But man, that year—when Lisa was pregnant, and right after you were born—it was the best, and the worst. I was scared to death. We were both so young—how were we going to take care of a baby? But then, Jesus, you were this tiny little thing, and we both fell completely in love with you and for a while it was better than it ever was, because you were in my life.
Shay covered it all—Pete’s lack of a job, his joining the Navy, his days away at sea, his heartache when Lisa took Maddie and left.
“But really, my biggest mistake,” Pete said, when she’d reached the end. “Write that. Please.”
Shay nodded and her fingers flew across her keyboard.
“My biggest mistake was letting you go,” he dictated.
My biggest mistake was letting you go. After your mother took you away, I told myself that it was better not to push to see you. I convinced myself that your life would be better without my grief and anger. Jesus, I was so angry. I let myself become as cold and as hard as Lisa claimed I was. I didn’t just lose you, Maddie; I lost myself because I didn’t fight to find you—I didn’t even try to get you back. I was wrong, and you have every right to be angry at me for abandoning you. I will regret my inaction for the rest of my life.
I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me. Hell, I hope someday I’ll be able to forgive myself. In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a chance and get to know me. We have a lot in common. We both really loved your amazing, imperfect, irreplaceable mother.
Maddie sat on the crumbling stoop of the foundation of a disappeared cabin that had once been part of Manzanar’s Block Twenty-Four, gazing out at the distant mountains as Dingo finished reading the latest email that her stupid father’s stupid girlfriend had sent.
Ding was trying to wipe his eyes surreptitiously. God, he was stupid, too. Didn’t he know that girls liked boys who were sensitive enough to cry?
Of course, he’d made it clear that he didn’t want Maddie to like him.
After she’d woken up from her nap beneath the picnic table, after she’d discovered that he’d used her phone to text Shayla with a We’ll meet you tomorrow message, Maddie’d had a major WTF attack. She’d stomped her way through the site’s museum-y parts with Dingo trailing after her.
She’d sat in stony silence as they’d taken the drive around the camp—there was a road around the entire thing, with another parking lot here, on the far end, near the cemetery. At which point, they’d gotten out. She’d given Dingo her phone with an order to text Shayla back and cancel all plans, but instead he’d found and read her The Story of Peter and Lisa, Chapter Four.
“Imagine having to bury your baby here,” Maddie said now. Some of the markers on the graves in the cemetery were for young children, because face it, back in the 1940s, children died. They still sometimes died. “First you’re rounded up, despite living in America for your entire life, and then you’re locked in here, in the middle of nowhere. And then your three-year-old gets the flu and dies. And she’s in the ground, right there, but then, whoops, war’s over. Everyone go home—sorry about the whole violating-your-constitutional-rights thing! Our bad! You have until Tuesday to pack up and leave, good luck! So you’re just supposed to trot on back to San Diego, and every time you want to tend your baby’s grave, it’s an eleven-hour round trip. Longer, because cars didn’t drive as fast back then.”
Dingo sat down next to her. “I can’t imagine that.”
“My grandfather’s sister—Hiroko’s sister, too,” Maddie said, gesturing with her chin. “She’s buried right there. Lisa told me about her. She was three, she was fine, and then, boom, she was dead. Her name was Shinju, but I can’t read Japanese, so I don’t know which grave is hers.”
Dingo took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said in his regular, non-Aussie voice.
“I hate you,” she told him.
“I know.”
“I’m not meeting my father and Shayla. Not tomorrow, not ever. You can just text them back and tell them that.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I’ll wait until tomorrow. They’re probably happy right now. Let’s at least let them sleep tonight.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “I don’t want to feel sorry for them.”
“How about Daryl?” Dingo asked. “Should we also not feel sorry for him?”
“Double fuck you.” That photo of Daryl, taken in the hospital, was terrifying. Obviously Nelson’s men had found him and beaten him up.
“I just don’t think we have a lot of options,” Dingo pointed out.
