He nodded, slowly dipping his chin toward his throat. He knew, but he still needed to hear it.
She didn’t disappoint, her tone steely and certain as she told him, “I’m here because I love you. I love you and I want you in my life. In mine and Katie’s lives. I want you to pick us.”
“It’s dark in my head sometimes, Cath.” That was more than he’d admitted to anyone. How the depression could overrun his thoughts until all he could see was a final ending to everything. How it hurt so badly to know how he’d fucked up and the only thing he could think of was making that torture stop. How the phantom pain fucked with him and fucked with him until he’d try to stand on the damn leg, since if it hurt so much, if the burn was so real, how could it not be there for him anymore?
“Then let me in, baby. Let me in, because you can’t do this alone.” She gestured towards the building behind them. “I know you’re not alone. You’ve got all those men who have your back, and there’s a bond there that even a blind woman could see. They know, on a level I can’t fathom, what you’re going through.” She spread her palm on his chest, and the heat from her touch grounded him, centered Nathan in a way he hadn’t known he needed. “But I know you, and I know us, and I have a place in this. They have your back, that’s their place. Mine?” Her chin lifted, and she stared into his eyes. “Mine is at your side. If it’s dark, then let me in, and I’ll spread light so far and wide you won’t remember what that darkness looked like. Let me in, Nathan.” Breath puffed from her mouth in tiny clouds, and her lips trembled when she added a single word. “Please.”
“I don’t want to lose you.” She stared at him, her gaze evading interpretation, even when he needed to know what she was thinking in this moment. He laid bare his fears. “I don’t want to lose Katie-bug. To lose us. I’ve missed us. I don’t want to lose everything, Cath.”
“Then don’t.” She stated this as if it were that simple. As if he could just choose to turn off the pain.
“I wanna tell you…things.” Unpleasant things. Things she’d never heard him discuss. A conversation they should have had after his first deployment, or his second. A story about the man he’d had to become while on enemy soil, parts of that alternate personality having come home to roost as lasting changes to the man she’d married.
“I’m not some shrinking flower, Nathan. You should know that. If you want to talk—” She stepped to the side and looped her fingers around his wrist, as close to a handhold as they could manage while he crutched along. “—then I want to listen. You want me to get your coat?” He shook his head, spellbound by the look on her face. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”
They moved up the sidewalk without speaking, the click and groan of the crutches a muted addition to the near-silent day. It shouldn’t be surprising that the tiny town was quiet this early on Christmas morning. Kids would still be happy to play with their presents or the boxes they came in, and parents wouldn’t yet be tired of the noise and activity. Nathan supposed the story would be different in a couple of hours, families spilling outside to wear off sugar-fed energy and holiday excitement. Right now, however, it was so quiet he could hear blood pounding inside his own head, the low-level headache that never seemed to go away steadily beating at his skull.
The house where Cathy paused was set back from the street, with just enough front yard to feel slightly isolated from the neighbors on either side. It was a single story, and he noticed the doors were wider than normal, which meant it had been modified to be accessible. “Oscar bought this?” She cut a glance over her shoulder at him as she fit a key to the lock and shrugged. “It’s nice.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Bland conversation to get them over the threshold and shut away from the rest of the world. He had to have a barrier of some kind to be able to do to her what he needed, because Nathan knew telling her the many truths he held close to his chest would tear her down. His confessions needed privacy, and this little house offered exactly that.
The front door opened into the dining room, and he looked around as she walked through and led him farther into the house. With every step, he found another thing to like about this place. Every detail of the living room was just one more thing that told him it could be a home. Shaking his head, he reminded himself that Cathy’s family and job were both back on the coast, not in bumfuck Texas.
“You want anything to drink before we settle in?” Cathy knew him, and he loved that tiny burst of remembered intimacy, the fact she’d understood how once he started talking, he wouldn’t want to stop until it was all out there and transparently visible for her to see. “I’m going to grab a bottle of water. You want one, or something stronger?’
