“Danny and I got pretty tight over in Iraq, Mrs. Miller. A year together serving in Fallujah brings you closer than most stateside buddies ever get. He was my best friend.”
His voice almost broke and he paused long enough to get it under control.
“You were with him when he got hit, weren’t you?” She pursed her lips. “That must have been hard.”
Hard?
Not the word he would have chosen.
The memory unrolled like a horror movie he’d watched a thousand times and never wanted to see again.
He didn’t remember the explosion that blew their Humvee ten feet in the air and flipped it like a giant metal pancake. His memory began with the burning vehicle pinning his left arm, his ears ringing from the blast so that the destruction and death around him proceeded in eerie silence. He didn’t hear the screams from the other members of his patrol, didn’t hear the sniper fire, or the crackling of the flames as they ate his arm.
He didn’t hear himself screaming.
He saw Danny come to. He’d been thrown fifteen feet by the blast, knocked unconscious, but miraculously had no major injury. It took him barely ten seconds to assess the situation, then, staying in a crouch, Danny ran over and tried to drag him from under the burning wreckage.
Dev squeezed his eyes closed to halt the memory, then opened them to see sympathy in Mrs. Miller’s blue ones.
“I told him to leave me. There was gasoline all over the ground and I knew it would go up any second. I tried to make him go, Mrs. Miller, but he wouldn’t listen. I tried to push him away.” His voice got harsher as the damning words scraped their way up his throat and out of his mouth.
A part of his brain stood aside, stunned that he was blurting all this out within minutes of meeting Danny’s mother, yet strangely satisfied that now he would get the punishment he deserved.
“He just kept searching until he found a piece of the wreck he could use as a lever to get me out. The gas tank blew before he had dragged me very far and, and a piece of metal caught him across the back.” He finally shut up, like a wind-up toy that had run down.
When he could bear to meet her eyes again, they were filled with tears. She closed the distance between them and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly and rocking him a little back and forth.
“Thank you so much for coming here to share that memory with me. I always knew my Danny was a fine man. The Army gave him a bronze star and the Purple Heart, but medals don’t mean much to a mother.” Her voice quavered a little. “Hearing how brave he was in saving another man’s life makes his death a little easier to bear.” She let go of him and used her apron to dab at her eyes.
“No. You don’t understand.” He shook his head, his words vehement in his anger. “Don’t thank me, for god’s sake. I was the reason he died. It should have been me coming back in that box. He had everything to live for—his family, his fiancée—everything. I should have died. Not him. Me.” He slammed his fist into his chest, outraged she wouldn’t blame him, hate him the way he hated himself.
Now it was her turn to take a step back in surprise at his impassioned speech. She shook her head slowly, her gaze filled with sympathy.
“Mac, you can’t take responsibility for Danny’s actions. You both volunteered to join the Army and fight for our country, knowing what the risks were. Enlisting was a heroic act all by itself. I hate this war that takes the lives of our finest young men and women. I hate that Danny died over there. But your life is worth every bit as much as his, and I would be a terrible person if I believed you should have died in his place.”
She took his right hand in hers again. “Please, come sit down. Tell me about some of the good times you had with Danny. Those are the memories you should keep, and share, with those of us who loved him.”
He let her draw him into the comfortable living room and sit him in an overstuffed armchair covered in flowered chintz. When he took his left hand out of his pocket, she glanced once at the dark cotton glove covering it, but made no comment.
“I’ve just made a batch of brownies. I’ll get us both a glass of milk and we can make sure they came out right.”
He tried to refuse but she wouldn’t hear it. “It was serendipity that I made those brownies this morning, so let’s not ignore it.” She hurried from the room before he could get in a second protest.
While she was gone he wandered around the comfortable sitting room, so much warmer and friendlier than the upscale sterility of his parents’ condo. He stood there, envying a dead man for the childhood he must have had. Christ, what was wrong with him?
His survey of the room stopped at the fireplace where the mantel held an assortment of family photos, Danny’s induction picture holding pride of place in the center. Next to it was a picture of Danny and Amanda, and Dev had to close his eyes as shame washed over him.
“That’s Danny’s girl. Amanda,” Mrs. Miller said, as she set down a tray holding a plate of brownies and two glasses of milk. “She used to live a few houses down the street, so she and Danny practically grew up together.”
Dev nodded. “Danny talked about her a lot.”
He accepted the glass Mrs. Miller offered.
Mothers were amazing women. By all rights she should show him the door and slam it behind him. How did she find the strength, the compassion, to spend time with the man responsible for her son’s death? He couldn’t fathom it, but if she could go to this much trouble to put him at ease, the least he could do was participate in the farce.