Maddie stood up. He was probably right, but she wasn’t ready to admit that. “I’m starving,” she said. “Let’s go find a nice restaurant and blow some of stupid Nelson’s stupid money on something good to eat.”
Izzy called Grunge from the street outside of the Dingler house in Van Nuys.
“Greene. You’re on speaker. I’m in the truck with Shayla.”
“Yo, Grunge,” Izzy said. “Last night’s quake was nothing compared to the shaking going on today in the SpecOps world with the news that you’re—”
“You’re on speaker,” Grunge repeated, louder this time, interrupting him.
“And with that, you’re implying Shayla doesn’t know,” Izzy said.
“Doesn’t know what?” he heard Shay say. Her voice was thin because she wasn’t in front of the Bluetooth mic.
“Zanella,” Grunge warned. He came in plenty loud. Probably because he was on the verge of shouting.
“Feel free to go all officer on my ass, sir, but you just might want to talk your potential resignation through with your girlfriend. I’m just saying.”
“Resignation?” Shay said. “Oh, my God, is that why you went to the Navy Base today?”
“I went to float the idea,” Grunge admitted. “Nothing’s been decided. Zanella, are you calling for a reason other than you simply wanted to fuck up my day worse than it was already fucked up?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Izzy said. “When I arrived at the Dingler house in Van Nuys, the owners were home, much to my great surprise. Hey, it’s both a report and a poem. Huh. I wonder if I can work in can’t believe my eyes and/or I donned my disguise.”
“The owners are home?” Grunge demanded.
“Mr. and Mrs. James and Mary Dingler,” Izzy said. “We had a little tête-à-tête, and it’s been a full year since they’ve seen their wayward son, Richard. Judging from Jim Dingler’s heavy scowls and mumbling growls—ooh, I did it again!—it’s unlikely our boy Dingo’s going to be bringing his seriously underage girlfriend around for a visit with Mummy and Daddy any time soon.”
“Did you warn them about—”
“I did,” Izzy said. “Mr. D seemed positively psyched at the idea he might have to fight off a home invasion. I think he was hoping to rack up a body count. Mrs. D was significantly less thrilled.”
“I bet,” Shay said.
“I also asked them to call you if their son—or anyone who might want to murder their son—did appear.”
“Good,” Grunge said. “Thanks.”
“So, whaddaya want me to do now, G?” Izzy asked. “I’m parked on the street and I can sit here, watching the house, for as long as you need me to. I just think it’s a waste of time.”
“I agree,” Grunge said. “Get back to San Diego.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And Z?”
“Ooh! Ooh! Let me guess! Let me guess!” Izzy said. “Fuck you?”
“Sideways,” Grunge agreed.
“Awesome! Thanks, and you’re welcome, sir!” Izzy sang cheerfully as the lieutenant cut the call. He got into his truck and headed south to San Diego.
“Grunge,” Shayla said as Pete ended the call with Izzy Zanella.
He glanced at her as they drove relentlessly north, with the sun starting to set out the left window of his truck. “Yeah.”
“It’s your nickname,” Shay said. “Like Seagull or Timebomb.”
“It is.”
“Or Dingo.”
Shayla took out and opened her laptop. “Let’s have it. The story. I’m sure Maddie would love to know.”
“It’s not all that exciting,” he said. “The official story is that there was an incident with a Dumpster, shortly after I joined the Teams.”
“With a Dumpster?”
“Inside of a Dumpster. The tango—terrorist—we were pursuing thought he’d try to hide, and I said nope and went in after him. When it was over, no one wanted to get too close to me. I’m lucky I didn’t get called Stinky.”
“So what’s the unofficial story?” she asked.
He glanced at her, and she was looking steadily back at him.
“You said that was the official story, which means there’s an unofficial, i.e., real story.” She smiled. “So spill.”
Pete sighed. “I heard that coming out of my mouth and I knew you’d catch it.” He shook his head. “You know how Lisa used to call me Goldilocks?”
