Return to Glory (Hqn) (13 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

B
ETSY WAS SO
proud of Jack for going to the support group.

She hoped that he meant what he said, about getting his life back.

The look in his eyes that morning as he’d held the .357 in his hands—it had been a grim determination. A sorrow. Even a sense of horrible purpose. She’d felt so many things in that moment. Acute loss, pain for him and how much he suffered to have considered something so awful, and anger. Anger because he was failing her, wanting to abandon her like everyone else.

When the thought resonated, she realized that was truly how she felt. Even though Caleb and India were still in her life and she still had her mother, she felt as if everyone had left her alone and she had no one. It was a revelation because Betsy wasn’t
that
girl. She knew she had so much to be thankful for.

Guilt flooded her that during his darkest moment, she’d been worried about herself and how his actions would affect her. For as long as she’d known Jack, he’d always put her first. When he pasted that fake smile on his face, she knew that was for her benefit, too.

Until he told her he could taste the bacon. She smiled thinking of it.

It was a big deal to drop him off for the support-group meeting, both in that he was going and that he let her drive him. He had a hard time asking for or accepting help in any part of his life. But this dinner today was going to be a moment of reckoning. Caleb had had no right to do what he did to Jack. He’d already felt bad enough about something that was an accident. He hadn’t actually hurt her. Jack was probably in more pain about having bruised her than the bruises themselves caused her.

Betsy passed her mother in the hall. “Where is my brother? I saw his car.”

“He’s hiding in his old room.”

“If you hear crashes or bangs, don’t worry. I’m just beating the stupid out of him.”

“He’s a Lewis man. There’s no beating the stupid out of him,” Lula said absently as she continued on into the kitchen to mind what smelled like pot roast.

“Is that roast?”

“Yes, it’s what Caleb wanted today. He put in a special request.”

“Why do we ever deviate from the fried chicken? I really wanted fried chicken. That’s another reason to hit him.”

“If you punch him, you won’t be able to knead the dough for your bread. You know he’s got a jaw like a brick.” Lula’s nonchalant attitude had been born from years of her children inflicting terror and revenge on each other. This wasn’t anything new. “Don’t break anything of mine. You know, when you both moved out, I thought I could finally have nice things.” She sighed.

“If he wouldn’t do stupid things, this wouldn’t be a problem.” Betsy stomped up the stairs in a fury and flung open the door to his room like the reckoning she planned to deliver.

“Look, Betsy. Be mad. But there are some things that are sacred against all outside influences. Or even inside. You’re my sister. He hurt you.” Caleb held up his hands either in surrender or maybe to block her blows.

“He
didn’t.
Are you going to come beat up my oven every time I burn myself? Think about the logic there.”

“The oven is your own fault. You know it’s hot. The oven doesn’t have a conscious choice about its actions.”

“Neither did Jack. He was asleep.”

“Betsy, there is nothing you can say or do to defend him that’s going to make it okay. But we worked it out. After India Tased us.”

“She Tased you, too?”

“Yeah.” Caleb looked uncomfortable. “You know, with all of this, he was hurting himself, too. It was a guy thing.”

“A guy thing? No, not buying it. Every time you do something I don’t agree with, you say it’s a guy thing. That’s not cutting it. Speaking of India, where is she? I can’t wait to hear this story.” Discomfort changed to outright pain. “What happened?” Betsy put her hand on his shoulder.

He raked his hand through his hair. “I can’t tell her story for her, you know?”

Betsy nodded. “I understand. But when we were talking about Jack, she said she knew how haunted he was and how broken. I think it’s not because she sees his pain, but because something happened to her, too. She told me not to give up on him, and it seemed important for her to know that no matter what, I wouldn’t.” She hugged her brother. “I also told her that she can trust you and that no matter what happened to her, you’d understand and you wouldn’t give up on her, either.”

“I’d like to think that she knows that.” He hung his head. “She’s really pissed at me.”

“So am I.” Betsy sighed and deflated. “But I still love you.”

“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“So Jack actually went to the support group?”

