Change of Heart (17 page)

“I'll see if I can get home,” he said finally, his breathing heavy and loud. “How are Ellie and Mike doing?”

“Uncle Mike sedated her, so she's asleep for now.”

“Christ,” he sighed. “And Trev?”

“He took off. Probably out in the woods somewhere.”

“Yeah, not surprising. He'll come back when he's ready.”

“I wish I knew where he was headed,” I said tiredly, staring at my mom's granite countertop as I scratched at my beard.

“If he wanted anyone to know, he would have said something,” Alex said flatly. “I'm going to call and see what I can do about getting leave, all right?”

“Yeah. Let me know?”

“Yep. Give everyone a kiss for me. I'll call you in a bit.”

“Okay.” The word was barely out of my mouth before he'd hung up.

I looked up and met my dad's eyes as I dropped the phone to my side.

He was crying.

“He all right?” he asked, not bothering to even wipe off his face.

No. He wasn't. I didn't know when any of us would be all right again.

“He's going to try and come home,” I replied instead.

“Good.”

The next few hours were spent gathered in my parents' living room as we fielded phone calls from my brother and sister. Both Alex and Kate were trying to fly home the next morning and were calling my parents as they found their flights.

Neither needed help. I think they just needed the connection to home, even if it was over the phone.

Arielle woke up and had to be fed, then fell asleep again. My mom drifted off for fifteen minutes, then jerked awake when the phone rang. Ani paced the floor.

Finally, around one in the morning, my dad forced Mom to go to bed and get some sleep.

“I should probably get Arielle home too,” Ani rasped, glancing at the baby.

“I'll drive,” I said as my dad came back into the room.

“You two can stay here tonight,” he replied, rubbing his hand over the bald spot on his head.

I used to think he'd gone bald there because he always rubbed it when he was overwhelmed or frustrated with one of us kids. Kate, Alex, and I called it his “worry spot.”

“She's finally sleeping through the night,” Ani replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I should probably bring her home to her own bed.”

Dad nodded, and Ani got ready to go. As we left, we both hugged him good-bye and promised him we'd be back in the morning.

It was both a relief to get out of the house, and hard to leave.

Shock was slowly turning into grief.

We were silent as we made our way to Ani's house. I didn't have anything to say and she didn't, either. I pulled into her driveway, and we were silent as I helped her carry Arielle into the house. Silent as I kissed Arielle good-bye. Silent as I pulled Ani into a hug and kissed her hair.

Silent as I left.

I drove all the way to my town house, but before I'd even reached for the remote to open my garage, I was throwing the truck into reverse and turning around.

Ani met me at her front door like she'd known I'd be back and led me into her bedroom. She climbed into bed facing away from me, and I stripped down before crawling in and curling myself around her.

We were silent even then.

When Arielle woke us up at seven the next morning, we got up and went back to my parents' house. We didn't discuss the fact that I'd spent the night or that I'd changed Arielle and given her a bottle that morning before Ani had even gotten out of bed.

We spent the day making phone calls. Telling people that Henry was dead didn't become any easier no matter how many times I did it, though none of the calls I'd made that day hurt nearly as much as the call I'd made to Alex.

I picked him up from the airport at noon, and by the time we got to the house, Mike and Ellie had made their way over. My aunt looked like a zombie as she puttered around my mom's kitchen, refilling coffee mugs and wiping down countertops. She didn't stop moving, even fidgeting as Alex and I went over to give her hugs. It made my stomach churn. She was there, but her mind was far away from us.

Uncle Mike was the opposite. He sat silently on the couch, looking at nothing. He wasn't even pretending to be paying attention to the things happening around him.

“Where's my baby?” Alex whispered to Ani the minute she walked into the kitchen.

I ignored the flash of annoyance that hit me.

“She's in Katie's old room in the playpen,” Ani said. “Hey, asshole.”

