But it was as if he had that force of will, he could make sure it wasn’t their time. Like so many other close calls, they would always somehow emerge unscathed.
Except on that last deployment he knew deep down it wasn’t the truth. They’d been one step behind. Perhaps trying to do a job the Marines should have been doing, not the SEALs. Not that the Marines were expendable, but the SEALs were supposed to do surgical strikes with good intel. He hoped some asshole’s head rolled over that one. He hoped never to have to face the man who was responsible for the decision to go in on the third day and not have them pull out. None of them had liked it one bit.
So maybe that’s why he didn’t say anything now. Why none of them did. The other side had figured out how to kill more SEALs, and now was using that knowledge as a strategy. You wanted to go in confident when it came to high-risk missions. With enough practice and training, things could go wrong and they would still work out. But this one had seemed from the get-go like the wrong fuckin’ TV program on the wrong fuckin’ channel. Nothing had been right about it. And a man—Frankie Benson—his best friend, and a man who had everything in the world to live for, was gone.
It wasn’t fair, but then death was indiscriminate. He knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to take. Frankie was the one who’d gotten the pretty girl, the good grades, made his parents proud, dutifully knocked up his wife right away, which was the way it was supposed to be done.
T.J., on the other hand, had broken a lot of hearts—foster parents and girls he’d known, teachers who’d believed in him, employers, coaches whose teams he’d had to walk off of because he had to work, or because his grades made him ineligible—he broke everyone’s heart, and more than once too. He wasn’t any better at the second chances than he was at the first. He was the one who should have bought the farm. Not fuckin’ Frankie.
Everything fit into his buddy’s duffel and one shoebox. That box had a collection of letters from Shannon. Frankie had read some of them to the guys. God, the lady could write damned sexy things, and everyone got revved up whenever Frankie got a love letter. He’d sit down as soon as those letters came, glued to the paper, that silly, shit-eating grin on his face, pink cheeks like the bottom of the daughter he’d never see, half embarrassed, but incredibly grateful for his life. That was the thing that separated them. Frankie was grateful for his life. T.J. was out to grab as much of it as he could before the bell rang.
T.J. had stitches in his thigh, on his forearm, and a couple of stitches on his left butt cheek he wasn’t sure he really needed but was given anyway by an overzealous corpsman. That was the part that itched like hell, and he was halfway of a mind to rip them out with surgical scissors. They were damned annoying, and he hoped they didn’t leave a scar he’d forever have to explain.
He swung the duffel over his right shoulder, cradling the shoebox in his left hand while he made his way to the pickup. He tossed the duffel in the second seat of the 4-door truck, and set the shoebox beside him on the bench seat in front.
Looking down, he pretended Frankie was inside that box, maybe done up in miniature like that movie he’d seen as a kid about the guy named Tom Thumb.
“You’re gonna have to help me here, Frankie. Shannon doesn’t want to see the likes of me. I can’t just show up without calling first, but I did sign a paper saying I’d return your stuff to her, so send me a sign, would you? I’m in need of assistance.”
He pretended Frankie said something nasty, which he most certainly would have, if the man had been alive.
Fuck! He punched his steering wheel and then pressed his forehead to the top of it, gently banging it against the black leather padding.
This is totally messed up.
In the silence of the truck cab, he thought he heard Frankie laughing at him. Big, tough SEAL, afraid to talk to a woman. But she was Frankie’s woman, and she was six months pregnant. The facts were stacked against him. She was fragile, so he couldn’t tell her off if she took it out on him, which he was sure she would. She’d lost her husband, so she didn’t deserve to be treated in any way other than like the lady she most certainly was, so why did he have to be the one to take Frankie’s stuff to her? She hated T.J. with everything in her soul because of all the shit he had caused her and her dead husband.
Maybe he should get Lansdowne to have one of the other Team guys return Frankie’s belongings. Would it have been any easier to give it to Frankie’s parents? That he could probably have done without any trouble at all, but Shannon? Shannon didn’t deserve this.
