She threw her hands up in the air and stomped off to the kitchen. “Is this your second bottle?” she hollered to them.
“No. Why?” Mantis asked.
She came back in, gripping the bottle’s neck. “You’ve hardly had any.”
Mantis watched as his father stood, walked over to his mother, took the whiskey from her hand, and then leaned down and kissed her.
“You used to like the taste of whiskey on my lips,” he said when she pulled away.
That was Mantis’ cue to leave. It was bad enough that he’d just had his heart stomped on, he didn’t need to see evidence of how a relationship was supposed to work from his parents.
He went out the back door instead of the front. He hadn’t been in the yard behind his parents’ house yet, and he knew that, sooner or later, he’d have to.
The tree they’d planted seventeen years ago, in Ian’s memory, was easily over forty feet tall. Two Adirondack chairs sat beneath it, where he knew his parents would sit and talk about their firstborn.
Even right after it happened, his parents hadn’t shied away from talking about their feelings. At the time, Mantis was thirteen years old, Jonas only ten.
“It’s okay to cry,” his father had told them. “We miss him, and we’re sad that he’s gone.”
Mantis hadn’t cried then, he’d gotten angry. He was still angry, and probably would be for the rest of his life.
It didn’t matter that he’d personally snuffed the life out of Bagish Safi’s body. Nothing would ever bring his brother back or assuage the rage inside of him whenever he thought about the day the two planes hit the World Trade Center.
The rage drove him then, and it still did. He’d vowed that day to become a fighter pilot so he could shoot any plane out of the sky that threatened to bring harm to the United States and to families like his.
He stood beneath the tree, rubbing his chest. It wasn’t that the ache of missing his brother was so strong he needed to rub it away; it was that the rage wasn’t as strong as it used to be, and that worried him.
He couldn’t allow his anger or determination to avenge his brother’s death to diminish. If he did, he’d no longer be honoring Ian’s memory.
He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. This time he didn’t squeeze, he just rested it there.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to one of the snow-covered chairs. Mantis brushed the snow away like his father did and sat down.
“I see the war waging inside of you, Son,” his father began. “Maybe it’s time to surrender your arms.”
Mantis shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Nothing you do, no one you kill, will bring him back.”
Mantis looked into his father’s eyes. He hadn’t told him about the last time he was in Afghanistan, about the mission, or its outcome. He understood what he was saying, though.
When Mantis had watched the last man die who he held responsible for his brother’s death, he didn’t feel avenged; he felt empty.
While he’d put one foot in front of the other, he did so without the same sense of purpose he had only hours before. He’d struggled to bring that feeling back—the one of certainty in the mission, certainty in his life’s work—but it wasn’t there anymore.
He navigated his way through the days that followed, unable to decide what he should do next. Finally, he’d returned to the States.
All he’d thought about on his way back was Alegria, and how maybe, just maybe, he’d reached the place in his life where he could let go of revenge and just live. But it had been too late. Not only was she with Dutch, she was done with him. She’d made that perfectly clear then and earlier today when she’d dismissed him.
The glimmer of hope he’d had twenty-four hours ago was gone, and in its wake, he found himself a man without a mission and without love in his life.
“Don’t give up on her,” his father murmured.
“How did you know I was thinking about Alegria?”
His dad shrugged. “What else would you be thinking about?”
“She doesn’t want me anymore.”