“Hey, pretty girl,” he replied, a small smile on his face. He pulled her in against his side as she wrapped her arms around him. “How you doing?”

“Shitty.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” Alex said on a sigh.

“Has anyone heard from Trev?” I asked, interrupting their conversation.

“He called Ellie a little while ago,” Ani said, leaning her head against Alex's chest. “He'll be by later.”

I nodded, then turned on my heel. I needed to get away from them for a bit. I needed to get away from all of it. The emotion filling the house was stifling in its intensity, with everyone talking in hushed voices, their eyes hollow.

I made my way back to my sister's old bedroom and quietly let myself inside. On the far side of the bed, Arielle slept in one of those little portable cribs that were so popular, her arms flung out to the sides of her head. I moved closer to her and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her chest rise and fall.

She had no idea what was going on. Her life revolved around bottles and diaper changes and baths. She slept when she was tired and cried when she was hungry and had no clue that the adults around her were falling apart at the seams. I envied her that, but was so fucking grateful that she'd never remember any of it.

I silently slid my boots off and lay down on the bed, messing with the pillow underneath my head until I could see her. I ignored the way my eyes watered as I got comfortable and my body relaxed into the bed. I'd stay with her for a while.

“Uncle Bram,” a little voice whispered sometime later. “Uncle Bram, wake up.”

I opened my gritty eyes to find my nephew Keller's face just inches from mine.

“Hey, when did you guys get here?” I asked groggily, glancing at Arielle's crib to find her gone.

“Just now,” he said solemnly. “Uncle Hen died.”

“I know, bud,” I said, reaching out to run my hand over his head.

He sniffled a bit and raised his chin.

Ah, hell.

I reached out with one arm and pulled him onto the bed with me, and it was a testament to how shitty he was feeling that he didn't try to wrestle with me. Keller was a scrapper. He liked to wrestle and fight and be physical in any way he could, but right then, he lay down quietly beside me. We stared at the ceiling side by side.

“Mom keeps crying,” he said into the quiet of the room.

“Yeah, my mom does too.”

“But I don't cry,” he said stubbornly.

“I do,” I grumbled. “Sometimes.”

“Really?” he asked in surprise, still staring at the ceiling.

“Yep.”

Keller went silent, and a few minutes later, Kate came quietly into the room, crawling into bed with us on the other side of me.

“Hey, sis,” I said, kissing her hair as she laid her head on my shoulder.

“Hey,” she replied, sighing.

We didn't need to say anything else. The reason for her visit was obvious, and I knew exactly how she was feeling. So instead, we just lay there quietly, lost in our own thoughts.

The rest of the day went by slowly. The women cooked. The men didn't do much of anything. The Marine chaplain came out to my parents' house to talk to us about how and when they'd send Henry home and explained that some Marines would be around to help us with anything we needed.

We had dinner, but by unspoken agreement, none of us sat at the dining room table. A family dinner would only highlight the fact that Henry was gone.

Katie put her kids to bed for the night.

I held Arielle against my chest, leaning back in my dad's recliner. There wasn't anything for me to do. All of it seemed to be a hurry-up-and-wait game. We waited to hear when they were going to fly Hen's body home. Waited to know when the funeral would be. Waited for my aunt to lose her shit as she grew more and more agitated as the day went on.

Two days later, I was playing Lincoln Logs with Gavin when I saw Kate go running past us. I grabbed Gavin and hopped to my feet, carrying him outside just in time to see Kate jump off the porch and into Shane's arms.

“Shane,” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around his head, burying her face in his neck.

“Daddy?” Gavin asked in confusion, looking at me and then back at the scene playing out in front of us. “Daddy!”

He scrambled to get out of my arms, and as soon as I set him on his feet, he was running barefoot through the muddy driveway.

“Hey, little man,” Shane said, letting go of Kate just enough to lift Gavin into his arms.

Someone must have heard Gavin yelling because soon all of the kids were running outside, yelling for Shane.

