by Amy Woods
Isaac’s chest tightened at the bittersweet picture she’d painted.
“Thank God I had Sophie with me over there. I don’t know what I would have done without her.” Avery’s words came out a little squeaky and she hurried to tuck into her food.
They ate quietly for a while and Isaac relaxed into the silence. Jane and Foggy were lying under the table next to each other, their tongues hanging out.
They both took big bites of their fajitas and giggled as juice inevitably escaped to roll down their chins. Isaac pulled out a piece of chicken, wiped off the sauce and pretended to drop it under the table so that Jane could pick it up.
“Can you feed them people food?” Avery asked.
“Yeah, you can give them plain meat, particular veggies and fruit, eggs, stuff like that. Remind me later and I’ll print you out a list of doggie no-nos. Certain things, like grapes and chocolate, are dangerous and potentially deadly to their systems, but there are quite a few things they can share with us.”
He shook his head and gave Jane a look.
“I would not recommend feeding them from the table most of the time, though,” he said. “It’s hard to get them out of the habit of asking for scraps once you start. I’ve already ruined Jane for that. Foggy’s so well-trained that you might be able to get away with it on occasion.”
He pointed as Jane put on her very best sad face and rested her furry chin on his knee. “See what I mean?”
“Oh, goodness,” Avery said, cooing. “She’s too cute. How can you possibly resist her?”
“That’s just it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I can’t.”
“I miss Sophie so much, sometimes,” Avery said, so softly Isaac wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
“You were close, huh?” he asked.
Avery nodded, her lips forming a thin line.
“We grew up together and hung out all the time, but we weren’t that close until we decided to join the army. I’d finished getting my RN at community college and was ready for a change, and, well, Sophie was tired of working low-paying jobs to get by. You know how Peach Leaf is,” she said, glancing up at him. “Not a lot of work to go around.”
He nodded in agreement. It was true. Lots of folks who were raised in their small town couldn’t find well-paying jobs. The options were simple: go off and get a degree or other vocational training, or work for peanuts. Most people who left didn’t come back, finding that they’d outgrown their hometown. Isaac could totally understand and had grown up telling himself he’d never come back except to visit Mom and Nana, but after he’d been gone a few years, he’d begun to miss something about this place. Even if it wasn’t perfect, and hell, nowhere was, at least there were people in Peach Leaf who knew his past, who knew who he was down to his bones and knew what he’d come from and where he’d been. There was something solid, something important about a person’s home. You might not always love it, and you sure as hell might not always like it, but home was home. He imagined Avery knew that very sentiment well.
“I do know,” he said, giving her a soft smile.
“So Sophie and I decided to go big or...well...stay home.” Avery grinned. “So that’s what we picked. She didn’t meet her husband until later, on one of our visits home, and then they had Connor a ways down the road.”
“It must have been hard, being so young and leaving your family.”
Avery shook her head. “Well, I don’t know if Tommy’s ever told you, but our parents were killed in a car crash when I was twenty-two and Tom was a bit older.”
“God, I’m so sorry,” Isaac said, putting down his fajita. He touched Avery’s hand and she closed her eyes, evidently enjoying the touch he’d offered to soothe her. “You’ve been through so much for someone your age.”
“That might be true, but you know, things could always be worse. I’m lucky to have Tommy and Macy and the kiddos, and this town, and I was lucky to have Sophie and to make it home in one piece. Or, you know, mostly.”
Avery choked up a little.
“I just wish, sometimes—” she looked up at him under hooded eyes, as if choosing her words with caution “—sometimes I wish that Sophie had been the lucky one. That it had been she who made it home alive.”
Isaac winced at her words and at the similarity they held to some of Stephen’s later statements. He put down his food, suddenly not hungry anymore.
“Avery, please don’t say things like that.”
“I’m sorry, Isaac. I don’t mean to be morbid, and I don’t mean to sound like I’m not thankful to be here, but there are times when I think... I mean, I can’t understand why it was me and not her.”
She poked at her fajita with a fork, pushing around the contents that had escaped the flour tortilla.
“It’s my fault, you know,” she said. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”
Avery’s eyes glistened with moisture and Isaac reached over to stop her anxious fidgeting, covering her hands with his own.
“How can you think something like that?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her eyes huge and shiny and full of sorrow.
“Because it’s true.”
“Look, Avery. Whatever happened, whatever you think was your fault, please believe me that it wasn’t. I know you.”
Her brow furrowed and he could sense her skepticism.
“I know, we’ve only known each other for less than a month, but don’t tell me that I can’t feel your heart after that amount of time. You know there’s something...something going on between us. Something special. And I don’t need much time to be a good judge of character. And your character, Avery, it’s the best.”
She smiled sadly and he wondered if she didn’t believe him. It would take more than words to convince her that what he felt was real and true.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the whole story,” she said, pulling her hands away from his to rub at her eyes.
