by Ciji Ware
Finn nodded, and Juliet knew that the moment of crossing the Rubicon had passed. They would remain on opposite shores. They would not fall into each other’s arms tonight and let the consequences be damned because the consequences were about as serious as they could get. She knew it and so did Finn.
“Let’s go back to the couch,” he proposed. “You, on your end. Me, on mine.”
“All right, but first I’m going to get ready for bed, okay?”
“Tights and all?” he asked with mock solemnity. “No frilly French nighty to drive me out of my mind?”
“No nighty... just my chastity tights. Seems like a good idea, under the circumstances.”
“It probably is.”
Juliet noted his tight jaw, but a wry smile had just begun to appear on his normally clean-shaven face that, by this hour, had a very sexy shadow along his chin.
“Be right back,” Juliet said, with a hint of regret, and headed down below to change.
* * *
As the evening wore on, Finn gazed across the sofa and wondered at the rush of feelings prompted by the woman sitting three feet from him, her legs curled under the blanket that would cover her while she slept—alone—aboard the barge one last night.
There was no denying the truth: Juliet Thayer had crashed into his life at a moment of tragedy and grief and he would sorely miss her company when she left. There had to be more than just the family business pulling her home when her best friend obviously needed her help for a few weeks longer. There must be a guy in San Francisco. No woman as attractive, accomplished or loyal as she is would be without men stumbling all over themselves to be with her.
While she described the symptoms she’d witnessed with Avery earlier that day at art school, Finn felt his breath catch and his gut churn at the thought of Juliet seriously involved with someone in her hometown. But, in fact, it was all very, very complicated. If he didn’t see things through with Kim and didn’t know, for certain, that he was no longer a danger to anyone—a danger to lovely, honest, talented Juliet—he might spoil everything in the long run.
I guess when you really care about someone’s welfare more than just your own, you’re flying at a higher altitude, Finn, my boy.
It was probably a good thing that Juliet was going back to San Francisco. It would be nothing but push-pull until he’d got the divorce papers signed and finally concluded his relationship with his soon-to-be-ex-wife.
Juliet’s next question roused him from his wandering thoughts.
“So, now that I’ve described what happened today in her painting class, do you think it’s a good or bad idea if Avery tries to work at her teacher’s studio every day? What if even that sets off her anxiety, like what happened today in the classroom? Maybe I should make her find someone like your shrink who can help her deal with her version of PTSD—if you think that’s what’s really going on here?”
“You and I aren’t the docs,” Finn reminded her, doing his best to concentrate on the subject at hand. “First of all, she needs a definite diagnosis, and I’m happy to introduce her to Dr. Abel at the American Hospital.”
“Is he experienced in all varieties of post trauma? I mean, Avery wasn’t in a war, like you were.”
“Doctor Sonja Abel is a ‘she,’” Finn corrected Juliet, “and in my humble opinion, what happened at Le Petit Cambodge was very like what happened to us in places like Fallujah. You’d be sitting somewhere, supposedly safe, and wham! An AK47 or Kalashnikov would suddenly go off and the guy on your right was dead or dying.”
Juliet nodded somberly. “At least, for starters, let’s try to get her to your doctor.”
Finn agreed, adding, “If you want, I’ll set it up and take her as soon as I can get her an appointment. Dr. Abel has been in touch with these Harvard guys I told you about that were former vets and now are doctors and professors. Their latest research shows pretty conclusively that for some, it’s not only the emotional trauma that does damage when you experience tough stuff, but also that the brain itself can be physically damaged even by just the tremendous force of the sound waves coming from the blast itself. Avery was exposed to many bursts of fire, shot at close range.”
“But what is it, again, that actually gets damaged if it’s only loud sound wave blasts,” Juliet asked skeptically, “and not actual physical wounds to the head?”
“Not to get too technical,” he said, wiggling the fingers of both hands an inch apart, “remember I told you about the parts of the brain that exchange messages... the neuron receptors?” Juliet nodded, staring at his large hands. “Well, imagine those neuron receptors are the tips of my fingers, here, and the sound blasts push them out of alignment. The synapses—the energy signals telling the brain what to do that whip back and forth in the space that exists between the neuron receptors—can’t get the messages to transfer from one receptor to the other. The normal linkages don’t match up... don’t connect... because of this misalignment.”
“So Avery’s problems may not just be a fight-or-flight reaction due to fear of bad things about to happen again? Things might have physically got shaken up in her head?”
“Possibly. This stuff is all very new. The more sensitive MRI machines that the researchers at Harvard developed can see subtle changes in the way the neuron receptors in the brain are misaligned or disconnected in people who experienced the concussive force of explosions and their resulting sounds—even if the bomb didn’t hit them.”
“What are the signs in a person when the... ah... synapses don’t snap correctly?”
“Well... sleep problems, and being startled by the wrong stuff, like what happened when we came out of the café that night—”
“Or when I merely opened the pilothouse door that night?”
