Well, too bad. Daniel slid his hand down Brenna’s arm and took her hand. “Sam.”
Sam looked at him as if to say: So this is why you’re so distracted from the documentary.
Brenna, reading Sam’s body language, glanced at Daniel, her hand uneasy in his. He lifted their twined hands and pressed a kiss against the backs of her fingers. The hell with Sam’s unspoken censure. This was his life.
Sam clopped across the driveway in his cowboy boots and stopped directly in front of him, looking from him to Brenna and back.
Brenna’s chin rose. “Sam,” she said coolly. “How nice to see you.”
Sam’s gaze slid to the silver-handled cane. “Bronco busting?” Double entendre with a drawl as wide as the Texas plains.
“Stepped on a land mine while she was on assignment for EBS,” Daniel interjected. Let Sam worry about a lawsuit. Let him be nice to Brenna. Very nice. She didn’t need attitude.
Sam issued a broad smile. “Happy to see you’re mending.” He hesitated, lifted the envelope. “Proofs for the posters and DVD covers.”
The Art Department was digitally-capturing images from Brenna’s video footage and using them for artwork.
“Why don’t you come in?” Brenna said, staking out home turf. “I’ll fix you some coffee.”
Daniel stifled a laugh. Brenna didn’t know one end of a coffeemaker from the other.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Sam said.
Daniel gestured toward the house and Sam took the lead up the path. Hanging back, Daniel took pity on the old man. “The filters are in the cupboard above the coffeemaker,” he whispered to Brenna.
“Filters?”
While Sam and Daniel spread out the artwork on the dining room table, Brenna went to the kitchen. She stopped in front of the coffeemaker, studying it. Filters. Who knew? She opened the cupboard, found the paper cones and a mason jar of freshly-ground coffee. She supposed there must be some ratio of coffee per cup of water. Trying to remember how Dr. J made hers back in Kavsak, she busied herself with the scoop.
The coffeemaker gurgled and steamed. She placed two mugs on the peninsula counter, along with two spoons and the sugar bowl. She searched the fridge for half-and-half to pour into the cream pitcher.
Daniel and Sam had their backs turned and were studying the materials laid out on the tabletop when the machine finished dripping and the coffee was the color of midnight. She brought the pot over to the counter, filled the mugs, and set it down.
“What do you think?” Sam asked, turning to her, holding a poster in each hand. “This one—?”
The poster featured an enlargement of a ruined street in Kavsak’s old quarter, fresh mortar shell debris billowing out from an already-savaged storefront as pedestrians ran for cover. She vividly remembered shooting the scene, as she remembered everything she had photographed. Shelling the already-shelled, the picture said. How many times are you going to kill us?
“—Or this one?” Sam held up the second poster.
She gasped. Squeak. Trusting baby looking out behind her crib rails.
Daylight became a pinpoint. Brenna’s knees buckled. She clutched the countertop. She felt herself sliding.
“Brenna!”
She heard Daniel’s voice, sensed him racing toward her, catching her as she hit the floor.
Squeak.
Hours later, she woke in bed. The house was dark and silent. She vaguely recalled the glass of water at her lips, Daniel’s order to swallow a pill. Hazily recalled Daniel’s remonstrance to Sam: “Jesus! You think these pictures are make-believe? She was there. I was. It’s not a movie and you step into daylight again. It brings back memories.”
She sat up in the captain’s bed and rubbed her face. She was so tired of secrets. So tired of being ambushed. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She was going to take the advice Daniel gave her, back at the Naval Medical Center: Die on your own terms. With grim determination, she reached for the cane.
Time to walk into gunfire.
Daniel was at his desk, a video editing program open on his large-screen Mac computer. He was taking notes, so immersed in his work that he didn’t hear her come to the door.
The footage Daniel had shot of her cradling Squeak was playing on the screen. Brenna looked at herself. She appeared so tender, so doting. She heard her own voice, murmuring sweet things to Squeak. There was no hint of the betrayal to come.