He took a large brownie and bit into it. The rich chocolate flavor and chewy texture elicited an appreciative hum and nod. Once he swallowed, he said, “No worries, Mrs. Miller. These came out perfect.”
She beamed at the praise.
He looked over at the picture of Danny and Amanda. Time to get back to the confession of his other sins. “He was full of plans for when he got home and they got married.”
Mrs. Miller smiled fondly at the photo. “Danny loved Amanda from the time he was twelve. They were such good friends. If he hadn’t been there for her the year after her father disappeared I don’t know how she would have made it at school.”
“Danny told me she took a lot of abuse from some of the other kids in her classes.”
“Oh, indeed. Teenage girls can be so mean, and Amanda was the perfect target, poor thing. At eleven she was already five-seven but weighed only about a hundred pounds. They called her The Bean Pole, and Wired for Sound, because she had braces. She was such a smart girl, but she didn’t realize she should have kept that a secret. Math was her special passion. She was the kind of student every good teacher longs for.” Mrs. Miller sighed. “That pretty much sealed her fate. But what really hurt her was the rumor those nasty girls spread that her dad had run off with a waitress from the club where he worked.” She frowned. “That was nonsense, of course. Her dad worshiped Amanda’s mom.” Mrs. Miller shook her head as though to dispel old memories. “I haven’t seen her since we held the service for Danny last June. I know my son’s death hit her hard, poor girl. First losing her dad and now Danny.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Dev squirmed a little in the chair. “I’ve, uh, met Amanda.”
“You have? Oh how lovely. Then you already know what a wonderful girl she is.”
Oh yeah, he knew all right.
“I made a promise to Danny while we were in Iraq. He wanted me to make sure Amanda was okay if anything ever happened to him over there.”
Mrs. Miller nodded. “That sounds just like my boy. He was always concerned about others more than himself—Amanda most of all, of course.”
“You’ll never know how much I admired Danny, Mrs. Miller. He was the most honorable, courageous man I’ve ever known. He watched out for everyone in our platoon. Mine wasn’t the only life he saved.” Just the last. Which got h
im killed for his trouble. I’ll never forgive him for that.
“I can see you didn’t escape without some injuries of your own,” Mrs. Miller said, glancing at his glove-covered hand. “Danny wrote that you were a piano player before you enlisted.” Sadness took up residence in her blue eyes again. “What are you doing now?”
“I own an indie radio station over on the Eastern Shore. Since I can’t perform anymore I decided to get a job playing the music I love for others. My preference isn’t exactly the top forty hits of today, so the only way I could do that was to buy my own radio station.”
Unable to meet Mrs. Miller’s gaze, he stared at the plate of brownies as he continued.
“I didn’t have the nerve to find Amanda when I first got out of the hospital. Didn’t have the courage to tell her I was the reason Danny got killed. I knew she’d hate me, which was only right, I deserved that. But then how could I make sure she was okay, like Danny asked me to?” He rubbed his elbow. “Turns out when I did find her, she’d moved to Blue Point Cove, just a few miles from the radio station I bought.”
Mrs. Miller nodded sagely. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
She leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, forcing him to meet her eyes and read the intensity there. “You’ve got to get over the guilt you feel, Mac. I know Danny would never want you to repay his sacrifice with years of remorse. He did what he did because he cared about you. Don’t throw that gift back at him. It demeans you and his memory.”
“But—”
“There are no buts, Mac.” She sat back and picked up another brownie. “Now tell me how Amanda is doing. You’ve become friends, I’m sure.”
Ah, hell. He couldn’t lie to her. She would know. Mothers always knew.
This day was taking more out of him than a year’s deployment in that godforsaken desert. “She is working as a CPA. Just getting started but already she has quite a few customers—including me. She’s also joined with one of her client friends to open a local event-planning service. That’s how we met actually. She came to hire a deejay to work at her first big job.” A smile flitted across his face at the memory of her that first morning at his radio station.
Mrs. Miller sipped her milk and smiled. “So you’ve managed to find a way to keep your promise. And, knowing Amanda as I do, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you or blame you for Danny’s death.”
“I haven’t told her who I am. Exactly.”
Mrs. Miller’s eyebrows rose, and Dev flinched at the unspoken criticism.
“At first I couldn’t seem to find the right time and then the more I got to know her, the more I didn’t want to take the chance she’d . . .” Blame me. Hate me. Leave me.
For the first time this afternoon, Mrs. Miller regarded him with annoyance.
“Surely by now you’ve realized she would never think badly of you because of your part in Danny’s death? When he failed to answer her question, she continued testily, “I guess you don’t know her very well at all, then.”
“I do know her, Mrs. Miller,” he protested. “I know why Danny loved her. Why everyone who meets her loves her. Because I’ve fallen in love with her, too.”
