Tacker (Arizona Vengeance 5)

Nora smiles gently, her voice soothing. “It’s a very normal response to loss. And while you are dealing with other issues in your grief, it’s sort of where I’d like to focus our attention to start.”

“You mean I need to learn how to forgive myself,” I mutter bitterly, my gaze going down to my clasped hands.

“No,” she replies swiftly, and my head pops up. “You have nothing to forgive yourself for. You were absolved in that crash.”

“Yes, I know that,” I say with frustration, sitting up straighter. “I read the report… dozens of times. Intellectually, I know that. So why the fuck do I still feel so terrible about it?”

“There’s no real logic to it. Unfortunately, guilt isn’t an emotion that’s easy to get control of,” she replies.

“Then how do you get past it?” I ask. Actually, it almost seems like I’m begging her for the answer. Because one thing Nora has managed to do since she told me about what happened to her is give me a small sliver of hope that perhaps I can move past these wretched feelings.

“There are a few things to help you cope,” she says evenly. “But it’s work. You have to work at it every day, and it won’t be easy.”

“Like what?” I demand.

“You need time to grieve,” she replies, shifting forward a bit as if we’re sharing secret information. “When you start feeling like it’s your fault, you need to redirect your focus to who was really responsible. You need to be kind to yourself, Tacker. Take care of yourself. Remind yourself you are not alone in this because you have people who care about you and support you.”

“That seems like some of your hippie-dippie shit,” I mutter.

Luckily, Nora’s not offended. She actually chuckles. “There are a few other things. Ones you might not like.”

“Such as?”

“Sharing your feelings,” she answers with a hard look. “That means here in our counseling sessions, you need to be open and honest. Lean on friends and family… let them know how this has affected you. Even doing acts of service for others can be very healing.”

If the expression on my face is any indication of how anxious that makes me feel—sharing my feelings with people, I mean—she must be able to read them loud and clear because she adds, “You can even start out just journaling your thoughts. Spend some time each day writing your feelings down.”

A thought occurs to me. “How did you move past the guilt?”

“My process was a little different than yours,” she says with an open expression on her face. “When Helen got me back to the States, she started me in some immediate and intensive therapy. I did a lot of the things I recommended to you just now, but what I was taught to practice on a daily basis was simple gratitude for the gift of survival.”

“The gift of survival?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“Yes, it’s a gift. I was given the gift of not being shot, of not being raped. The gift of Helen finding and rescuing me. I was taught to focus on the positives rather than the negatives.”

I just stare, wondering how that even works.

She provides it to me in amazingly simple terms. “Tacker… you survived a plane crash. Few people do. MJ didn’t. You were given the gift of life, and you should be grateful for it. If I were a betting woman, I’d say you’ve never once felt a moment of gratitude for living, have you?”

“Not once,” I admit without any hesitation.

“I want you to work on that,” she replies with a smirk. “Consider it homework. In fact, I want you to start a journal. You need to write in it at least once a day. I also want you to end each day with a gratitude.”

“Hippie-dippie shit,” I mutter.

Nora rolls her eyes, making a grab for her tea.

“Does it ever go away?” I ask, and her hand freezes just inches from her cup.

She seems thoughtful, lips turning down slightly. When she shakes her head so minutely I almost can’t see it, she confirms the worst. “No. Not completely. Even all these years later, I’ll occasionally have nightmares. Sometimes, I’ll think about what my sister went through, and I’ll get depressed. But I have techniques I practice, and I’m normally able to redirect my thoughts pretty easily.”

“Like what?”

“I focus on things that make me happy,” she says.

“Gratitude for being alive,” I guess.

“That,” she agrees with her ever-present smile. Taking her tea in hand, she manages a small sip before she continues. “But sometimes, it’s just doing something that causes me pleasure. A horse ride. A milkshake.”

Seems simple enough… but for a man who has shied away from anything that remotely resembles happiness, it seems like a foreign concept. Sometimes, when I look at pictures of MJ and me, I’ll stare at myself as much as her. The smile on my face or the way a dimple in my right cheek popped when I laughed—and that person seems like a fake to me now. I don’t even recognize him.