A wave of nausea swept through her. “I traded her,” she said, her voice a scratch.
Daniel swiveled his chair, surprised to see her. “What?”
She cleared her throat. “I traded Squeak—all the children.”
“Traded? What do you—?”
Her stomach twisted. “Maric let me go. But first he made me choose who I took with me. The children. Or you.”
Horror dawned on him. He was home, alive.
She glanced over his shoulder at the computer screen. “You probably don’t want to use that footage,” she said. “Makes me look like someone I’m not.” She turned away.
“Wait.”
She stopped, in a cold sweat, steadying herself on the door frame.
“That’s how you paid for me?” he asked quietly. “With the lives of five children?”
“Four. Mr. Fierce was already dead.”
He grunted the way she’d heard men grunt when they took a bullet in the gut and it tumbled through them, ripping their entrails as it went.
She lurched away, bile rising, stomach churning.
Daniel sat there, dumfounded, the full meaning of Brenna’s disclosure slowly sinking in. Four children. Heckle, Jeckle, Grub—and Squeak, the infant Brenna loved. Babies. Innocents, whose lives lay ahead of them.
Sacrificed.
To save him.
His heart spiraled as he pictured Brenna, alone in that awful apartment with a heavily-armed Nationalist squad. Forced to make an abominable choice.
He sprang up, went after her.
Halfway down the stairs, he heard her in the bathroom, vomiting.
He took the rest of the steps two at a time, pushed the bathroom door open, plucked the glass off the edge of the sink, rinsed it, and filled it.
Her body was wrenching violently over the toilet bowl, ejecting everything lodged inside her. She’d scarcely eaten during the past couple of days, and still her stomach tried to disgorge more. It wasn’t the contents of her stomach that she needed to rid herself of, it was the sickness in her soul.
He flushed the toilet, crouched beside her and held the glass, waiting for her body to subside enough that she could try to drink. She was down to dry heaves now.
She moaned miserably, her whole body shaking uncontrollably, her skin sweaty and goosebumpy at the same time.
He wet a washcloth and wiped her face.
She crossed her forearms over the bowl and rested her head on them, too weak to sit up.
“Try some water.”
She retched violently, gasping as if she’d been submerged too long. “I didn’t save you,” she said, after the spasms stopped. “I saved myself.”
“What?”
“He put his gun to your head. Said that if I didn’t choose, he would. I couldn’t stand to see you die.”
The pressure building in his chest splintered, flew in all directions.
“The children were in the other room.” Her voice broke, gave way to inchoate grief. “I wouldn’t have to see what he did to them.”
He thought of that last day in Kavsak, when they had sped up the hotel parking ramp in Jasha’s Golf, how she had closed her eyes then, too, and he had realized she’d already witnessed more than was humanly possible.
“Bren.” He eased back against the bathroom wall, drawing her with him, enfolding her with his arms and legs.
Too feeble to put up more than token resistance, she sank against his chest.
He caressed her silently, lips pressed against her hair, thinking about how awful her pain was and how much he loved her and how
much she must hate him.
Later, cold and stiff from being on the floor, he moved her to her bed.
He slid in beside her, covered her with his grandmother’s quilt, shushing her as she cried out in fitful sleep. The leg was nothing. This was the wound that threatened her life.
At dawn, she cried out, sat suddenly upright, breathing raggedly, reorienting herself to the room. Her eyes landed on him, fully-clothed beside her, watchfully regarding her. What are you doing in my bed? her expression said.
She looked away, got out of bed without saying a word, limped to the bathroom, closed the door. And locked it.
He went upstairs, praying it was safe to leave her alone for a few minutes. He took a fast shower. At the vanity, a towel wrapped around his waist, he patted shaving foam on his face and brought the razor to his face.
He stopped, looking at his reflection. This was what Brenna saw. The man who hadn’t protected her. The man who cost her the infant she loved.