He dialed her number and hoped like hell she wasn’t home.
But he wasn’t that lucky.
“Hey, Shannon. How’re you holding up?” His voice was raspy, and it cracked like a boy of seventeen.
“How do you suppose I’m holding up, T.J.? You calling to say you’re sorry or to give me a hard time?”
Her abruptness was her method of keeping her distance from everyone. He’d heard the other wives talk about how they had trouble getting close to her.
“No, even I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, the day is young. Give it time. I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to be an asshole before you go to bed.”
That unfair statement pulled the plug on his anger. It was like the girls in grammar school who would call him names because they knew he wasn’t allowed to push them back. Why was it okay for a girl to use verbal violence, but he wasn’t allowed to protect himself by making them hurt in return? Some therapist’s idea of the right order of the world. Probably a jerk who didn’t know his ass from an anthill.
“You’re entitled to your opinion. I might add that Frankie didn’t share that opinion of me, not that it should make a fuck’s difference to you.” He was satisfied he’d delivered a slap and not a full-on blow to the chops.
“It doesn’t mean shit to me, T.J.” She breathed heavily into the phone. “Okay, look, I’m not at my best, so what is it you called about? You must have something in mind.”
“I have a box of his things, and the Navy wants me to deliver it to you.”
“I’ll be gone tomorrow afternoon. Why don’t you drop it by the house then, any time after twelve. It should be safe on the porch for a couple of hours until I get home.”
“I could meet you where you’re going.”
“Seriously, T.J. I don’t want you anywhere near my OB. I don’t want to be reminded that all my husband’s things are being handed over to me for their safekeeping or whatever. I’d like not to burst into tears in front of a waiting room filled with a bunch of emotional mothers-to-be and their husbands.”
“I get your drift.”
“You can leave it on the rocking chair on the front porch.”
“I’ll do that, then.”
“Okay, we’re done?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Thanks for dropping the stuff off. Should I leave anything for you? Anything in there you want for yourself?”
“God, Shannon, I haven’t even looked at anything much. I know about a few letters of yours in there. That’s about it.”
“No selfies in there?”
“Um, Frankie never took pictures of himself.”
“No, asshole. I sent him a few naked selfies. I want those back.”
Oh, those. He’d completely forgotten what fun they’d had with Shannon’s selfies. Truth was, some of the guys would sneak them from under Frankie’s bed and pass them around quarters while he was taking a shower. The last round had happened so fast, and then they were traveling, so T.J. still had the picture of Shannon in his shaving kit and hadn’t had the heart to tell Frankie.
He certainly wasn’t going to tell Shannon now.
The next day, the streets of San Diego were as charming as they always were, sunny, filled with light peach and white houses, green gardens and palm trees reaching up into a bright blue, cloudless sky. He usually reveled in the gentle weather, but today he felt almost resentful about it, as if it wasn’t right there we
re so many happy people living in such a happy place when Frankie was dead.
Frankie and Shannon’s house was small, which wasn’t unusual, since it was an expensive neighborhood. Even a little one was ungodly expensive. They were able to buy it with the deployment bonus he earned, saying he doubted they’d be able to buy anything larger until they moved to the East Coast.
They’d lived here only a few months, but already the colors were crisper, brighter. Maybe someone had painted the outside. The front steps looked like they’d been painted red so recently he was worried that maybe he shouldn’t walk on them yet.
As Shannon had told him, there was a white wicker rocker on the little concrete porch, obscured by a delicate metal handrail with boxwood bushes planted in a row in front. The trimmed hedge also bracketed the walkway to the porch.
He swung the duffel bag down on the far side of the chair, so it wouldn’t be seen from the street, and placed the box on the seat. He looked inside at the living room through the small glass window embedded in the massive Craftsman-style front door and was satisfied no one was home.
