She threw up her hand, stopping him from getting any closer. “No need to be sorry, David. If you didn’t want to see me, all you had to do was be honest.”
“It’s not that at all,” he swore, the first few tears breaking free. “I’ve never lied to you. It’s just that… You don’t understand.” He was already struggling to take in oxygen.
“Of course I don’t understand, David,” she said, her voice changing from sorrow to anger. “And how could I unless you explained it to me?”
David considered this and shook his head. Life had dropped him to his knees, and the view was very different now. A full night spent on a park bench is much different from that same night on a rooftop, he thought. His innocence had been replaced by a harsh maturity. Things are different now. I’m different.
“Just because I didn’t experience what you experienced doesn’t mean I’m not here for you,” she said and began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, unable to say anything more. He was just trying to breathe.
“Oh David,” she squealed and hurried out of the kitchen, shutting the front door behind her.
I’m sorry, Lindsey, he thought, and began to weep mournfully—while gasping for air.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
The following night, David sat for supper with his mom and Craig.
“I have a job interview this week,” Betty told her boys proudly.
“Good for you, Ma,” Craig said, reaching for the large bowl of pasta.
“Your dad never wanted me to work, so I’ve never been on an interview. I’m a little nervous.”
“You’ll do great, Ma,” David said. “It’s about time you got out there and lived for yourself.”
The woman smiled gratefully.
“When are you going to tell me what it was like over there?” Craig blurted to David, changing the subject. “I’ve been asking for a week and you…”
Betty slapped Craig’s arm, stopping him.
“It’s okay, Ma,” David said and took a deep breath. “It sucked pretty bad I guess.”
Craig slid to the edge of his seat. “Yeah, I know that. But what happened when you first…”
David’s mind began to drift. He couldn’t help it. His breathing quickened and beads of sweat formed on his brow. Aware of his lack of concentration and the fact that he couldn’t stop squirming, he eventually stood and cleared his throat. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said and hurried out of the kitchen.
David rushed to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He splashed cold water on his face and then stared deeply into the mirror. “What is wrong with me?” he asked his frightened reflection. “Dear God, what in the hell is wrong with me?”
Avoiding any further conversation, David left the bathroom and sat in the living room recliner. He threw on the TV and, while Craig and his mom gave him his space, worked on calming his breathing. In desperate need of peace, he decided, Sleep, and lots of it, is probably best. It took nearly an hour, but he finally nodded off in the recliner.
Suddenly, David flew from the chair and opened his mouth to yell for help. He didn’t. Instead, he fell into a heap and began to cry. While his sweaty, trembling hands covered his face, he tried to catch his breath. He thought about telling Craig or his mother to call for an ambulance. No, he thought, no hospital. He climbed back into the chair. Am I going crazy, or is it some disease spreading through my body?
Minutes later, when the cruel wave had completely washed over him, he sat up to face another long bout with insomnia. It was becoming a nightly routine for him. He felt so alone.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Halfway across Gooseberry Island, Lindsey lay in bed staring out her window into the star-filled sky. How could I have felt so much closer to you when you were halfway around the world? she asked David in her mind. And now you’re only a few miles away, but you might as well be on Mars. She shook her head, breaking the first tears free. I miss you like crazy, and I have to believe that you miss me too. On the verge of sobbing, she watched as the North Star flickered brightly. Don’t you still see what I see, David? she asked in her mind. Don’t you still want us? She wept like a child.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
The following afternoon, David found himself in his own trusted physician’s office. Dr. Lauermann was a tanned, well-conditioned medicine man who was easy to talk to. “There’s no evidence of heart trauma,” Dr. Lauermann reported. “It’s probably just anxiety.”
“Just?” David asked, surprised. David was falling apart and felt ready for tears. He thought about his old friend, Coley. I need to go see him.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
A half hour later, David and Coley sat in the gleaming rag top. “Are you sure you’re not going to march in the parade?” Coley asked. “The whole island wants to give you and Max a hero’s welcome home.”
