“I work out my own problems. I always have.”
“What about things that aren’t problems? Do you ever share your feelings?”
“I’m not the touchy-feely type.”
“How do you get along with your family? Are you close?”
“No.”
“Just ‘no’?”
Another shrug. “I haven’t seen my old man in years. I used to call my mother once in a while, but she’s gone. There’s nobody else.”
“Is there a woman in your life?”
“What is this, an episode of Dr. Phil?”
“I take it that’s a no.”
“I have lots of women in my life, Doc. And I fail to see what any of this has to do with my military service.”
“It has to do with you, Zach. Your emotional removal from yourself.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you keep everything bottled inside. It means you need to learn that showing emotion isn’t a sign of weakness. It means that loneliness can be destructive to your soul.”
“Christ! What are you, Doc, a chaplain in disguise?”
That time, it was the shrink who’d shrugged.
“I’m using the word soul advisedly. If you prefer, I can talk about your psyche.”
Zach had risen to his feet.
“What we can talk about is not wasting each other’s time after today,” he’d said, holding out his hand. “I’m assuming you’ll tell my commander that I can get back to work ASAP.”
The doctor had risen, too. The men shook hands.
“I’ll tell him that,” he’d said, “but I’m telling you that if you don’t let down your defenses pretty damn soon, you’re going to reach a point at which you can’t.”
Zach had smiled. “‘Desperado,’” he’d said. “An old Eagles classic, Doc. Sounds as if you wrote the lyrics.”
And why was he remembering all that crap now?
Zach sat up straight, started the Porsche and headed back toward the highway.
Home. A long hot shower. A healthy belt of first-rate Scotch that he’d down, neat, on the wraparound terrace while he lay sprawled in an oversized lounger and watched the sky go from pale gray to black, or as close to black as it ever got in Manhattan.
The glow from thousands upon thousands of lights all but wiped out the night sky.
Growing up, he’d lived in places where the sky was like a vast black
silk canopy shot through with stars. Kuwait. Saudi Arabia. Alaska. He’d done missions in the mountain passes of Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
There’d been times those beautiful night skies were the only thing that was beautiful.
Back to Philosophy 101.