“Water’d be good.” He clipped off the rest of what he’d been about to say, then shook his head at himself and forced the words out. “Liquor doesn’t go well with the meds.”
“Water it is.” She breezed out of the room as if him admitting he’d had to resort to medication wasn’t a huge announcement.
Maybe it’s not. He lifted his chin. Maybe my stubbornness taking a backseat to becoming healthier is the bigger deal. He shook his head. It couldn’t be that simple.
A bottle of water smacked down on the table beside the couch, and he watched as Cathy took a chair at right angles to the piece of furniture she evidently expected him to claim. She opened her water and took a slow drink, then stood and shrugged out of her coat and reclaimed her seat. He watched as she worked with the lid again, taking another extended sip. She stood again suddenly, closing and settling the bottle on a different table before swirling out of the room without a word.
Back at his side in a moment, she had a blanket in her hands. Walking in front of him, she gestured towards the couch. “Sit, Nathan.” He looked at the couch and out of habit evaluated the height, a little surprised when it was the same kind they had at the clubhouse. Taller than normal, with firm cushions, it was an easy piece of furniture to climb off with a prosthetic. A glance at the chair told him it wasn’t the same and would have been a challenge to vacate. How could she know that? He shook his head, and she made an impatient noise. “Please, Nathan. You’re chilled through. And I…” She trailed off for a moment, but before he could explain the headshake, she picked up the conversation. “I want to sit with you. Can I?” Her gaze lifted and met his with a weight that could have staggered him backwards. Pain and hope, and the softness she’d only ever had for him.
Wordlessly, he shuffled around until he could lower himself to the cushions, depositing the crutches and tucking them alongside the furniture so they’d be out of the way. The flames curled down his thigh and around his calf, burning deep into nonexistent muscles until he must have groaned, because Cathy asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I fell earlier.” In case she hadn’t seen how he’d deposited himself on the floor, this would give her an inkling of what his world was like now. The man who previously could run twenty clicks with a full pack on his sweating back was gone with the wind, leaving him stumbling along in the acrid wake of loss. “In doing so, I jammed the socket up on my stubbie. Somehow that jammed the lock pin. I haven’t used the leg much since, but even a little use without the proper vacuum seal is enough to irritate the skin.” He shrugged and turned his head. Water in hand, he spoke to the far wall. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Why didn’t you take the leg off?” She settled onto the couch, her back angled against the far arm, legs folded and curled underneath her. The blanket was tucked around her waist, draped over the space between them.
He was struck by another wave of nostalgia and longing. They’d often sat like this, before. Watching TV and playing footsies under the cover, close enough for him to steal a kiss with every commercial break. They’d always end up those evenings with Cathy sprawled out over his legs, head cradled in the crook of his arm as he watched her sleep. Then he’d wake her gently, guide her sweetly-drowsy, half-aware self into their bedroom and help her undress for bed. By the time he had her
naked, she’d be wide awake again and ready to love on him.
“It wasn’t a good time to deal with it.” He turned to face her, doing his best to ignore the phantom pain.
“I don’t remember you being a liar.” She said this so quietly, with no specific inflection, that he nearly questioned her, thinking he’d misheard. “Nathan, tell me why.”
“Because I didn’t want Katie to see, okay?” He jerked his head to the side, studying the curly ornamentation around a sconce on the wall. “I didn’t want you to see.”
“Is that why you tried to run me off from the hospital?”
“Worked, didn’t it? You left and didn’t come back.” There were some antique-looking sepia-toned portraits on the wall, and he frowned because one of them was very familiar. “Is that my grandparents?”
“Probably.” She drank from her water. “I sent some things for Oscar to use here.”
Nathan studied her carefully. She was too calm, too collected. Together after months apart, she should still be raging at him. Instead she…what? Walked with him, doing as much as she could to settle him, even creating this false sense of intimacy by setting a scene certain to stir up old memories. Why is she really here?
He took a page from her book of stalling tactics and sipped from his water, looking around the room.