Betsy nodded. “I dropped him off and watched him go inside.”

“You were checking up on him to see if he was really going to go.”

A hot blush stained her cheeks. “Well, yes.”

“If he told you he’d go, you know he would. He doesn’t lie.”

Except that one time that he did.

She’d never get that image of him out of her head. Jack sitting in the shaft of sunlight, his fingers curled around—

“Hey, Bets?” Caleb cocked his head to the side. “I don’t know where you just went in your head, but it was a bad place and you don’t need to go there again. Jack’s going to be fine. He has you. He has me. No matter what, even if I beat him senseless, he’s still family. And he knows it.”

“Does he?”

“I shouldn’t be doing this, but since you shared some info about India with me, I’ll tell you. I saw him yesterday and we talked. He came over to the house and sanded some trim with me over lunch.”

“Sanding some trim? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Betsy quoted Jack from the last Sunday dinner when he’d been teasing Caleb and India.

“Very funny, Bets. If you weren’t such a girl, I’d think you were a man.”

“Anyway, back to the important stuff. You. Jack. Trim?”

“He said he was pretty sure you saved his life, and before you pounce and rattle me like a maraca trying to find out what else he said, that was it. He said he wasn’t ready to talk about it more than just that.”

“Well, he saved mine. So it’s only fair.”

“I told him that, too. But if your accounts are in the clear, do you still want to be with him?”

“Why? Did he say something?” Betsy realized she sounded as if she were still in high school.

“Didn’t I just say he didn’t have anything else to say on the matter? I’m asking because I want to know. I need to know.”

“Oh whatever. You can’t drop a statement like that on me and not expect to get a reaction.”

“Betsy!” Lula called from the door. “There’s a call for you.”

Her first thought was that something had happened to Jack. She dashed downstairs.

“Hello?” If it wasn’t Jack, she hoped it was her dad. She missed him when he was away. She didn’t worry, because that would only drive her crazy.

“Betsy?” A voice with a light French accent was on the other end of the line. A voice she hadn’t heard in a very long time.

Marcel.

So many things flooded back over her. The elation when she discovered her interest had been returned by the blue-eyed Frenchman. The first time he made her truffles. The look on his face when she told him she was leaving Paris—absolute disdain and disgust. Both at her and her small-town life.

“How are you?” she finally managed to ask.

“Very well,
chérie.
Very well. I am back in New York for the week and I would like to see you.”

He’d like to see her? Yes, because she just had that kind of money sitting around and a clear schedule. More important, why did he want to see her? When they’d broken up, he said he couldn’t associate with failure. And that she was. Betsy had become the laughingstock. Everyone in the culinary community knew the story of the stupid American ingenue and the death cap bordelaise. “Come to Kansas if you really want to see me,” she said.

“If I must. I have something very important to tell you. I want to do it in person.” His voice was filled with excitement.

“We could Skype.”

“No, no. In person, it must be. When can you come?” He sounded so excited.

Just like him not to listen. “I told you, I can’t. I’ve got responsibilities here. I have my own shop now.” Why had she told him that? He’d find a way to belittle her accomplishment, damn her with faint praise. Then the joy she found in her little shop would be tainted. She’d be reminded every day how it wasn’t good enough. How
she
wasn’t good enough. Betsy hung up the phone before he could say another word.

The phone rang again almost instantly.

With her heard thundering in her chest, she answered it.

“
Chérie,
I think we were disconnected.”

Yeah, because I hung up on you.
“That must’ve been what happened.”

“Everything is going to change for you. I have such wonderful news.”

She was curious, even though she knew whatever he had to say was always painted with the impossible. Like now.
Come to New York,
as if people like her could just do that with no thought for anything or anyone else.

“I mean it, Marcel. If it’s so important that you can’t do it on the phone or Skype, then you have to come here.” Oh what was she saying? She didn’t want him to come here. She didn’t want to see him again no matter what his news was. He could tell her he’d laid a golden egg and it hatched twin diamond ducks and that still didn’t warrant his presence.

“
Oui.
That is just like you. So demanding of your own way.” He sighed as if she were a child to be indulged. “I will come.”