“Uh-oh,” Shay said.
“Yeah, a nickname like that would’ve clung worse than Stinky.” He laughed. “Okay, it’s stupid but…I got, I don’t know, maybe one email from Lisa the entire time I was doing a six-month WestPac cruise, right after I enlisted, and in it she called me G. Someone saw it and wanted to know what that G stood for, and I mumbled something like It’s a nickname. They pushed to know what my nickname was, so I said the first word I could think of that started with G that wasn’t giraffe or grapefruit—or freaking Goldilocks.”
“Not G for Greene?” Shayla suggested, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“I panicked,” he admitted. “There was music playing, so I just said Grunge.” He smiled ruefully. “The Dumpster happened, but it was long after the fact. It definitely helped cement the Grunge thing, though. Which was fine with me. Way better than carrying Goldilocks until the end of time.”
Shayla laughed as she finished typing and finally closed her computer. “You’ve probably got more in common with Dingo than you think. I’d bet he made up his nickname, too, to steer people away from calling him Dingle or, God, Dingleberry.”
“Yeah,” Pete said dryly. “Me and Dingo. Two peas in a pod.”
She laughed, and then fell silent for…
Three…
Two…
One.
“So what’s up with the resignation?” Shayla asked him, right on cue. The question about Grunge had been just a warm-up. “I thought you loved being a SEAL.”
“I do,” he said. “I just…I see it getting more complicated, not less.”
“With Maddie,” she said.
“What else is there?” he said, but then realized how callous that was.
But she didn’t flinch or even blink. “Of course,” she said.
“You and me,” he tried to explain. “I see that as extremely simple. I mean, it’s sex.” Okay, that didn’t come out right, either.
This time she shook her head slightly as she said, “Can we please focus on the Navy and your plans to leave it because…? Why exactly…?”
“I intend to tell Maddie that I’m willing to move to Palm Springs,” Pete explained, “if she wants to finish high school there. And in order to do that, I’ve got to leave the Navy. I mean, I can’t be a SEAL and live in the desert.”
“She’s a child,” Shayla pointed out. “She’ll live where you need to live.”
“Said the woman who’s terrified of earthquakes who moved to California so her kids would be closer to their dad.”
“That’s different,” she insisted.
“Not really.”
“Yes, it is. You’re comparing my overcoming one little fear to you blowing up your entire career.”
“And how does your fear fit with your career?” Pete asked.
Her reply was glib. “Quite nicely, actually. A rampant imagination works well for a novelist.”
“So why aren’t you writing?”
Shayla looked at him hard. “I’m sorry,” she said sharply. “Are you really that insecure that we can’t have a conversation about something that’s of vital importance to you, without you lashing out and attacking me?”
“Whoa,” Peter said. “I was asking a simple question—” he exhaled hard “—that, yeah, I’d already figured out was a hot button for you. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Shayla looked at him.
He was wearing his uniform—clearly he had more than one pair of working whites hanging in his closet, because the last one had gone head to head with that bucket of shit. That he’d taken, square in the back as he’d kept her from getting slimed. Or worse.
She sighed. It was very clear that he was trying. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “And you’re also right. It is a hot button. I’m not writing, and it’s scaring the hell out of me, because I’ve never not-written before. It’s never been easy, but I used to do ten, maybe even fifteen pages a day. Now I’m lucky if I can get a half a paragraph down. Normally, writing feels like pulling a grand piano—on those little teeny, tiny, creaky wheels—up a very steep hill with a rope. But for the past two years, I feel like I’m doing it with my hands cuffed behind my back, with that rope now clenched between my teeth, as that hill keeps getting steeper and the road keeps getting longer.”
Peter smiled at that. “See, that’s a really good image. If you can describe things like that…”
“Why can’t I write?” she asked. “I don’t know. I’ve always taken the judgmental Writer’s block is bullshit approach, but here I am, fully blocked.” She laughed in exasperation. “You don’t want to talk about this. You’ve got enough on your plate.”