Walking back to his truck, he checked his cell phone for the time. It was one o’clock. He told himself she’d be along anytime now, and he should get going, but he couldn’t leave Frankie up there in that box alone and unable to defend himself should a complete stranger decide they wanted the worthless contents of the box.
He sat back and waited. As usually happened, when he thought about Frankie and Shannon, he remembered their wedding day. It had been a pretty incredible day, certainly memorable. As weddings went, he thought it was perfect. It was so much better when things didn’t run on time, and all the unexpected things in life showed up at the wrong moments. He lived for those times.
And Shannon had been all tousled and white, delicate and sweet, like the buttery vanilla frosting on the wedding cake. After the ceremony, Frankie had been on serious probation, so was careful when he placed the cake in her mouth, but she still got a blob of frosting on the right corner of her lips. Frankie had kissed it off. The guy was enraptured. It had been good to see. It had been a good day, despite what Shannon might think. His buddy had the sendoff he deserved and the beginnings of a life he’d earned because he was such a good guy. One of the good guys.
It had always made T.J. feel like a better person when he hung around Frankie. He’d never told him that, and this he regretted. Maybe someday he’d tell Frankie’s daughter. Probably would never tell Shannon.
An hour went by. He was surprised at himself for being patient, waiting. He didn’t mind it. Was going to be his last time with Frankie, in a way. That box was up there, like Frankie was in heaven, and he, T.J., was here sitting in the front seat of a truck. Waiting for what? Well, to be honest, he was waiting for the rest of his life, and eventually for the end of it.
But he knew it wouldn’t be for a while. Another one of his sixth senses.
He thought about the promise he’d made Frankie. Wasn’t like he’d agreed to go chase Shannon and get her to marry him, which would be the biggest mistake of both their lives. But he’d find a way to secretly help the little girl, and yeah, he’d kick the first guy who tried to get fresh with her. Would be creepy for the kid, though, having an old, gnarled SEAL shadowing her while she was trying to survive high school. Have this dark shadow around every corner, ready to pop out and defend her. She probably wouldn’t like that. And in another sixteen or seventeen years his capacity for stealth would be seriously compromised. Hell, he might even be using a cane, like Tyler had to occasionally.
He was sharing this chuckle with Frankie, really feeling him sitting in the box with the little mouse chuckle Tom Thumb would have given him, when Shannon arrived. Before she drove into the garage, she rolled down her window, and he did the same. They were heading in different directions.
“Left everything on the porch. Just wanted to make sure no one messed with it,” he said in his softest, most compassionate tone. She did a quick inhale and ripped her eyes from his face, looking out through her dirty windshield.
“Thank you,” she said over the top of her steering wheel. But she didn’t gun it, like he’d expected. She was thinking, and then she tilted her head. “You want to come in for a drink?” she said, still looking straight ahead.
“I don’t think so, Shannon. You’d probably prefer to be alone, and I only came to bring you his things.” That got her to look at him, and he could see the red puffiness around her eyes. Part of him wanted to say he was sorry, but that would have earned him a rebuff. She kept watching him, like she expected Frankie to materialize if she stared at him long enough.
It gave him the creeps, so he looked down at his hands in his lap. “Well, I’ll be going, then.”
As he drove away, he heard her say, faintly, “Thank you.”
But it was probably his imagination.
Chapter 6
It was just your basic plain brown box. Didn’t identify itself as military, except for the sticker on the front. When she picked it up, it was very light. Much lighter than a box holding all the personal effects of a man, her husband, the father of the baby she was carrying should be. She’d expected it to be heavy, like lead or gold bricks. Because the stuff of a man’s life was heavy, dense, not simple and lightweight. Not something that could be tipped over to blown away in a gentle wind. It should be heavy enough that, if you threw it, the box would go straight to the bottom of the ocean.
She set the box on the coffee table Frankie’s dad had made years ago, when he’d gotten his woodworking tools. She went back outside and got the duffel, which was heavy.