No!
What had she done? She opened her mouth to tell him not to, and he’d hung up. Betsy had enough on her plate without dealing with Marcel’s presence. Maybe she could have Caleb arrest him as soon as he crossed the county line?

“Who was that?” Caleb asked from behind her.

“Marcel.”

“The stain in the NYC pictures?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

“What did he want?”

“For me to go to New York because he’s in town.”

“I hope you told him to take a flying fu—”

“Language!” their mother yelled from the kitchen. Sometimes it was as if she had supersonic hearing.

For a brief moment, Betsy wondered if her mother had heard her encounter with Jack. That was too horrible a possibility to even consider. “I said no, but then he said he had some news that he wanted to tell me in person. And stupid me, I told him if he wanted to tell me in person he’d just have to come here. So he is.”

“I really hope that even if he offers you the Holy Grail you say no.”

“Why is that?” She cocked her head to the side.

“Because when you came back from Paris, you weren’t the same. It was more than the mushrooms.”

“Well, yeah. I drop-kicked all my dreams into a steaming pile of buffalo crap. Of course I’m not the same. Whatever Marcel has to say, it’s too late.”

“It’s never too late. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell Jack? Kind of hard to convince someone else of something that you don’t believe yourself, isn’t it?”

“The internship was a onetime thing.”

“There are other chefs to study under. Other people with gifts as wonderful and other people who’ve made mistakes. What if he’s found some way for you to have your dream?”

“I thought you just said even if he offered me the Holy Grail—”

“I changed my mind. If you can live your dream, you should. Glory was never what you wanted.”

What about Jack? She wasn’t thinking about her dreams of a career, of living in Paris, of going back to NYC or seeing and experiencing the world. She just wanted to hide herself and Jack away from all of it in the safe cocoon of his bed. “I doubt he’s done anything for me. Although I can’t think why he would come here to tell me anything. There’s nothing that could be that important.
I
was never that important to him.”

“Stop with the woe is me. So what if you weren’t? He can be a means to an end, and as long as you remember that’s all he is, what does it matter what he thought of you or said to you?”

“I don’t know what my dreams are now,” she confessed.

“You should always be dreaming, Betsy. Mom told us that every night of our lives, that we should always dream awake.”

“What about the shop?” she offered weakly. “Say he did have some amazing opportunity. I can’t just leave my business.”

“What about it? We can cover that—India, Mom and I. If you want it, we can make it happen. You’ve been so busy trying to take care of everyone else, you’ve forgotten to take care of you. I thought maybe this thing with Jack was you taking care of you, but he’s another crusade.”

“He’s not!”

“Maybe you don’t know it yet, but he is.”

“I was in love with him long before he lost his leg.”

“Are you in love with him still? Or the idea of him?”

Betsy didn’t like how the question made her feel. Unsure and awkward, itchy like bugs on her skin. “We’re getting to know each other again. So I can’t answer that the way you want me to. I love him, of course. He is family. But...” She couldn’t put it into words and she wasn’t quite ready to do so, either.

Caleb put his hands on her shoulders. “Betsy, you’re one of the kindest, most loving people I know. That said, you’re also used to getting what you want. Make sure that what you’re doing isn’t just finally getting that toy that never showed up under the tree. That you’re not replacing Paris with Jack.”

“How do you go from punching him in the face to protecting him from me?”

“I don’t know. Talent?”

She rolled her eyes. “Can you please just stay out of it?”

“No.”

It seemed the storm had passed, and Betsy knew it would. She knew what Caleb had done had been because he cared about her, but he wasn’t helping. She wished she and Jack could escape it all and just be Jack and Betsy without all the entanglement and meddling from other people.

Even if they were people she loved.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

J
ACK DIDN’T LIKE
the smell of the place.

It was sterile and smelled...
institutional.
That had a flavor, too. It was like bleach and mold—a strange and unnatural combination.

