by CD Reiss
“You lost a lot of blood.” I sat by his bed. “Your body’s busy making more.”
“They’re going to send me home, do you think?” His eyes were red-rimmed over dark circles. If he had been military, he’d have gone to Germany, then home, but he wasn’t military.
“I have no idea how it works for you guys, but you made it. That’s a good thing.”
“Sure.”
“What was your rank when you were enlisted?”
“Made it to staff sergeant. But the money… shit.”
Contractors were well paid. He probably made twice as much running security details as he had when he was a soldier. Since Blackthorne was a private company, they could provide as much medical care to the wounded as they wanted. The VA was inadequate, but Blackthorne, again, could do what they wanted, be it too much or too little.
“You’ll be on your feet in no time.”
“Thanks, doc. For coming to get me. You didn’t have to land under fire.”
“Thank the pilot.”
“Sure, sure.” His eyes fluttered half-closed.
“Get some rest.”
He obeyed almost instantly.
I didn’t want my wife here. Not as a soldier. Especially not as a Blackthorne contractor. I did the rest of the rounds with my job on the perimeter of my mind and Greyson at the center.
She wouldn’t be talked out of it. I hadn’t married a pliable woman. The very things I loved about her were the things that made her difficult to keep.
She wouldn’t come if she wasn’t allowed, but I had no power over that.
She wouldn’t come if I convinced her it would make the situation worse.
Or if she was needed at home.
Or if I wasn’t here.
Bells rang in the back of my mind.
She won’t come if I’m not here.
When I knocked gently on Colonel DeLeon’s door, the buzz of the Thing got lower and denser, as if it knew I was trying to get out of harm’s way. Its presence had increased steadily since my last medevac, growing into an infuriating distraction. I needed to make it to my next Skype with Greyson. A long-distance pain play would put the Thing away, sleeping like a guest crashing on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner.
DeLeon’s office was tiny with gray plaster walls, metal filing cabinets, and a window with white paint on the glass. She had her elbow on the desk and her fingers threaded in her hair as she hunched over paperwork.
“Yeah?” She didn’t look up.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Close the door.” She sat back and indicated the black office chair in front of the desk. The upholstery was ripped on the right armrest and the edge of the seat.
I took off my hat and sat.
“What can I do for you, Dr. St. John?”
“No Asshole Eyes?”
“You look too serious for fucking around right now.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Good.”
I didn’t want to ask her—or anyone—for anything when I had no leverage.
When I’d taken too long to speak, she said, “I don’t bite.”
“I need leave.” I didn’t sound like I’d blurted it out, but I had.
Leaning forward on the desk, she folded her hands in front of her. “Why?”
“It’s personal.”
“Yeah. I know. But I get to ask. That’s how it works.”
She did, and I knew I’d have to answer.
“My wife signed on with Blackthorne.”
DeLeon stayed stock-still except for two fingers she tapped together twice, then arched an eyebrow as she asked, “And?”
“And it’s a bad idea. I need to go home.”
“To talk her out of it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were going to tell me she was pregnant.”
“We don’t get leave for that.”
She smiled slyly. I was a grown man, and she was an open book. The first page read, I’d like to fuck you. “Why should I grant leave for that?”
Emphasis on why. Like, What’s in it for me?
Would she sign leave papers if I agreed?
And if I could confirm that, would keeping Greyson safe be worth destroying my marriage?
No. Not even close.
We weren’t there.
The choice between life and death wasn’t clear-cut enough to make that deal.
“Because I’m asking.”
“You obviously know the rules. You haven’t accrued enough time for leave. You don’t have a medical emergency. Nobody died.”
“On my last deployment, I worked eight days on five hours’ sleep. I was pumped so full of amphetamines I was having aural hallucinations. It was my job, and I did it. I’ve never asked for anything from the army. I did what I had to. Now I have to do this.”
“How can you expect me to call your wife coming here an emergency when the army sent you here? Sent me here? Thousands of us are doing our jobs. You’re concerned. I get it. But it doesn’t hold up.”
She was right. I’d have to think of something else.
“Thanks,” I said, standing.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.” I had my hand on the doorknob when she called out, “Stop.”
I turned, hand still on the knob.
“There’s something,” she said, hands flat on the desk as if this was hard for her. “I can call in a favor to get you leave.”
“Okay.”
There was more. There had to be more.
“But you have to do something for me.”
There it was. A deal. She stood and came around the desk. She was going to try to seduce me, and I was going to refuse her.
“When you’re a woman in this position,” she said, “you have to deal with a lot of shit.”
“Such as?” I took my hand off the doorknob.
“Such as my picture showing up in a Facebook group with the caption ‘Who’d like to fuck this one in the ass?’ Or getting assaulted in OTS. I’ll spare you the rest of the list. But the worst? The body they’re all so hot for is high-maintenance.” She looked at my crotch and put her hands on her hips. “And what it needs is frowned on because not getting those needs taken care of isn’t debilitating enough. No one says anything, but I know men and I know the fucking army.”