“Then tell me. Tell me the whole story.”
She closed her eyes and Isaac gave her the time she needed, taking a moment to check on Foggy and Jane under the table. The two dogs were snoozing side by side, their limbs and tails curled up, as though they knew they were meant to be together.
If only it were that simple with people.
If only he could convince Avery that he would be here for her, that he would support her as long as she would let him. That he wouldn’t let what happened to Stephen, happen to her. He’d dedicated his life’s work to ensuring that for as many men and women as he could help, but he hadn’t known until Avery how much it really mattered that his program worked. It really could mean life or death for certain veterans. And those lives—lives that had been offered up in the most dangerous situations imaginable in an attempt to stand for the freedom of humanity—mattered. So much.
He looked up from under the table to check on Avery and noticed instantly that her expression was one of terror.
“Avery, what’s wrong?” he asked.
The color had drained from her face and her skin was white as a ghost despite the afternoon heat, and her eyes were huge as she focused on something in the distance. Isaac followed her line of vision, but all he could see at the end was a man about his age, and a cute little boy who looked to be three or four years old.
Avery got up from the table as if in a trance, heading toward what he assumed were the dad and son.
“Avery. Avery?” he called after her, but she either ignored him or couldn’t hear.
Isaac checked on the dogs again to make sure they were still asleep and hurried after her.
* * *
As soon as she’d seen them in the distance, Avery was pulled in their direction as if an invisible fishing line had begun to reel her in.
Nathan and Connor Harris.
Sophie’s Nathan and Connor.
Her best friend’s husband and son were sitting at a table enjoying a meal of their own, not too far from where she and Isaac had sat down to eat. Even from a distance, Avery could see lines on Nathan’s young face that shouldn’t have been there yet. He looked way too old for a man in his midthirties.
And it was Avery’s fault.
She didn’t know what she would say when she arrived at their table, which now seemed miles away as she trudged forward as if through mud. She just knew she had to see them, had to get close. She needed to make sure that they were okay.
Nathan had refused to speak to Avery at Sophie’s funeral, and she couldn’t blame him. She had decided that he agreed with her that it was her fault his wife, her best friend, was gone.
Nothing could convince her otherwise. It was her idea to trade shifts that day. It didn’t matter why. It was her decision that had cost them all an amazing woman. How could Nathan—and even Connor, one day, when he became old enough to learn what happened to his beautiful mother—ever forgive her?
How could she ever forgive herself?
She neared the table and Nathan looked up, the smile that had covered his face as he watched Connor play with a fire truck evaporating when he saw who approached. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood, covering the distance between them to meet Avery before she made it to where they sat.
“Avery,” he greeted awkwardly, placing nervous hands in his pockets. She couldn’t read his tone; it was absent of any emotion that might give her some clue as to how he felt upon seeing her.
Suddenly, she regretted coming over, wishing she’d opted to grab Isaac and run instead.
What had she been thinking?
They weren’t exactly on decent terms. She had no right to just waltz up to Nathan like this and remind him of something he probably tried every minute of every day to forget. Just glimpsing her face probably brought back a million painful memories.
Suddenly, Isaac was at her side. She could feel him there as if he were a part of her own body, but for some reason she wasn’t able to pull her attention from Nathan.
“It’s been so long. I haven’t seen you around town,” Nathan said, his words shaky but not unkind. What had she thought he would do? Yell at her in a public place? It would be what she deserved.
“It’s...good to see you, Nathan. How are you holding up?” The words burned her throat as they came out.
“I’m actually doing okay,” he said. “Despite...everything.” He tried to smile but it wouldn’t quite take. “How about you, Avery?”
“The same,” she said.
“How’s your family? Tommy and Macy and the kids?”
Images flashed before her eyes of all of them gathered together, the Thanksgiving before her and Sophie’s last tour. It was the last time she’d seen Sophie with her boys, and her heart ached at the memory; she was suddenly quite certain that her chest was going to explode.
“Nathan, I’m so sorry.”
He held out his hands. “Don’t say that, Avery. You know it won’t help.”
“But I am,” she said, taking a step toward him.
Warmth spread through her lower back. Isaac’s hand was there, holding her steady, but she couldn’t look at him, afraid that she might cry if she did.
And she couldn’t cry. Soldiers didn’t cry. Tears were for release, to make people feel better. Avery wouldn’t allow them.
She remembered when she and Sophie had first gone into that home to speak with a few of the local women who had gathered for tea. Avery’s job was to check on them, to see if they needed any medical care or advice, to build trust so that they could later ask questions, draw information. Sophie, a fellow medic, was her partner.