Jack inhaled the scent of Betsy’s cookies. They wiped away everything bad. There was a table at the far corner of the wall with coffee, some store-bought cookies and a pitcher of water. Nothing looked very appetizing. He didn’t want to put the cookies on the table; he wanted to hold them close like a security blanket.

They reminded him of why he wanted to be here.

Jack took a cookie out of the box and bit into it. He couldn’t taste the pumpkin, but the little Red Hots smile on the face burned his tongue. It was spicy.

He took another bite.

It seemed right somehow that this moment would taste like cinnamon—sharp but still palatable. He didn’t know if he could say it was pleasant yet. Threaded through with the rest of the cookie, and dulled by the texture, it was something that met two needs. Jack could do this.

He snatched two more cookies from the box before sacrificing the rest on the table.

“You’re going to be popular,” a voice said from behind him.

He turned to see a kid who couldn’t be any older than a minute. He looked impossibly young, but lean and hungry as if he knew what it was like to starve. As if he could glut himself on the world and still, he’d never be sated. Even with his youth, there was something haunted in his eyes. Jack recognized it because he’d seen it in the mirror.

“Why is that?” Jack asked.

“All of the guys love to see those boxes from Sweet Thing.”

Jack’s first instinct was to put his fist through the kid’s face. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that the kid meant Betsy’s shop, not Betsy herself. He couldn’t know that was his nickname for Betsy. God, but he had to get a handle on this rage thing.

He wasn’t normally a jealous man. He wasn’t wired that way. Betsy had become something holy to him, and he knew she wasn’t. She was a flesh-and-blood woman the same as he was simply a man.

“I almost ate them all myself,” he managed to say.

“I would have.” The kid grabbed one. “I’m O’Neil.”

“McConnell.” He shook the kid’s hand that wasn’t full of cookie.

“You’re the guy they gave the medal to.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” What else was he supposed to say to that? All of that made him uncomfortable. He’d done his duty and his job; it was nothing special.

“Miss Sweet Thing herself was there that day, wasn’t she?”

“Look, O’Neil. If you want to keep your face, don’t talk about my girl.”

He held up his hands. “Whoa, I didn’t know. None of us did. All the guys are going to be heartbroken to hear it. Good for you, man.”

Dick-broken was more like it, his brain growled. He realized that he might have spoken out of line. Betsy had never agreed to be his. Jack was in a support group for PTSD, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t fit for a relationship.

Nevertheless, she’s mine.
He’d deal with that later.

He stuffed another cookie in his mouth and wandered over to the circle of chairs. That sensation where his skin was too tight and itchy was back, like a swarm of bugs crawling all over him.

Jack tried to find a seat where he wouldn’t have his back to a door, or exposed. There was no such luck. He just knew he was going to have some freak-out before this was over.

“Looking for somewhere to sit so you’re not exposed? Yeah. Not so much. We just have to trust each other to watch everyone’s back. I think that’s part of it,” O’Neil said. “Sometimes the new guys sit on the floor against the far wall.”

No, he wasn’t going to do this. He knew where he was. He was home. He could sit down like a regular person and have a conversation.

Couldn’t he?

Everyone took their seats and nodded to each other in silent acknowledgment. Jack searched all of their faces and in each one, he saw a brother. No matter how age had marked them, or youth still smiled on them, no matter anything else about them, what bonded them all together was in their eyes. A soul-deep wound that festered.

Jack was immediately comforted by the fact that he wasn’t alone, but he ached for his brothers, too. He didn’t wish his pain, or terror, on anyone. Not even to know he wasn’t alone in the dark.

An older man wearing jeans and a polo shirt sat down in a chair that seemed to have been left open for him. He wore a tag on his shirt that read Volunteer.

“I see we have a new face tonight.” He held out his hand for Jack to shake. He had a firm grip, solid. “I’m Andrew.”

“Jack.”

“Glad you’re here, Jack. Wait for me after group and we’ll talk, if you like.”

Jack nodded.

Andrew addressed the rest of the group. “So, last time we were listening to O’Neil’s story. Is everyone okay with picking up where we left off?”

