“Heard your girl is fine,” he says, finally returning his attention toward me.
“Thanks.” He’s not coming on to her, but I can’t guess where he’s going with this.
“The journalist . . .” he trails off. “You remember her?”
“Yeah.” I’m still lost.
“She asked me to come with her. She was moving back to her hometown because she was tired of trying to kill herself in pursuit of the next big story. She’d had enough danger for three lifetimes, she told me. Her plan was to write a children’s story or something that was helpful and innocuous.”
“Sounds like that was a good plan for her.” The light is beginning to dawn.
“Yeah. She asked me to leave the team and come with her. We . . . ah, connected after she returned stateside. I couldn’t stay away.” His anguish and guilt is evident in every line in his body, every syllable of his words.
“Don’t know that you did anything wrong, brother. We all felt for her. If you provided her a little comfort after it was over, it is no one’s business but yours and hers.” That’s not technically accurate, but I’m not going to shovel any more shit onto this poor man’s shoulders.
He ignores my lame attempts at reassurance. “I kept thinking I needed to save more people, like some kind of fucking penance. Then I got the offer to join the Joint Ops program, and I was chuffed about that. So I told her no. I regretted it almost immediately but didn’t get to tell her that because I was shipped off for a mission and didn’t get back for months. But the moment I’m back, I get in my truck and drive up the coast. She lives in Northern California. Found her small town. It was fucking beautiful. Right on the coast. Lots of water access. Trees. It was fucking Mayberry on the ocean. I asked around and found she was living with some other guy. I sat outside the house, saw them go into it together. Saw the lights turn off. I felt like I was living in a stupid fucking country song, so I punched myself and drove back to Coronado.” He rubs a hand across the jaw as if remembering the blow. I kinda think he did punch himself, and it’s not some kind of metaphorical thing. He continues, “And now? Now my life is drinking until I’m too numb to care that the only women around me who are willing to fuck are those who care more about my uniform than the man wearing it.”
I was right that he was broken but wrong about the cause.
In the silence he presses on. “I regret my decision. My career makes a cold lover at night. No one will take the place of her in my mind, and I’ll never have her.”
“Jesus, Ford.”
“Yeah.”
That one word says so much. I stare at him, unable to look away from the torment in his eyes. Is this what I looked like day in and day out? As if I had lost all meaning in life and that putting one foot in front of the other was its own pathetic victory. He nods solemnly and places a hand on the back of my neck. Pulling me close enough that his forehead almost brushes mine, he squeezes hard as if he can somehow impart his message, if not through words, through osmosis. “Don’t become who I am. Who you were.”
“What’s that?” I don’t really have to ask but I can’t help myself.
“Dead man walking.”
41
Nathan
“Are you nervous?”
I don’t answer her because the question doesn’t require one. She knows exactly how I’m feeling.
“Why are we flying commercial again?” I ignore the flight attendant who keeps staring at me as I stand in the aisle next to our seats. Charlotte has taken the first class seat next to the window, but I’m not sitting until I absolutely have to. Given that the coach class has a separate entrance and I’m not blocking incoming foot traffic, there’s no reason I have to sit down until the door closes.
“I’m surprised you even asked that. I always fly commercial. How do you fly?” Charlotte is absently flipping through an airline magazine advertising mini mansions for pets and a pillow that doubles as a remote control. Essentially weird, needless shit which I suppose is exactly what you’d buy on a commercial flight. Out the window I can see the baggage handlers arriving with our carts of luggage.
“I can’t remember the last time I flew on public transportation. Usually I can catch a ride on a military transport to just about any place I need to go. And the few times I haven’t, I just chartered a plane.”
“Why, Nathan, you’re kind of a snob.” Her lips purse together hard as she suppresses a laugh.