“Now, see, that was a cliché,” he said.
“Clichés are cliché because they’re so commonly true,” Shayla defended herself, and yes, her tone came out a touch self-righteous.
“A cliché, and a conversation ender. You don’t want to talk about this is code for I don’t want to talk about this,” Peter pointed out. “Which is baffling. You never speak in code. That’s one of the things I like most about you.” He glanced at her. “Which means this really does scare the living holy fuck out of you, doesn’t it? Kinda like me being terrified at the thought of leaving the Teams, but knowing it’s the right thing to do. Who am I, if I’m not a SEAL? Who are you, if you don’t write?”
Shayla stared at him. “Okay, I do want to talk about this,” she said. “You asked for it. Last chance to back away and keep it safe, like, we could talk about the weather….”
He smiled. “Nope. Go for it.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m dealing with this…horrible thing that I didn’t ask for. I used to love to write. It brought me incredible joy—being able to make a living and support my children doing something that I not only loved but I was damn good at doing. I woke up every day, filled with excitement and an urge to rush to my computer so I could continue to tell whatever story I was currently writing. It was never easy, but it was always fun, and somewhere down the line, it stopped being fun. And then, I stopped wanting to do it. Instead, I’ve been waking up every morning filled with dread. So now it’s hard and painful and literally dreadful—and I feel like it’s draining the very life out me. It’s like the book that I’m writing—that I’m trying to write—is a vampire and it’s sucking me dry, so by writing it I’m cutting my life expectancy by ten years, and it doesn’t seem worth it. Not anymore. So I’m in free fall, because you’re right. I don’t know who I am, or what I’ll be if I just stop writing. Except I’ve already stopped, and not-writing sucks worse than writing, because the not-writing is sucking me dry at an even faster rate. So I guess I’m wondering why you would even think about quitting something you love before you actively stop loving it.”
Peter nodded. “That was impressive. Particularly the redirect, away from you—”
“Answer the damn question.”
“Because I despe
rately want to be Maddie’s father,” he told her quietly. “More even than I want to be a SEAL.”
Shay felt her heart go into her throat. She’d written that line countless times, but she’d never actually felt as if it—her emotion—was on the verge of choking her. Not until now.
So. Now I’m completely in love with you. Things not to say aloud.
Instead, she cleared her throat. “Okay, that’s valid. And deeply appreciated. But step outside of the, uh, gooey bubble of parental love for just a sec and look hard at the logistics. Maddie’s fifteen. In three years, she’ll be graduating high school and going off to college. I’m facing that next year with Tevin, and Frankie’s right behind him. And that scares me even more, because even though right now I’m a not-writer, I’m also still something important: I’m Tevin and Frank’s mom. And I love that job, but it’s got an end date. And yeah, yeah, I’m going to be their mother forever, and I know they’re going to need me—at times—when they’re twenty and even when they’re fifty and seventy, and I will be there for them. Shit, even after I’m dead, I’m gonna be there for them. I know that. I do. But the job gets a whole hell of a lot less work-intensive when they no longer live in your home. And when I look three years into my future, I see myself dropping Frank off at college and coming home to an empty, lonely, too-quiet house where I will wake up filled with dread until I finally just don’t get out of bed, unless it’s Parents’ Weekend or Thanksgiving.”
Nothing sexier than announcing to the man you’re having crazy hot sex with that you anticipate sliding into debilitating depression in the relatively near future. Run, run, as fast as you can….
But Peter couldn’t run, because he was trapped in his truck with her. So she kept going, bringing this discussion back to him. “Best-case scenario, you have three years to be Maddie’s father twenty-four/seven, and frankly? There’s not a fifteen-year-old girl alive who wants her father helicoptering around her every damn minute of the day. You’re going to have a lot of free time on your hands out there in Palm Springs. And in three years…? That’s gonna increase. I know exactly nothing about the U.S. Navy’s hiring practices, but…if you resign now, can you un-resign in three years?”
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