O’Neil swallowed hard, but he lifted his shoulders and straightened his spine. “It wasn’t a good week. Sharma took the baby and left. I can’t blame her. If I could leave me, too, I would.”

They waited, quiet and still, for him to continue. A heavy weight settled over the room, like a blanket, a shroud...the lid of a coffin.

“The storm. Lightning struck the house and it was a trigger. I took her and Caty downstairs and I wouldn’t let them leave. It wasn’t the storm outside, it was insurgents. They were trying to kill us and no matter what she said to me, I wouldn’t believe we were home, safe. She got a restraining order and because of the gun, I can’t see my daughter. I’m going to lose my job. I’m an M.P. I wanted to go into civilian law enforcement when I get out in June, and that’s not going to happen.”

“I thought we agreed you were going to store your personal weapons for now?” Andrew asked him gently.

“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t leave them unprotected.”

Andrew nodded. “But didn’t we decide together, as a group, that Sharma and Caty would be safer?”

“I couldn’t.”

Jack could see his own pain, his own fear reflected in the boy’s eyes.

Andrew seemed to sense that O’Neil needed a breather. “What about everyone else? How did you come through the storm?”

It wasn’t just Jack. These men around him were all strong men, all brave men, and they’d feared the storm, as well. That knowledge was both a blade and a balm.

Another man spoke. “I did okay. My wife and I spent the night in the basement watching eighties movies with a bottle of rum.”

“That’s really good, Bobby.”

A bottle of rum is really good?

Jack’s incredulity must’ve shown on his face, because the guy spoke again. “I know, right? That is good. A year ago, I would’ve been sloppy drunk by myself with my weapon in hand and I might not have made it through the night.”

“What about you, Jack? You’re here. You might as well jump in with both feet,” Andrew said.

“It never gets any easier to share. You just have to do it,” O’Neil added.

Jack took a deep breath, filling his lungs and concentrating on that sensation of feeling full, of feeling alive. He didn’t want to share those intimate moments with Betsy. Those were his—only his. Especially because these guys knew who she was and had talked about her. “That’s me every Saturday morning,” he confessed.

No one said anything and there was no judgment on the faces that watched him, no pity. Just empathy and understanding.

“I, uh, I’m supposed to be dead. I lost my leg to an IED. When the device was launched into our camp, I was prepared to die to save my brothers. Only I didn’t die. After a bright flash and pain like I’ve never felt before, a burn so hot it was cold, I woke up in Ramstein with a limb I don’t have still burning and a nurse whispering in my ear to remember my promise.” Jack breathed again, focused on the act of inhaling, exhaling. Normal functions of life. “I was sure fate had screwed up. It’s okay for me to be a name on a wall somewhere. It’s okay to have given my life for something bigger than me, but I’m still alive with no life to live. I’m on medical discharge, my career taken from me. I’m no use to anyone. So every Saturday morning, my .357 and I give fate a chance to fix its mistake.”

“So then why are you here? If you think fate made a mistake?” Andrew asked.

“The girl I made a promise to? I told her I’d come home. I was pretty pissed at her for demanding that promise from me. When the nurse asked her if there was anything she should tell me because they were sure I was dying, she said to remind me of my promise. And I never break my promises. So I came back.”

“And she saw you on a Saturday morning, didn’t she?” Andrew asked.

He nodded. Glad that the man had filled that part in for him. He didn’t want to share their intimacies. Didn’t want to expose what was between them to others just as broken as he was. “She did, and even though she asked me to come, she’s not why I’m here.”

“No?” Andrew asked.

“I decided that maybe I shouldn’t be arguing with fate. I want to live. And what I’ve got right now isn’t living.” Warmth unfurled in his chest. It felt good to say these things. To put the words out in the world.

“You were in Mosul,” Bobby said, something like wonder in his voice.

Jack nodded. “A lot of us were.”

“No, it was you. You’re the reason I came home. What are the chances, man?” Bobby got up out of the chair and came over and clapped him on the back. “I...used to blame you for saving us. Kind of like you blaming fate. Then I met my wife and I knew why I’d been saved. To be with her.”