Even if he had been shot outright, it would have helped her, prevented Maric from holding him hostage and forcing the unthinkable on her. His death would have saved her from carrying this awful burden. It would have saved the children.
He brought the blade to his chin.
He thought he’d left hell behind. He hadn’t. It had followed him and Brenna home.
Brenna pulled on a pair of cargo pants and a turtleneck—the protective clothes she used in battle—and ordered herself to sit in the family room to face Daniel. She’d started this and had to finish it. She chewed her thumbnail as she waited.
Daniel’s bedroom door opened, and she heard his measured footsteps as he descended the staircase.
She had no idea what to say, how to face him after last night. She’d confessed without an iota of grace and gone on to puke her guts out. She hadn’t prepared him for her revelation, just blurted out what she’d done then let it crawl over him like some nasty infestation.
He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, shifting his shoulders, uncomfortable in his skin but attempting composure. James was right. The man had grace.
She’d signed the death warrants for four children—and still Daniel treated her decently.
He came around the sofa and sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing her. He smiled, a bittersweet lift of one corner of his mouth, while his face registered sadness, regret, disappointment.
He took a breath to speak, then closed his mouth, thoughts un-uttered.
She felt as though she had a bone sticking sideways in her throat. “Nothing can be said that changes the facts,” she finally said, her voice a croak.
His shoulders slumped. He bent his head and stared at the floor.
Her silence—the awful thing she’d done—occupied the space between them.
He picked up the phone from the coffee table and walked out to the deck, dialing as he went.
“James,” she heard him say, before he pulled the French doors shut and walked down to the garden.
He returned a few minutes later and held out the phone to her. “James wants to talk to you,” he said.
She took the receiver.
Daniel went upstairs to his office.
“Bear?” she heard. “Bear, are you there?”
She raised the handset to her ear. “Yeah.”
“Hey, Bear,” James said, the way he did when she was hurt.
Tears pricked her eyes at the sound of his voice.
“James,” she whispered.
“Aw, Bear.”
She clasped her hand across her mouth, trying to stifle the sob bubbling up in her.
Her brother waited, a steady presence at the other end, the lifeline Daniel had spun out for her.
She sniffled, rubbed the tears off her cheek with the palm of her hand. “What did he tell you?”
“It was an impossible choice, Bear. Children or Daniel, you couldn’t win.”
“It wasn’t the choice Daniel would have made.”
“It wasn’t his decision to make.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry, Li’l Bear. So sorry this happened to you.”
Her throat tightened. Nothing could be undone or reversed. “James. I need you to come get me.”
Daniel came downstairs at noon to make soup and sandwiches for himself and Brenna. Work hadn’t gone well. He’d just sat in a daze at his Mac. He couldn’t concentrate. Emotionally and psychologically, he was in a shambles.
Nevertheless.
Sam’s arbitrary deadline was fast-approaching. If Hugh Driscoll was hired as Senior Vice-President of Programming, Daniel was going to be out looking for work. He couldn’t leave EBS with a failed project to his name. No one would hire him.
So far, he had structured the documentary as a personal journey, slipping facts and background information into each of the distinct segments of the experience, providing insights on what it did to a man’s concept of himself. Replaying the footage from the nursery, he pondered Brenna’s solicitude with Squeak and her subsequent abandonment of the infant in order to save his life. What the hell could he write about that?
He stopped midway to the kitchen. Turned to glance at the family room. Brenna was not in her usual spot. He called out, alarmed not to see her.
She answered from her room. “In here.”
Her voice sounded odd. He made haste to her doorway.
Her bed was stripped, the quilt neatly folded, the sheets in a clump, ready to be washed. She was sorting clothes, placing his in a pile, hers in the duffel bag that James and Gary had brought from her house, with her clothes. His heart plunged. “Bren.”
“James is coming for me,” she said, her hands shaking. “He’ll be here soon.”