She was going to touch me. I could sense it. I could use her body to stifle the humming madness. Satisfy the Thing. DeLeon was attractive in all the right ways. Except that she was wrong. I wouldn’t have sex with her, not even to protect my wife.
“I’m not going to fuck you.”
A smile spread across her face, and it turned into a laugh. “That’s your loss. But I need something more practical. I need a procedure, and I can’t miss a day of duty for it.”
I was so relieved I almost laughed myself. “And you’ll call in that favor? It’ll get me leave?”
“One hundred percent chance of success.”
She went behind her desk, and I sat in the chair across.
Chapter Nine
GREYSON
Four black-and-white monitors. Caden in a small room. Four angles. Frozen in a chair with the word PAUSED over him.
I thought, “I don’t want to see this,” but I didn’t say it.
“Here was the problem,” Ronin said with his arms braced against the countertop and his face lit by the four black-and-white monitors. He’d sat me down here after I’d checked in and filled out the forms. “He lied.”
I exhaled the first N in No, he didn’t, but bit the rest back.
Ronin glanced at me and twisted half his mouth into a wry grin. “He was the same about protecting you. It’s cute.” He hit the space bar on the keyboard.
The word PAUSED went away. Caden sat still, and again I had to stop myself from canceling the whole endeavor. I didn’t want to see this, but I had to. I didn’t know why. But I had to see it.
“What did he lie about?” I asked.
On the screens, Caden bo
wed his head, the muscles of his back stretching and contracting as he breathed rhythmically.
“He said he had no history of childhood abuse.”
The man on the screen shook. I wanted to lay my hand between his shoulder blades.
“Maybe your question wasn’t specific enough,” I said.
“Sure.”
Caden threw his body against the back of the chair, going rigid as he groaned in mental pain. The waveforms ran along the bottom of the screen with his lips as he said, “No, no, no.” His pain was all over his posture. The light vibrated with it.
“It wasn’t like this for me,” I said.
“The treatment opens doors. Helps you face fears. You’re not afraid of anything.”
Caden shook his head vigorously.
“No. I am. I’m afraid of plenty.”
“Different people, different results. But for victims of abuse, it’s more than we can handle here.”
Was Caden crying? Oh, Jesus on a ladder, we were separated by space and time. I was powerless in the face of his hurt.
“Is this hard for you to watch, or is it just me?” I asked.
“You get used to it.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” My hand hurt. I looked down. I was twisting my fingers like a skein of yarn.
“We had no idea what this was. He gave one-word answers in his questionnaires. I thought he was reliving an experience in Iraq, but then he suddenly got very verbose in his surveys. Told us about some room in his basement.”
“Was that six weeks ago?”
Six weeks ago, Damon had done the Blackthorne appointment. Damon would have been verbose and forthcoming where Caden would have finished his questionnaire with a scowl.
“Right about then.” Ronin nodded.
On the monitors, Caden’s face was buried in his hands, and he was weeping, but his back still expanded with the constant rhythm. He’d come to Blackthorne for me. I’d sold him on it. I’d done this. I’d forced him to dig up things he’d worked hard to forget. I owned every tear he’d shed in that room.
Dr. Frazier, the psychiatrist, knew he had to dig them up. Greyson Frazier, the daughter of a vet hounded by unexplored trauma, knew the same. But Mrs. Greyson Frazier-St. John had a burden of guilt.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because I can’t show you the other subject who said they had no history of abuse.”
I tapped the space bar, and Caden froze. “Who?”
“You’re going to meet them in Baghdad.”
“Now that I’m bound by your NDA, let’s talk about the patients you sent me.”
He leaned back on the counter and crossed his arms. “Let’s do something even better. I’ll send you the data.”
Caden was covered by the word PAUSED, but I knew that under it, he was being crushed by memories he’d never shared with me. I must have been looking at it too long.
“You can get out of the contract, you know. You haven’t been paid. You have an out clause.”
Caden would be happy. My family would be relieved. I could go back to the hospital and manage the new program the way I’d pitched it.
I tapped the space bar. Caden changed. He stood straight, gripping the arms of the chair, legs spread, mouth open in an angry roar. His eyes were on fire, and he was ready to spring at something only he could see. My heart stopped, then pounded. He knocked over the chair and lamp. He was terrifying. I’d never seen him angry. Not that angry. Not like an animal.
Was this acceptable to me? And if not, how would going to Baghdad fix it?
I couldn’t bear it. I hit the space bar to stop it. “Do you have a boss, Ronin? Or are you running the entire thing?”
“I have lots of bosses, but they prefer it if contractors have one point of contact. That’s me. In the army, I’d never be more than a peon for someone. But this program’s such a small part of this operation that I get to run it how I want. It’s going to change everything.”
“Everything?”
Gently, he started the video again. Caden lowered himself to the floor, bowed on his knees, hands in his hair. I wanted to touch the glass to comfort him, but that man was weeks ago and thousands of miles away.