The itchy feeling was back. Jack didn’t like being praised for killing, even though it was something else he was good at. “Glad you made it home.”

Bile rose in his throat. This was what he’d saved him for? Nights spent drowning in rum because he thought he’d end up back in that hell? Death might’ve been kinder.

Andrew keyed to his distress instantly. “Do you want to tell us about Mosul, Jack?”

“I was captured and then I wasn’t.” He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Okay, Jack. That’s a good start. Maybe another time, when you’re ready.”

He’d thought his trauma was from losing his leg, but in that moment, he knew he’d been using it as a crutch.
Ah, the fucking irony, there.
Killing was his job, but he’d lost himself in Mosul—after the torture.

Jack chewed on that for the rest of the meeting. He didn’t hear much else that was said, but at his last cookie, slowly chewing it until it disintegrated in his mouth, it reminded him that he’d made it home from Mosul.

That all the guys in this room had come home, even if they’d left pieces of their soul over in the desert.

He reminded himself that didn’t matter, that whatever he’d left over there could stay. They could keep it. They’d paid for it in blood, too. There was more than ash, more than this. There was Betsy, there was bacon...

“Jack?” Andrew’s voice came from somewhere far away.

He looked up and was snapped back into the present. All the chairs were empty and the purple Sweet Thing box was gone. “Sorry. I was lost for a minute.”

“Yes, you were.” Andrew nodded. “You did a brave thing today, coming, sharing. I hope you come back.”

“It’s worse than I thought it would be, but it’s better, too.”

“A lot of guys say that. If you’re interested in supplementing with private therapy, I have a practice.” Andrew handed him a card. “I give this card to everyone. It has my cell number on it and I answer it 24/7. You can always call me. Even if you’re not my patient.”

“Thanks.” Jack stuffed the card in his pocket.

“I really do hope you decide to talk about what happened. We’ve all heard what it was like from Bobby’s point of view. I think it would be good for him and the rest of the group to see how it affected you.”

“What do you mean?” Jack’s skin got tighter, if that was possible. He felt as if one more word would be the thing that sliced him open and spilled his guts all over the floor.

“He’s made you superhuman in his memory and why he thought of himself as a failure for so long. He was sure that the man who’d done those things couldn’t possibly have to deal with any fear, or pain.”

“That day I didn’t. I turned it off. That wasn’t something to be admired,” Jack confessed.

“Many of my patients say that, too. Now you just have to learn there is no shame in surviving.”

Jack nodded. “Maybe I can try next week.”

“You know we meet tomorrow, too?”

“I have plans tomorrow.”

“With the girl you made your promise to?”

“That’s the one.”

“Will she be sending any more cookies? I didn’t get one.” Andrew grinned.

“I’m sure she will. She hands out what doesn’t sell over the weekend here on Monday mornings.”

“She sounds like an angel.”

“She is.” Jack was uncomfortable talking about her now. He didn’t know how things stood between them, what he wanted and what was just a pie-in-the-sky dream that got him through the night.

“Okay, then. Until next week.” Andrew walked him to the door. “Don’t forget, if you need me, call. Day or night.”

“Thanks.” Jack walked out into the evening, the air just a bit chilly and the stars just beginning to peek out from their cloudy nests.

He was so conflicted, his wounds raw again, but he didn’t feel as if he’d been picking at a scab. It felt purposeful. Like resurfacing a wound so it could heal. If that was really what would happen here, he was ready to put in the work.

Jack tried to avoid Fourth Street while he walked. It was a main drag that was dangerously busy. One of the old-timers who worked out at the state prison rode his bicycle to work every day and had been hit four times. Stubborn bastard said it kept him young. He was in his nineties, so maybe there was some truth to that.

Jack disliked walking in this area because it was so congested and more modern, but once the businesses gave way to the old Victorian houses and the places in the road where he could still see the brick, he enjoyed the journey. He found that for as much as he’d longed to be out in the world, for a big life, he liked the quaint downtown area and the small-town charm.

Even if it meant putting up with the town busybody dropping off a casserole he refused to eat every Thursday.