“Brenna. I didn’t call him to come get you. I just thought—”
“That I needed someone to talk to,” she interrupted. “I know.” She picked up his blue polo shirt, the one she had borrowed after they’d made love in his room that day. “He didn’t push me, I just…”
“Jumped.”
She sat down suddenly on the bare mattress.
“Bren—”
“Don’t.” She crumpled his shirt in her lap. “I can’t think about it.”
Looking down at her, watching her lock down her emotions, he understood why she had never said she loved him. How could she even look at him and not remember she’d exchanged the lives of four children for his? He didn’t know how she’d managed to stay in the same house with him all this time.
His throat tightened with grief. Dear, tiny Squeak. Brenna had cherished her, and given her up for him. Nothing he could say or do could make up for that loss.
This moment—her departure—had been inevitable. She’d tried to love him, but the obstacle was just too large.
He went to her, rested his fingertips on her bowed head, sad beyond measure, and then turned and left the room. Don’t argue. Exit gracefully. The last thing either of them needed was further injury.
James pulled into Daniel’s driveway at two o’clock, cut the engine, and pulled up the emergency brake. He got out of the car, stretching, and saw Brenna sitting on the front steps, her hand on the duffel bag beside her. His heart stuttered. Li’l Bear, always running.
Daniel was nowhere in sight. The front door of the house wasn’t even open to suggest a connection between his sister and Daniel’s home.
She started to get up, but he got to her first and rested an allaying hand on her shoulder. She flinched. Touch was too much for her right now. She was holding herself together—which for her always meant withdrawal.
“I’ve got to pee,” he said, making the excuse so he could go inside and check on Daniel. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been gored by the events in Kavsak, too. “Why don’t you get in the car? No. Leave the bag. I’ll bring it on the way out.”
Brenna let him take her hand to help her up. She didn’t have the aid of the walking stick.
He bounded up the steps to the front door. Brenna looked delicate. He didn’t want
to leave her alone too long. He walked across the foyer, expecting to see Daniel in the family room, but spied him sitting on the steps of the back deck, staring at the garden, a mirror image of Brenna out front.
Daniel turned as James opened the French door. “James,” he said, remaining seated.
James patted his shoulder and sat beside him. Forearms on his knees, he studied a distant point in the garden. “I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. Daniel would have made a good addition to the family. “Truly sorry.”
Daniel tipped his head, shrugged with one shoulder.
“Maybe…if I can get her to talk to someone, she can square this away, you know, and you two—”
“No.”
“Daniel—”
Daniel stood abruptly. “No.”
James’ heart sank. Daniel had given up on the relationship. Hell, he couldn’t blame the man. Brenna had never truly bought in. She was too broken, maybe past fixing. “You gonna be allright?”
Daniel shrugged. “Sure.”
“Well.” James got up and brushed off the seat of his pants. “Thanks. For everything, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded curtly.
James placed a hand on his shoulder. “Call your Mom,” he said. “Doctor’s orders. You’re not unscathed in this, and I don’t just mean because of Brenna.”
Daniel looked away from his computer screen, so bleary-eyed that when he checked the clock on the shelf above his home office desk, it was blurry. Two-thirty in the morning. He’d been working since six the morning before, fuelled by caffeine and Sam’s impossible deadline.
He sat back, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He should go to bed. Put his head on the pillow for a few hours, and start again in the morning. Not that he’d get all that rested, if the past ten days were any indication. His brain was stuck in spin cycle, his emotions so turbulent he did little more than flop around on the mattress.
Four children.
Their faces haunted his dreams, ever-present reminders that Brenna had saved him—not them. He knew it was unfair to judge her desperate actions, taken under unimaginable circumstances. But the thought crept in: How could she have?
He’d been talking to his Mom a lot, using her as a sounding board to process the thoughts and feelings boiling inside him since Kavsak, and since Brenna’s departure. The insights he gained became part of the script he was writing. The questions he couldn’t resolve became questions in the documentary.
Day Three Page 50