They’d been surprised that day at how much they enjoyed spending time with those women—sweet, shy ladies who were apprehensive at first, but opened up over several weeks, eventually inviting Sophie and Avery to come by weekly. She and her best friend, using what little they’d learned of the local language and a lot of smiles, had established a repertoire with them, had almost come to trust them, though they both knew that was a very dangerous place to tread.
Avery felt the desert heat again, the dry, sandy air surrounding her as she cared for an injured patient that morning, a soldier who had lost a leg to a daisy-chain IED only an hour before. She’d stayed late to prep him for emergency surgery and, when Sophie showed up to relieve her, had offered to extend her own shift so she could check on the progress of her patient.
Avery found out later that Sophie had decided to use the extra time to meet with the women, eager to get back early enough to take a Skype call from Nathan and Connor before picking up Avery’s later shift. Sophie had taken another soldier with her, and they had both lost their lives when a bomb exploded inside the house where they met.
If Avery hadn’t been so invested in working on that soldier that morning, if she’d just checked out and let Sophie work her regular shift, her best friend would be there now, sitting in the park with her husband and son, just as she should have been.
“Nathan, please. You have to know how sorry I am,” she said, careful not to let her voice break.
“I can’t do this, Avery. Not here, not with Connor.”
She looked over Nathan’s shoulder at the little boy. With his auburn hair, bright emerald eyes and a sprinkling of freckles like cinnamon across his button nose, he was the spitting image of his mother. Nathan must have seen her every day in their child.
“Can...can I see him? Can I talk to him?” she asked, folding her hands together at her waist.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed and he averted his gaze from hers, his jaw clenched.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Avery. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can handle it right now.”
She closed her eyes, willing the tears to stay put behind her eyes.
Isaac’s voice came, low and soft. “Is everything all right, Avery?” He didn’t bother introducing himself to Nathan. As it had been for the past couple of weeks, all of his attention and concern was focused on her. He was an amazing man, better than she deserved.
How could she let herself be so happy in his presence when her best friend was dead and it was all her fault? How could she allow herself joy when Sophie would never breathe again, would never again hold her little boy or see him graduate, get married?
Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t.
Everything went blurry and she had to get out of there before she got lost again in the past.
“I’m so sorry, Nathan,” she said, then turned and began to run.
She ran until she got to the duck pond and stopped, her breath coming in fits and starts as the panic threatened to return. She would never outrun it, could never escape it. It would always be there, lurking in the corners, ready to attack her at any second. She would never be safe again.
Her knees buckled beneath her at the reminder and she sat on the ground with a thud, curling her arms over her head as the tears broke free and spilled forth, dropping like rain into the dirt beneath her.
“Avery, sweetheart, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Isaac’s arms were around her and he was rocking her back and forth like a child. He sat next to her and pulled her into his lap, wrapping her up and soothing her, stroking and kissing her hair.
Safe in his embrace, she let the tears come again.
Foggy forced himself into her lap and curled into a ball, raising his head to lick away the moisture from her face and all of a sudden, Avery started laughing. And then she couldn’t stop.
We must look ridiculous, she thought, like a crazy, mismatched set of Russian nesting dolls.
She laughed and laughed until her stomach hurt, knowing it was her body’s weird way of reacting to all the pain that had surfac
ed when she’d seen Nathan. She wished he’d let her near Connor. All she wanted was to look into his little face and see Sophie again, just one more time.
But she understood. She didn’t have the right to ask such a thing. Nathan had already suffered enough at Avery’s hands.
Isaac’s arms loosened and she felt his chin nestled between her shoulder and neck. She leaned back into his chest, savoring the feel of his strength against her back for just a moment. He didn’t speak for a long time, just held her and let her cry softly.
“I’m a hot mess,” she said finally, earning a little laugh from him.
“Everyone is, Avery. Everyone’s a hot mess at some point in life. I don’t think there are too many who make it out of here without some crap happening that breaks them apart for a while.”
“Yes, but I’m the worst.”
“No,” he said, “you’re not.”
“How do you know?” she asked, turning so she could see his face just above her shoulder. She scratched behind Foggy’s ears.
“I just do,” he said. “But, Avery, you scared me back there.”
“I’m sorry. That was Nathan. He’s...”
“I know, I guessed. It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize. I just got worried. I thought he might be upsetting you and I didn’t want you to be afraid.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. I just misjudged the situation. I thought maybe enough time had passed that he would let me see Connor again. We all used to be so close and I miss that kid. He doesn’t understand that his mom is gone, and to tell you the truth, I don’t really, either, sometimes. I just thought if I could see him... I know it’s crazy, but I thought... I thought for some reason that it might make me miss Sophie less. He looks so much like her.”
Isaac nodded, his stubbly chin tickling her cheek.
“But Nathan’s right not to let me near him. I’ve already done enough damage as it is.”
“I don’t think that’s the case, Avery, but we don’t have to talk about that right now if you don’t want to.”