“The way we go to war,” Ronin said. “The way we use people. Imagine soldiers coming home with their trauma completely processed. They’d get off the plane mentally clear. Maybe healthier than when they left. All this from a few hours in a dark room? That changes everything.” He turned to watch the video with me. “I know we give each other a hard time. But I consider you a friend. So, I’m going to give you some friendly advice.”
I had a snappy retort about unsolicited advice rarely being friendly, but Caden’s anguish slowed. Maybe with the soo-hoos I couldn’t hear but knew were there. Maybe on his own. He picked up his head, leaving his palms on his face, then lowered them as if he was being born out of his hands.
“I’m listening,” I said.
Ronin could give me all the friendly advice he wanted. My mind was made up. Caden needed me.
“Call his CO directly. Tell him about the dissociation. Call it PTSD. You’re perfectly qualified to assess him. They’ll listen to you. They’ll send him home. Then you bail on your contract.”
On the screen, my husband stood up straight and righted the chair.
“He’ll never forgive me. And I tried that.”
“That’s what I figured.”
Caden buttoned his jacket, all posture and pride. He looked directly at one of the cameras and nodded.
Without a double-blind control group, Blackthorne’s bioenergetics breathing data was inconclusive. All correlation. No cause. That would be their excuse when it all went to hell.
I recognized some of names and knew my patients by their rank and life’s experience. Saw my husband and Leslie Yarrow. The ones with the mild dissociation I’d counseled had been going to Blackthorne for the treatment and had found it helpful. As hard as it was to measure mental health, the indicators pointed out that the patients I hadn’t counseled who had done the breathing had also done well but not as well.
After hours poring over the file, I closed it.
Nice to know I’d helped. Really. But I’d been used. I called Ronin to chew him out, but he wasn’t in the office. His cell went to voicemail.
Ronin had been in my life a long time. I enjoyed our constant exchange of witty insults and careless cruelties. His dream of a PTSD-free world was more noble than I’d expected from him, but he was clearly willing to lie to achieve it.
Words aside, his actions were louder and stronger.
He considered me a friend like I considered a roll of toilet paper a best buddy.
“You should have seen him,” I said, hugging my arms as I paced up the Central Park rock and down again.
Jenn had given up on our workout already and was sitting in the grass, touching her toes.
“He was distraught,” I continued. “Really, really upset. Deeply. If you weren’t me, you wouldn’t even know how deeply, but I could see it.”
“And now you’re more dedicated to going than ever before.”
“I can’t leave him there.”
“You didn’t ‘leave him there.’ He went. He’s an adult.”
“I can’t do this.” I was walking back and forth so quickly I was almost at a canter. “Doing nothing is… no. Negative.”
“Can you sit please? You’re making me anxious.”
I threw myself down next to her. “He says he’s coming back.” I flopped back and faced the canopy of tree branches. The leaves veiled the sky. “I should wait.”
“So, you’ll wait.”
I put my hands over my face to block out the setting sun, but I couldn’t block out the tourists, the traffic, or the laughter of children running through the grass. “I am so scared I can’t even think.”
“Okay, I would ask you what you’re scared of, but I already know the answer, so I’m not going to waste your time or mine. You’re welcome.”
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“Thank you.” I took my arm off my face and looked at her. “For listening and everything else.”
“Close your eyes. I’m working on a meditation for my guys.”
“A meditation?” I made an ick face.
“Are you going to help me practice or not?”
“Oh, I’m helping? Okay.” I closed my eyes, grateful to be given something to do. The light through my lids was broken by the shifting shadows of the leaves. I exhaled a small portion of my tension. “I’m ready.”
“Focus on my voice.”
I took a deep breath and listened, letting the noises of the park slip away, while my friend’s voice rose and fell with the rhythm of the earth.
What is your fear?
Call it by its name.
Imagine the fear as an object.
Give it a shape and a color. Put it in a place and leave it there. Observe it. Note its dimensions and its depth. Describe its boundaries and its ability to move… or not.
Proportional to your own body, is it large? Is it heavy? Is the weight balanced? Could you carry it if you needed to? Or does it hold you in one place?
Now imagine it getting smaller.
And smaller.
Make it as small as the palm of your hand.
Note its new dimensions, color, texture. Note what’s changed when its size is reduced.
If you haven’t already, pick it up.
Hold it in your hand.
Feel the texture and weight of your fear.
Will you put it down and walk away?
Do you put it in your pocket?
Or do you crush it in your fist?
Now that you’re holding your fear, the only thing you can’t do is nothing.
Mom was sitting in the kitchen, doing the crossword.
“You’re up,” I stated the obvious.
“Jake called.”
“You didn’t come get me?”
“Who knew you’d be working so late down there?” She filled in the boxes in blue pen.
“How is he?” Like a teenager, I stood in front of the open refrigerator, looking for inspiration I couldn’t prove was there.
“Fine. He’s just north of Baghdad. I told him if he winds up in the hospital, he should ask for his brother-in-law.”