Everywhere his gaze landed, he found something familiar. A painting they’d bought while wandering around at an artist market, both of them loving the crazy depiction of a cat driving a cab. There was a desk along one wall; made from dark wood, it looked suspiciously like the one passed down to Cathy from her grandfather. More photos of family and friends, his squad. There was even one of—
“Is that my ceremony?” He tipped his chin, then lifted the bottle to point. “How did you get that?”
She twisted to look at the framed image of him on a stage, ass in a wheelchair since he hadn’t been approved to walk yet, taking a thin case from a man in a suit. “I was there.” Cathy looked at him, resting her chin on her shoulder. “You didn’t expect me to stay away just because you told me to, did you?”
“Did Katie…was she…” He scratched at his chin fiercely, feeling the burn of raised welts his nails left behind. “Did you bring her?”
“No.” She shook her head, the movement slow and somehow sorrowful. “If she’d been older, and understood what it was, I would have. If she could know what you’d sacrificed for us, I would have. But it was easier to leave her with daycare and just come by myself.” She scrunched her nose. “Coward’s way out, I know.”
“No, it was loud and crowded. She wouldn’t have had a good time.” Reaching and stretching towards her, he threaded his hand underneath the cover and trailed a finger along her leg. “Thank you.” He made another pass with his finger, tracing a line along her shinbone. “For coming, even after I’d been a dick to you. It means a lot.”
“Why did you mail it to me?”
He stared at her, confused. His brain was lost in the feeling of touching her, the heat from their bodies making the hidden space underneath the blanket feel safe.
“Nathan? Why did you send it home, if you weren’t coming back?”
“Oh.” He sat back and brought his hand up, placing it on top of the blanket, palm spread over his thigh. He vaguely remembered mailing it, taking the box to the post office and begging a few pieces of tape to seal the package.
Hands shaking, he scrawled Cathy’s name on the flat rate envelope, followed by the address he knew by heart. He stared at the words and markings for a moment, then added “For Katie” almost as an afterthought, crowding it in at an angle beside Cathy’s name.
The chill morning didn’t have anything on the cold lump in his stomach. He’d been out all day, riding by himself, loosely aiming towards a charity donor for a late afternoon pickup. Not that he’d tried hard, but not being able to talk anyone into joining him had really been freeing.
He walked to the counter and dropped the envelope on the scale, waited forever for the clerk to punch in all the information, and paid his money. Only after the package had been swept away and into a bin in the back did it dawn on him to put a letter inside, a note even. His brain soothed him. Cath would understand.
He straddled the bike and scowled down at the gauges as he tugged on his gloves. Back on the road, he hadn’t gone more than five miles when he saw a bar, neon lights blazing in every window. A sign bolted to the outside wall proclaimed, “Breakfast is served,” and by the smell coming from the building, they weren’t lying. The scent of crisply fried bacon wafted through the air.
Once inside, he sized up the customers, slotting each group into tidy little columns in his head. The old farmers held court at a big round table in the corner, mugs of coffee in front of each. The semi parked alongside the road belonged to the man at one end of the bar, smiling at and chatting up the bartender as she washed glasses with rhythmic movements that set her tits jostling around inside her loose shirt. The other two bikes outside belonged to the black-jacketed duo straddling stools on the other end of the bar, beers and empty highball glasses within easy reach.
No real choice then, because like called to like. He left a stool between himself and the other men. The bartender walked his way, and the closer she got, the younger she looked, until he wasn’t certain she could even be old enough to work behind the pine this way. He pointed at the bottles and glasses and, pushing down the advice of the doctors, said, “I’ll have one of those, darlin’.” She smiled and set a glass on the bar top as she slammed open a cooler, then brought out a beer with one hand, the other gripping and tilting a bottle, metal spout glugging quietly as she poured.
“Be eight bucks.” She slid the beer onto a coaster already lying in front of him.
He pulled out his wallet, fishing around for a couple of bills. He handed her one and laid the other next to the beer. Lifting his glass of whiskey as she walked to get his change, he tipped it towards the bikers. “Mornin’,” he offered, taking a healthy swallow. “Colder than a witch’s tit out there.”