“Exactly. Then there’s the big, obvious stuff, like horrible headaches, and memory loss and getting spooked when a room fills up with too many people. Of course, there’s the big, big stuff like not remembering when the Vice-President gave you a Silver Star or something. But there’s also stupid, annoying things, like suddenly having no idea how to count your change at Burger King, or how, soon after your injuries, to turn on a tricky heat valve in your Paris apartment, and so forth.”
“Wow...” Juliet murmured.
Finn nodded. “Yeah... it’s a lot to take in, but Dr. Abel is up on it all. Hopefully, with time and work on Avery’s part, she’ll be able to overcome a lot of what’s troubling her in the aftermath of the attacks. Sometimes nerves repair themselves... slowly, for sure.” He met Juliet’s worried gaze from across the sofa. “And there may be drugs that can be designed to block the wrong signals getting through, or help restore the good signals between neuron receptors. We know the brain has amazing plasticity,” he added, with an encouraging smile. “And sometimes it’s thought the neurons can forage new pathways around the damage. Dr. Abel told me that for some people, good experiences teach their brains to respond in a different fashion than in the bad, old, post-trauma way.”
“You mean, kind of carve new pathways, new connections?”
“You are one, smart lady,” he said with a smile. “But yeah. For me, it’s probably going to mean a combination of cures. At least, let’s hope that turns out to be true.”
Was he trying too hard to convince her that he’d eventually be okay?
“Well, at least, the drug companies are working on it, aren’t they?” she asked.
Finn hesitated. “So far, Big Pharma has been slow to risk money on developing new drugs for this type of brain injury, but Dr. Abel swears that the guys who pioneered these theories won’t give up till they do.”
Juliet looked away.
Does she think I’m probably a hopeless case? Not worth keeping in touch with, except when it comes to Avery?
Maybe he was.
She rose from the sofa, hands on hips and pointed to the door to the stateroom and bathroom below the salon.
“Stay right here, will you? I drank a lot of coffee,” she said apologeti
cally, “And I have a couple of more questions to ask you before we call it a night.”
CHAPTER 15
Juliet came up the wooden stairs after her trip to the head and resumed her position on the couch while Finn had remained in his corner.
“I was just wondering,” she said, settling her back against the cushions and pulling the blanket over her legs. “What generally sets off a person with PTSD? I mean, obviously, that car backfiring that night on the street sounded like gunfire—and even I had the instinct to duck—but Avery only started to get wiggy when she was in that restaurant as it began to fill up with customers. At L’École, she began to shake when her classmates crowded around, wanting to know the details of what happened to J-P.”
“My guess is those were scenes that mirrored the moment the shooters entered the crowded restaurant and opened fire. Her brain went right back to relive that moment.”
Juliet nodded slowly. “If you don’t mind telling me,” she asked, titling her head to one side, “what other kinds of things can set you off, for instance?”
She saw that Finn took a deep breath and appeared to come to some conclusion. In a low voice, he began to describe the triggers that still had the power to affect him.
“Loud, unexpected noises, mostly, which I trace back to the blast when my helicopter was hit. I had a busted up leg, of course, that hurt like hell. Later—probably because my head got pounded in the crash—I developed ice-pick-in-the-brain headaches for a year, which finally went away.”
“But you got past a lot of that, and were even able to go to Nevada to fly drones, so why did you suddenly retreat to Paris?”
A long pause became total silence between them. Finn looked over his shoulder, toward the stairs leading down to his stateroom, appearing for all the world to Juliet as if he wanted to bolt. Instead, he slowly turned his head back and met her troubled gaze.
“After a year, I pretty much recovered from the physical damage as far as the VA doctors were concerned, but... then I entered those unmarked trailers in the American desert and shook hands with the devil.”
“What do you mean?”
“The very first week I was there I had my first drone kill.”
“And... ?” she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral.
“And... just as I released the Hellfire missile on what were termed ‘high value targets’, a little boy came chasing after his dog who had run around the corner of the compound.”
“Oh, no...” she whispered.
“Once you push the button, the missile takes fifty-five seconds to reach its target. The drones taking off in the Middle East have mounted cameras on the unmanned plane. Our monitor screens in Nevada showed everything that happened in the target area.”
“Oh... God...” she moaned.
“I sat there in that cushy leather chair, knowing that in a few more seconds that six-year-old kid would be blown to particles so small, no one could identify him.”
“Finn...” Juliet said, her throat tight.
“Then I watched on that damn screen as the child’s mother, who was a block away, came screaming and crying down the street when she saw her house had been flattened and was burning white hot. We saw her arrive on the scene and dive into the ashes, searing her hands and arms, frantically trying to find her little son.”
“Oh, Jesus...” Juliet murmured, her eyes filled with tears.
Finn continued to lock glances. “Right then, our shift was over and the next team walked into the trailer. I went back to my house at the base where Kim happened to have invited people over for a barbeque that night. She was annoyed that I was late. She wanted me to cook hotdogs on the grill and pass out the beer.”
“And you weren’t allowed to say anything about what had happened that day? You couldn’t tell her you’d just blown up a—?”
“You got it,” he interrupted harshly. His own eyes were moist. “I watched the charcoal burning white hot beneath that meat... and I think I lost my soul that day.”
