “In Luke 22, Jesus tells Simon Peter that Satan asked to sift him as wheat. And Jesus says that he is praying for him, that he would not fail. It sounds like you’re being sifted, Ham. The enemy wants to win this one. Don’t let him.”

  Ham shook his head. “I don’t know how to win this.”

  “I know. Right now, the hurt, the offense feels overwhelming.”

  Ham’s jaw tightened, but he could hardly breathe.

  “Try this. When you look at your wife, I want you to picture Jesus standing over her. He’s saying, Ham, every piece of anger and fury you hurtle at her, you are hitting me. Because I’ve already paid for her sins. And even if she doesn’t accept that forgiveness, you know it’s true.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “But it’s true, right?”

  “Are you going to give me a ride home?”

  “Get in.”

  Ham climbed in the passenger side. Dan got in behind the wheel. “You’ll have to point me in the right direction.”

  “Up the road a mile or so. First right.”

  Dan pulled onto the road. “Ham, nothing is impossible with God.”

  “It feels impossible.”

  “I hear that. But believe it or not, God has a plan.”

  “I wish I knew it.” His shoulder was really starting to ache.

  “Do you? Because maybe it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And if we knew the big picture, I’ll bet we’d say, no thanks.”

  Maybe.

  “The answer isn’t in knowing the plan, but trusting God, daily, to give you direction. To help you sacrifice your own desires, and to love.”

  “What if that isn’t enough?”

  “It is enough. Because what you’re not seeing is that it’s not just about your marriage or your wife. It’s about you. It’s about getting to the heart of your relationship with Jesus. You’re a good man, Ham. But God doesn’t want just a good man. He wants a man who is his. This is why Jesus allowed Satan to sift Simon Peter. Because when P
eter denied Christ, he came to the end of himself and truly became a new man. God’s man. And that’s who you need to be to get through this.” Dan turned on his blinker. “This one?”

  Ham nodded.

  Dan slowed the truck. “Ham, when you were a SEAL, you walked around with a target on your back. You were always aware that you could be attacked. So, you were on the defensive—sometimes even on the offensive, right?”

  “And?”

  “You’re still at war, buddy. If you’re a Christian, then you have a big target on your heart. Satan is a very real enemy who wants to take you out. He wants to destroy your testimony and take out the power of God in your life. Undermine your faith. And he does it by making you doubt God’s love. By distracting you from the person God says you are and the future he has for you. The enemy wants you to rush ahead and try to fix your problems on your own, and then say, ‘See, God doesn’t care.’

  “But God calls you to be a warrior. To train, to wait for his command. And that’s why you have to lean hard into him. Fill your mind with prayer, with Scripture, with truth. Let God be to you all he says he is—strength, peace, grace, love, . . . joy.”

  He turned onto the dirt road to Ham’s place.

  “Second left,” Ham said.

  “You need to hunker down into what you know, Ham. God is good. God is love. And God’s timing is always perfect.”

  He slowed as he pulled into Ham’s driveway.

  Ham stilled.

  The Silverado sat in the driveway.

  Signe was pulling Aggie’s duffel bag from the back end. It was stuffed with her animals. She handed the bag to Aggie, then grabbed a bag of groceries.

  Dan stopped the truck. Looked over at Ham.

  “Grace and forgiveness don’t belong to you, Ham. They’re the weapons of heaven given to you by your Savior to destroy the darkness in their lives. To give them hope. To glimpse their real Savior, Jesus.”

  Signe turned, frowned, then lifted a hand in greeting right before she grabbed another bag from the back.

  Ham couldn’t breathe.

  “No power of Satan can pluck you from the hand of God. Stand in his power, Ham, and you will have everything you need. The time for mourning is over.” He looked at Signe heading now into the house. “The time for joy is at hand. And get that shoulder looked at, okay?”

  Ham nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Let’s get your bike unloaded.”

  Signe had returned from the house by the time Dan had the bike in the driveway. “What happened?” She looked at Ham. “I thought you were still sleeping. I went to town for groceries. And Aggie had to bring the whole farm with her. No more carnivals, okay?”

  He just stood there, unable to move.

  She took a step toward him. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

  Ham caught her wrist softly just before she touched him. “I’m fine.”

  She frowned. Ham released his hold.

  “Warrior,” Dan said quietly.

  Right.

  “Call me if you need a fishing trip.” Dan pulled out of the driveway.

  Signe stared at Ham. She was wearing a flannel shirt and leggings, her boots, her hair held back in two pigtails. Innocent. Pretty.

  He left the bike there and headed for the house.

  “Ham?” Signe followed him. “What’s going on?”

  He ground his jaw. Shook his head.

  “Did you take the bike out?”

  He rounded on her, his breathing fast, hard. “Yes. Okay? Yes. I went looking for you!”

  “Why? I just went to the store—”

  “I didn’t know that.” He knew he should be schooling his voice, but it all simply spilled out, uncensored. “I thought you left me. Again.” He held up his hands. “I know you’re standing here right now, but I can’t live like this, Sig. I can’t—” He blew out a breath. Shook his head. “I can’t wonder every time you leave the house if you’re coming back to me. I can’t wonder if someday I’m going to come home and find you gone.” His throat tightened. “I can’t—”

  “End up in the cellar again, wondering what you did to be rejected.”