Laughter and returned salutes set him at ease, and for the next hour, the three of them traded stories, Army versus Navy, all branches versus the Marines, and finally club versus club, since they were patched into a national MC. He’d gotten comfortable, and in doing so, became comfortably numb. Fuckin’ finally.
“I’m Donald,” a man said, interrupting the story Nathan was currently screwing up telling. He’d relayed the punch line twice now and kept having to circle back around for the setup. Donald held out a hand. “And you are?”
Narrowing his eyes, he reached out and gripped the man’s hand, taking his stance behind the bar as someone with an official standing here. Nathan glanced up at the clock to see it was just gone eleven o’clock. He shook his head as he responded, “Nathan. Pleased ta meet cha.”
“Nathan, you’re drunk in my bar on a weekday, and it ain’t even afternoon yet.” Donald gripped tighter. “You and me, we’re gonna set this to rights. Faye,” he called over his shoulder towards the little bartender Nathan realized had stopped coming his direction a while ago, the empty state of his glass and bottle testimony to her attempts at slowing him down. “Bring me a couple of coffees, yeah?” She nodded nervously, and Nathan wondered if he’d gotten her in trouble. “Get an order in for my good friend Nathan here, tell Jimmy to make a boatload of fries, the greasier the better, then smother ’em with gravy.”
“Thanks, Don,” one of the bikers said, standing and shrugging on his jacket. “Sounds like you got this handled.” The other man stood too, yanking on his gloves. With a lifted hand to Nathan, they made their way outside, and he heard the unmistakable rumble of pipes as they started their bikes.
He looked back at this man, this Don, who’d walked in and run off his friends. “What’s happening?”
Don swung around the end of the bar and laid claim to the stool closest to Nathan. “What’s happening is you’re drunk in my bar, and my friends called me about you. See, they
said you sounded like you wanted to do something stupid and were on a bike.” He pushed a mug of coffee closer.
Nathan stared at it, confused. He hadn’t seen Faye drop it off, focused as he’d been on Don.
“I’ve lost friends to wrecks over the years and wished I could have done something for them. Family and friends, and I’ve lost customers, too. I didn’t feel like dealing with the shit that comes with all of it. Not today. ATF all up in our shit about serving a man lying dead in a bloody pile on the road.” Don shook his head. “Not today. If you’re gonna do something stupid, then you’ll pick somewhere else to launch from.”
Nathan stared at him, not finding it in himself to deny the pull of the promised peace.
Sure, the idea was almost always there, hovering in the back of his mind, a viper just waiting for an opening. But Nathan didn’t give it the time of day. He kept his shit tight and right, and kept it at bay. “What did I say?”
“You that drunk you don’t know?” Don’s gaze was heavy, piercing through Nathan even as it held him in place. “You told Faye it was your little girl’s birthday yesterday, and you didn’t call. Didn’t see her. Said it would be better if she never saw you again. Then you gave sweet Faye all the money in your possession, said you didn’t need it anymore.” Don’s head swung back and forth slowly. “If that ain’t a cry for help, I don’t know what one is, brother.”
“I—” Almost he said he wouldn’t, couldn’t have told the little bartender those things, but a memory, already fading, told him maybe he would. Maybe he already had. “I love my little girl.”
“I do not doubt that, man. No doubts. But life, she can suck balls sometimes.” A pause, then Don asked the most intrusive question Nathan hated to answer. Strangers feeling they could own a little piece of him, taking his service and sacrifice and changing it into something they merged with their own lives and expectations. “Where’d you serve?”
Nathan stared at the man, noting for the first time the tidy haircut. High and tight, and dusted with gray, testimony to a life well lived. Nathan saw the well-known insignia inked into the muscles and skin of Don’s forearm, flexing underneath the art as he lifted the coffee. Military knew military, always. It didn’t matter if their service had been separated by decades and delivered on different foreign lands. Military knew military.
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