Laundry.
Probably dirty laundry, she thought, like he always lugged home in this same bag she’d seen dozens of times. He’d walk into the house with the Cheshire cat grin and the gentle eagerness she loved about her Frankie, even though he was a piece of work. She suddenly wished she hadn’t been so hard on him. On those days, soon as he got home, all he wanted to do was take her to the bedroom, and she usually held out for getting her “stuff” done. Today, her “stuff” wasn’t that important.
She sat on the edge of the couch with the duffel bag propped between her knees. This was going to be hard. She’d always been a self-starter. Could handle any crisis, even when everyone else was freaking out. Right now she felt on the edge instead of in the eye of the storm. Things were buffeting and blowing around her, and she wished she could dance in the wind. She wished she could be scared, wished she could be angry, anything but morose. Dead. She felt dead.
Little Courtney stirred, reminding her that she was soon to be a mother. She’d throw everything into raising her. Everything. Her life depended on it. It was the one thing left she’d accomplished with Frankie, one thing they’d shared that would hopefully outlive them both. Courtney would be the best of him and the best of her. It was a miracle the way it had happened. She wanted this baby more than life itself.
She picked up the duffel and lugged it to the laundry room. Near the top his pork pie was laid to rest on Frankie’s neatly folded and ironed shirts with his dress uniform underneath. She took the uniform into their bedroom, setting it, the shirts, and the hat on the bed, like he was going to put them on as soon as he got back from wherever he’d been.
Back in the laundry room, she pulled out camo shirts that hadn’t been well laundered. Holding them up to her nose to determine if they were clean or not, she was filled with the glorious man-scent that was uniquely Frankie’s, and she lost it.
She ran down the hallway to the bedroom. Crashing down onto the mattress, she held the shirt to her chest and cried like she hadn’t been able to do before. She let it fly. She told little Courtney it would be over soon and not to worry.
“Some day you’ll understand, sweetheart.” She closed her eyes and she saw him bending over her, leaning into her body with his hips, reaching for her lips to kiss while he ground into her. He was always tender, caring more about what she was feeling than himself. Unselfish.
; “Love you, Shannon, baby doll.”
He’d been the only man ever to call her baby doll. “Love you too, Frankie,” she whispered, keeping her eyes closed. “Missing you, baby.”
Of course, the sobs involuntarily spasming her chest made it impossible to hear his response.
“I’m trying, Frankie. How am I going to do this without you?”
She thought maybe she heard him answer, “Don’t miss me, baby, love me.”
“I do, Frankie. Trust me, if you ever doubted me, I do” A new wave of tears began when she couldn’t remember if she told him she loved him during the last Skype call. She wished she’d told him more often. “Courtney will be my witness. I do love you still. You won’t ever be gone for me, baby.”
She saw his smiling face as she fell asleep.
Over the next few days, Shannon made herself busy by finishing up Courtney’s room, finally removing the newspaper and tape from the window. She’d found the crib she wanted on sale and bought it. They were out of the pink camo sheets, bumper and curtains, so she ordered them. The changing table would arrive next week, so she’d paid for that as well.
The doctor had wanted her to come in to discuss some lab work that was spilling outside the ranges of normal. He made some changes to her diet and recommended she drink more water. She hadn’t planned to tell him about Frankie’s death until he began to stress the importance of having father at the visits.
“I’m a widow as of a few days ago, doc. I’m afraid I’ll be bringing my mom at the end. And probably my mother-in-law.”
He was moved, of course. With added concern, he asked, “You sleeping well, Shannon?”
“Yessir. I’ve been fine. Feeling the energy I was hoping I’d feel at this point. Reading my books. Getting the room ready before I get too big.”
“Take it easy too. Don’t push yourself. You’ve gone through a terrible experience, one which affects people’s bodies in different ways. Get more rest than you think you need. Spend more time with friends. Don’t be alone, Shannon.”
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