My throat grew tight as Sage flew out the front door, coming to a complete stop at the top step of the porch and bursting into tears.

“Aw, baby girl,” Shane said, kissing the top of Keller's head before striding to his oldest daughter.

Sage was getting too old to carry around, but it didn't seem to matter then because Shane picked her right up. She wound her arms and legs around him as he climbed the porch steps, giving me a small nod as he brought her into the house.

I wondered if I'd still be carrying Arielle around when she was that big. Then I wanted to slam my head against the door frame.

“Okay,” Kate called, wiping at her face. “It's cold out here. Everyone inside!”

The kids went running back in, chattering happily as Katie gave me a small smile.

“I'm so glad they got him home,” she said as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

“I bet,” I murmured, kissing the side of her head. “How long does he have?”

“Not that long.” She gave a humorless laugh. “It's going to be ten times harder when he leaves again.”

“Don't think about it yet,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “Just deal with today.”

“Yeah.”

I walked her into the living room where the kids were going nuts over Shane, telling him about the shit they'd been doing since he'd left. Even Iris, who wasn't saying very many words yet, seemed to be babbling on and on, competing with her siblings for Shane's attention. They were so fucking excited that their little cheeks were pink with it.

I looked over and met Ani's eyes as she came out of the kitchen, holding Arielle against her chest as the word
daddy
was shouted over and over again. What was she thinking? Her lips were pulled up in a tired smile, but she seemed frozen to the floorboards as I took a step toward her.

God, even exhausted, she was still gorgeous.

My eyes dropped to Arielle, who was lifting her wobbly head off Ani's shoulder, and my heart thumped hard in my chest.

Then Ani suddenly spun around and left the room, leaving me staring at the empty doorway.

“Hey, man,” Shane said a couple hours later, patting my shoulder as he came into the living room. “She's cute.”

“Thanks,” I replied quietly, rubbing up and down Arielle's little back. I'd heard her squawking in the playpen after her nap a few minutes before and had raced to go get her before anyone else could. It seemed like I never got to hold her now that the house was full of people.

“You and Ani together now, or—”

“No,” I said shortly. I didn't want to think about the shit with Ani. I couldn't. There was too much happening. I had too many thoughts running through my head at every moment to focus on just one.

“Oh.” Shane sat down on the couch, leaning back against the cushions. “Why?”

“You seriously asking about my relationship with Ani?” I asked incredulously.

A year before, I could have happily killed Shane when he was being a complete ass to my sister. She'd been pregnant with Iris, and Shane had treated her like garbage. Just the thought of all the shit that had gone down between them made my teeth grind. After a while, I'd learned to get along with Shane again, but I wasn't quite as forgiving as my little sister.

“I figured it out,” Shane pointed out.

“If you hadn't, you'd be a dead man,” I retorted, my teeth snapping shut as soon as I'd said it.

The guy's foster brother had just died. My cousin, who I'd known since he was four years old, had just died. I closed my eyes and dropped my head to the back of the recliner.
Shit.

“Don't sweat it,” Shane said quietly. “It wasn't the first time you threatened to kill me, and I'm sure it's not the last.”

“Bad timing,” I ground out, making Shane bark out a laugh.

“Ah, Hen wouldn't give a shit,” Shane said, smiling. “He'd be watching us with his head turning back and forth between us like we were in the middle of a fucking tennis match.”

“True,” I choked out. “And he'd be asking how exactly I planned on killing you. His favorite was the wood chipper, even though he knew we didn't have one.”

“Wood chipper. That's a good one,” Shane said tiredly, closing his eyes.

“How does this shit happen?” I asked seriously, sitting up in the recliner as I held Arielle tightly against me. “He died during
training
?”

“I've seen guys do some pretty stupid shit when we were training,” Shane said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Maybe Hen was doing everything the way he was supposed to—who knows. They try to plan for every contingency, but fuck, sometimes shit just goes sideways, and there's nothing they can do.”