“Ahhh,” Mrs. Miller said as understanding dawned. She didn’t smile but that twinkle was back in her eyes. “I guess you’ve got quite a problem then, young man. What’s your plan?”
Why did everyone assume he had a plan? He had no plan. He certainly hadn’t planned on blurting out his love for Amanda to Danny’s mom. If having a plan meant putting off the bad news until the last possible moment like a coward, then, yeah, he had a plan. If having a plan meant he knew a way to fix the situation he’d gotten himself into, then, sorry, folks, he was clueless.
Mrs. Miller sat patiently waiting for an answer to her question. Dev might as well have been a grade-schooler caught by the teacher with no homework to turn in. Excuses never worked in that situation either.
“Amanda’s under a lot of pressure right now with this big party coming up,” he said, trying an excuse on Mrs. Miller anyway. “I plan to tell her who I am as soon as it’s over. That way she won’t have to work with me when she . . . doesn’t want to.”
“You think she’ll be angry with you? Hate you, even, after you tell her the truth?”
He nodded.
“You’re right. She will,” Danny’s mom agreed, a little spark of anger turning those blue eyes into lasers.
Finally, someone who agreed with him. He should feel vindicated but instead he felt even worse.
“Oh, Amanda will be angry all right, but not because of your misplaced guilt over Danny’s death. She’ll be mad that you lied to her all these weeks. Because my guess is that if you’ve fallen in love with her, she must be feeling something too. Or she would have said goodbye to you already. This stupid game of hide and seek you’ve been playing will piss her off royally. I wouldn’t blame her if she drop-kicked you right into the bay.”
Perfect, Dev thought. He’d managed to put himself into a no-win position. Amanda would either hate him for letting Danny die or hate him for lying about himself. Either way, he’d lose. Which was, after all, exactly what he’d known from the start. Any ridiculous dreams of winning Amanda for himself had a half-life of about thirty seconds.
The white markers stood in orderly rows, stretching across the gently rolling acres of well-manicured grass with only the occasional tree to mar their symmetry.
In the distance, Dev could see the small gathering that marked the interment site of another fallen hero. They were all heroes in his opinion and he saluted them, grieved for them, wished he were one of them. The sad notes of “Taps” sounded faintly in the distance, carried on the warm spring breeze.
He stood at Danny’s marker and made his confession to the man he had so admired and now mocked every time he held Amanda in his arms.
I’m keeping my promise, Dan. I know it’s taken me a while to get my act together, but I’m taking care of Amanda—the best I can. She’s stronger than you might have thought. Maybe tragedy brought her strength to the surface. God knows she’s had plenty of it. She still loves you and misses you but she handles her loss with grace and dignity—you’d be proud of her.
The financial road’s been a little bumpy but I’m giving her a hand with that and after this damn party she’s organizing is over, I think she’ll be on her way in that department.
There’s only one problem, Dan. She doesn’t want to find someone else. She swears that she won’t fall in love again and I’m not trying to change her mind, because I don’t want her to. We’ve been together for the past couple of months. I’ve fallen in love with her, Dan, and I know that makes me the worst kind of bastard to betray your trust like this. But don’t worry. For her, our relationship means nothing more than friends. When I tell her who I really am, this strange and wonderful friendship will be over and I’ll be out of her life forever.
Sometimes I wonder if you anticipated that should the worst happen, Amanda and I would get together. But I know that’s just wishful thinking. Before I go, I’ll do my best to convince her to find a love to replace yours.
I miss you, buddy, and if I’d known how hard it would be to keep this promise, I don’t think I’d have given you my word on it.
The ceremony a few hilltops away had concluded, the mourners dispersing, a woman in black clutching the folded flag to her breast as a man and woman helped her to a waiting limousine.
His confession over, Dev started the long walk back to the parking lot. He’d made no request for absolution. He didn’t deserve his friend’s forgiveness.
CHAPTER 22
The day had finally arrived. After all the weeks of preparation, Amanda could hardly believe the event that had taken over her life would be over in less than twenty-four hours. She threw back the covers and stretched.
Spook
jumped onto the bed and purred mightily as she rubbed against her mistress, an unspoken request for breakfast. As soon as Amanda stood, the black cat raced for the kitchen.
The weather gods had smiled upon her. The cloudless sky was a sign the unusual warmth of the past few days would continue. Although they had made contingency plans in case of rain, she was glad the party would remain outdoors under the moonlight.
She padded to the kitchen in her bare feet, her furry slippers a thing of the past, ever since Dev and Jeff had installed the new heaters. She put on coffee, fed Spook, then dialed Zoe as she scanned the timeline she’d drawn up for the day’s preparations.
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