  He stared at her. Then, quietly, nodded.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist. “And I can’t bear the idea that I’ll do something that will cause your death.”

  The wind stirred around them, leaves skittering across the dirt.

  “I’m not Caesar.”

  “It was my fault. He should have been secured.”

  “It was a car accident.”

  Her eyes blazed. “I’d been drinking.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You weren’t there! You left and I was alone—”

  “Because I was at military school! I didn’t choose that.”

  “I know, but . . .” She shook her head. “After you left, I made some bad decisions, Ham. And I was too ashamed to tell you about them.” She looked away. “And then it happened all over again, in Chechnya. Only this time it was you who was going to get killed.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes were hard. “I saw you in Chechnya that day, when you came after me.”

  He just blinked at her.

  “Tsarnaev and I were out of the bunker, and you and your men were hunkered down, but Tsarnaev had a sniper on you. And I begged him to let you live.”

  “You did what?” He shook his head. “Signe—”

  “I told him I’d go with him peacefully if he’d let you live.”

  He turned away from her. “No. No, this can’t be my fault—”

  “What? No, Ham—it’s my fault for going with him, but . . . don’t you see? I’ve always brought trouble into the lives of people I love, and I can’t—”

  “No.” Ham rounded on her, his breaths coming in hard. “You’ve always brought comfort into the lives of people you love. Aggie. And your grandmother, who was grieving the loss of her daughter so hard she couldn’t see the gift she had in you. And me. You were comfort to me, Sig. Just like I was safety to you.”

  Her jaw tightened.

  “Are you going to leave me?” He said it quietly, met her eyes, tried to keep his voice from shaking.

  She took a breath. “I don’t know what this looks like for us. What normal is.”

  “We can make our own normal.”

  She stepped up to him. “Ham, I do know what I’ve been given. And my daughter deserves a safe life with her father.”

  “And you?”

  She bit her lip. “Promise you won’t die because of me?”

  He frowned, shook his head.

  “Because you’re looking a lot banged up here, Batman.” She touched his chin.

  “I think I might have broken my shoulder,” he said, his gaze holding hers.

  She swallowed, forced a smile. But it went right to his heart, lighting it afire.

  “I guess I’d better stick around, then. Someone needs to take you to the hospital and feed you baloney sandwiches.”

  He closed his eyes, fighting the burn in them. Lord, I don’t know—

  She touched his face, bringing his gaze to hers. “This war isn’t over. But like you said, we’re together now, right?” Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him. Nothing ardent or deeply passionate, but something solid and true and . . .

  When he opened his eyes, she was still there, smiling at him.

  They were together now. And he intended to keep them that way.

  The door opened. Aggie stood holding her dolphin, her hair in long braids. She held a donut in wrapped paper, wore sugar around her mouth. “Want a donut?”

  “We stopped at a little shop called World’s Best Donuts. I had to see if they were telling the truth,” Signe said.

  “Research,” he said quietly.

  “Daddy, where were you?” Aggie said. “I looked for you and you were gone.”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said, looking at Signe, then his daughter. “But I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

 
CHAPTER TWELVE

  THIS IS ABOUT the most extreme case of avoidance I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even a psychologist!”

  The voice came from below Jenny, at the bottom of the climbing wall where her best friend, Aria, was belaying her. A harness hugged Aria’s lower body, webbing attached to a clip on the floor. She stared up at Jenny, her voice having echoed throughout the entire massive climbing center at the Edina GoSports facility.

  Good thing it was after nine and Aria needed a little de-stressing after a long surgery. She’d been easy prey for Jenny’s restless energy.

  She just had to shake off her frustration, and nothing helped her work a problem like a 5.12 route. Even if it did only drop to a spongy floor some sixty feet below.

  The entire center resembled a gigantic cave, with vertical and overhang walls for both climbing and rappelling. Beyond the glass windows were two stories of exercise equipment, from treadmills and ellipticals to rowing machines and cycles. In the next room, a second-story track rounded a massive Olympic-sized pool, deep enough for scuba lessons on the far end.

  The Minnetonka location had a cold room for ice climbing, but tonight, she needed the heat to match her mood.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No!” Jenny said as she reached for a jug just above her left fingers. This particular route included an overhang, one that she had yet to nail. She’d spent the past two weeks trying to figure it out. Figuring out her hand holds, her movements, her weight distribution, trying to figure out why Orion had just stared at her when she’d bared her heart to him.

  “I had an abortion.”

  Those words had emerged from her mouth, right? Because she had a very vivid memory of the acid pooling in her gut a moment before she admitted it.

  That and declaring her love for him, just in case they died.

  Both times he’d ignored her.

  Or just . . . didn’t care?

  “Just so we’re clear, I’m not going to go climb Everest with you just because you’re in denial,” Aria said.

  Jenny caught her fingertips on the jug and worked her grip in, then moved her foot to an indentation and twisted to press up. “I’m not in denial. I’m just moving forward.” She shoved her right hand in a crack near the overhang.

  “You haven’t talked to Orion since you got back from Italy two weeks ago. This is hardly moving forward.”