Squared Away (Out of Uniform 5)

“It’s not home,” Mark said so softly that Isaiah had to strain to hear him. “I thought it would keep it like it was, letting Danielle raise the kids there, but it feels...different. Strange. Everything’s like I remember, yet it’s all changed too.”

“First time I went back to Dad’s house after Aunt Cecily moved in with Aunt Louise and Grandma two years ago, felt like that. Like someone had rearranged the foundation when I wasn’t looking. Like whatever made it home was gone.”

“Yes. That.” Mark’s tone was almost grateful. “Same bricks, same shingles, but the feel is all off. Maybe that’s why I didn’t visit much the last few years. House never felt right. Fuck, what an idiot I was.”

“Hey, now. No beating yourself up. You’ve been deployed a bunch. Danielle and Cal understood.” It was true, however, that Mark had missed a ton, but now wasn’t the time to get into all that. Instead, Isaiah headed north on I-5, away from this hellacious day. In the back seat, all three kids slept on, and glancing at them made the tender places in his heart feel scraped raw all over again.

“All day. All damn day people kept coming up to me, saying ‘what a tragedy’ and telling me how damn sorry they were. And so many of them said, ‘Don’t feel guilty.’ Or, ‘Don’t blame yourself.’ Like is that maybe what I’m supposed to be doing right now? What I’m supposed to be feeling? Maybe this is just the part of the program where I figure out how worthless I am.”

“You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel.” Isaiah pitched his voice to be soothing. “And I think everyone’s feeling a lot of guilt right now. Danielle and Cal both made some awful choices. Don’t think I’m not wondering every third moment if I could have told them not to go to that party. Refused to come watch the kids since the nanny quit and they had no childcare. And everyone at the party is wondering if they could have told her not to drive.”

“It wasn’t her first DUI,” Mark whispered. “First one was in college. Dad’s lawyer got her out of it. Should have lost her license on the second one before Daphne, but again, good lawyer. But then she had the kids...”

“And she did good with each pregnancy. Gave up the drinking and partying, threw herself into parenthood, but it never lasted. And Cal was the same way.” Isaiah followed I-5 out of the city, toward La Jolla where he’d grown up, but he wasn’t planning on stopping there. “If she was driving, chances are good he was even more wasted.”

“Why didn’t someone tell me? Why didn’t you tell me? If they had a problem with alcohol, I should have known about it.”

“Seriously?” Isaiah had to fight to keep his voice level. “Mark. You wanted me to call you? You’ve spent six years making sure we were never in the same room more than five minutes, that we never had a deeper conversation than burger toppings, refusing to acknowledge me the few times our paths have crossed socially. And I’m supposed to call you up, have a real talk about Danielle and Cal’s drinking problems with you, when you won’t give me the time of day?”

“Someone should have.” Mark thumped his head back against the headrest. “I should have known.”

Yeah, maybe he should have, but Isaiah wasn’t going to kick him when he was already feeling shitty. Instead Isaiah reached over, quickly patted Mark’s thigh. The suburbs were rushing by, and the closer they got to the beaches Isaiah loved, the more he felt able to deal with Mark’s anger and guilt and grief.

“You were a good brother. She thought the world of you, but you couldn’t have stopped this. Probably no one could have, which is what makes it a fucking tragedy.”

“Out in the field, I don’t believe in tragedy. I believe in didn’t try hard enough. Didn’t get there fast enough. Didn’t have the right skill set. Didn’t make the right judgment calls.”

“Mark. You’re a medic. Not God.” Isaiah gave a bitter laugh because Mark wasn’t the first SEAL he’d met to confuse his amazing set of skills with superhuman powers. “Sometimes bad shit happens. And this, this is killer bad shit. The fucking worst. But even if you’d seen it coming, you couldn’t have prevented it.”

Mark was quiet for a long time, to the point that Isaiah thought he probably drifted off. Isaiah headed for Torrey Pines and his favorite stretch of coast to drive. And yeah, he’d been near the ocean the past few weeks living in the house, but that was different, being surrounded by other multi-million-dollar houses and crowded Coronado beaches. He loved the state parks where Aunt Cecily had taken them growing up—fewer crowds, less pretentious, and rocky cliffs and white sand as far as the eye could see, no buildings and businesses to interfere with the natural beauty.