Juliet reached across the sofa and seized his nearest hand that felt cold as a cadaver’s.
“I know it’s not much comfort, Finn, but I am so, so sorry you had to go through something like that.”
“I’m not the only one who went through it.”
Finn abruptly withdrew his hand and rose from the couch to cross over to the windows, staring at the mirror image of the Eiffel Tower glistening in the river below it.
“Did you ever finally tell your wife about this? About what happened that day, and how it made you feel afterward?”
His eyes remained glued to the tower reflection as he shook his head. “By that time, after those tours of duty and the months in the hospital, and then flying unmanned combat drones on high target missions... I didn’t really understand what was happening to me physically or emotionally. I just kept going to work and doing what I was told. I was numb, I guess. Everything was so macho on the Creech airbase that, when my symptoms got worse and I had new ones, I knew nobody really gave a damn. And besides, I just... well... withdrew. And then Kim—”
“What new symptoms?” Juliet cut in.
Finn looked at her over his shoulder. “I was irritable. I had these flashes of anger over little stuff. And... I was depressed. Some mornings I could hardly get out of bed, put on my uniform, and go back into those trailers. Some guys could just shrug it off. ‘Hey... fewer rag heads to kill our men,’ and they’d laugh. It’s the new kind of warfare—since nobody wants the draft to come back and the politicians fear voter backlash when there are casualties that come with the boots-on-the-ground way of fighting,” he said with bitter sarcasm. “But none of those justifications worked for me. I started to worry about the enemy getting hold of our weapons systems and using drones on us. I was pretty crazy, there, for a while.”
“It’s a Pandora’s box, isn’t it?” she said barely above a whisper. “The North Koreans or some other rogue state someday could target downtown San Francisco with a drone...”
Finn nodded. “The more I thought about what I was doing, the more I just felt like a weakling and a jerk. So when my commitment was finally up, I didn’t tell anyone, but I quit. I just walked out of those trailers, put in my resignation, and waited for the paperwork to come through. Once it did, I got on a plane, and never looked back.”
“You just left? What about Kim? Didn’t you at least explain to her what you were going through?”
Finn cast her an odd look and said curtly, “It would have made absolutely no difference.”
Juliet reared back on the couch. “You didn’t tell her? Ever?” she asked, incredulous. “About the missile killing that little boy and his dog? About your worries about drones hitting America one day?”
“I obeyed orders and kept my word to keep my mouth shut.”
“Screw orders!” Juliet fumed. “This was your life! Your family! How do you know you couldn’t have worked through your problems in your marriage if Kim understood what was torturing you? How fair was that to her not to tell her?”
“It would have made no difference!”
“You’ll never know, will you?” Juliet shot back.
By this moment, Finn was obviously angry, too, over their exchange. Suddenly, she was not only shocked, but also worried that their heated conversation might set off serious emotional fireworks. In as dispassionate a tone as she could manage she said, “Look, I can see that talking about this upsets you. I-I’m sorry if I overstepped the boundaries, but since you told me about the drone strike and that little boy—”
Finn took a step toward the sofa and she felt herself flinch. However, his expression was contrite. ‘Juliet... I’m sorry for being so testy, just now. The truth is, my wife basically left the marriage first. I guess it’s still a pretty raw spot, on top of all the other stuff I was dealing with. It’s no excuse for my rudeness just now, but maybe it explains it.”
Juliet relaxed her grip on the blanket that covered her legs. “Well, I can certainly understand that yo
u both were obviously dealing with some very tough circumstances, but not to tell her anything... .”
When Juliet left her sentence dangling, Finn shot her a speculative look.
“As it happens, the ‘circumstances,’ as you so politely phrase it, were excruciating... but that’s enough about me.” He glanced at the brass ship’s clock on the nearby shelf. “It’s getting late, but first, I want you to tell me something. Who did you leave in San Francisco? You’re a very intelligent, talented, lovely-looking woman. Is anybody waiting for you when you get home?”
Startled by this U-turn in their conversation, Juliet bit her lip and didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “I have what I guess you’d could call a ‘boyfriend’ back home—which sounds pretty lame when one is thirty-six.”
Finn cocked an eyebrow. “What’s his name?”
“Jed Jarvis.”
“A serious boyfriend?”
“My mother hopes so,” she joked, adding, “and I supposed the betting money among family and friends is we’d get engaged at some point. He’s a whiz at designing and programming software, though, and I’ve been dating him officially for about a year.” She offered Finn a steady gaze. “And since I’ve been in Paris, I know now that I don’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore.”
She was inordinately pleased to see Finn’s shoulders relax slightly.
“Want to tell me why you feel that way?”
“Actually I do,” she said, holding his glance. “He’s not the kind of guy who pays much attention to anything but himself. He isn’t the sort who has your back, you know what I mean? I can’t count on him for much of anything, and frankly, I’ve kinda been the same way with him. We never have real conversations. Not even close to the ones you and I have had since I’ve been here. I never tell him how I feel or what’s really going on with me, because—frankly—I don’t think he’s very interested. And he can be clueless and thoughtless and—”