David shook his head. “Not a chance in hell.” He looked at Coley. “Did they already ask Max?”
Coley nodded and then grinned. “He said the same exact thing.”
David nodded.
“So what’s eating at you?” Coley asked.
David opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t. He realized, Coley will never understand. He looked at his friend. “I have to go,” he said.
Coley shook his head. “I’m here for you, you know,” he said.
“I know,” David said, “and I appreciate it.” And if I ever need pointers on picking up girls, you’ll be the first one I come see, he thought, smiling.
Coley nodded and jumped out of the Mustang.
It’s Captain Eli who I need to see, David thought.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
A half hour later, David was standing on the bow of Serendipity with Captain Eli.
“I don’t know what it is, Captain Eli. I feel so different now. There’s nothing really wrong, nothing going on, but I’m down. I’m always down and”—he shook his head—“when I’m not, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”
“You need counseling, David. I mean, my God, from the letter you sent me, there’s some pretty heavy stuff you need to process before you can get beyond Afghanistan.” He looked into his friend’s eyes. “You can only carry so much weight, David, before you break your back.”
David inhaled deeply. “But I was trained for everything that happened over there.”
Captain Eli reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. He handed the card to David. “His name’s Brad Perry. I’ve been seeing him for years.” Captain Eli shrugged. “What can it hurt?” he asked.
David looked at the card. Without thinking, he pulled out his wallet and slid it in. For years? he thought. What can it help?
A few golden nuggets of wisdom later, David headed back for the Mustang—feeling as lost as ever.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Surrendering to grief and despair, it was as if Denis Wood was forfeiting the rest of his God-given days on earth. Lindsey wished she could help him, but she’d tried everything she could think of. His scars were deep and the wounds beneath them dark and festering.
Weeks had already turned into months, and he was still at the VA Hospital, still cut off from her and the rest of the world.
The bloody nose and black eye were long gone when Lindsey finally went to see him. “Are you ever going to get out of here, or are you planning to stay forever?” she asked him.
He could barely look at her. “Seems it might be best for everyone if I stay locked up.”
“I disagree,” she said, and her hard tone forced him to look up.
“I…I…” He couldn’t articulate his feelings into words.
She took a seat at the edge of his bed and peered into his eyes. “Dad, I understand. It’s okay.”
“How is it okay, Lindsey?” he asked, almost at a scream. “What kind of father hits his daughter…the person he loves most in this world?” He shook his sorrowful head. “You’ve been there for me every step of the way, and it hasn’t been a fun trip…for either of us.” He pointed to her ey
e. “And how do I repay you? I…”
“You didn’t mean it,” she interrupted.
“What difference does that make?”
“All the difference in the world, Dad. You have PTSD, and I understand that. If you had diabetes, would I get angry at you when your sugar got low?”
“So it’s okay for me to slap you around when I don’t have my wits about me?”
“Not at all!” she answered defiantly. She looked at him and softened her tone. “We obviously need to come up with a better strategy, but you need to let go of your guilt for this. You need to forgive yourself.” She grabbed his hands and kissed his forehead. “Because I’ve already forgiven you.”
He opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t. Instead, he started to cry. At first, it was a few tears that he tried to conceal. And then he began to sob, harder than Lindsey had ever seen him. The pain was so intense, it was just oozing out of him.
She held onto his hands and cried hard right along with him. “We’ll be okay, Dad,” she whimpered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
In truth, she knew that their relationship had been reduced to small talk, Boston Red Sox statistics and an occasional visit to a safely selected memory. But it’s something, she thought. And he needs to know that he’s not alone.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
David had been home for six weeks when he pulled into the market, preparing to locate everything on his mother’s grocery list. As he approached the store, he spotted a young teenage boy walking out; he was holding a brown bag. An older man approached the boy and reached out his hand. David gasped and his dizzy mind immediately raced back to Afghanistan and the horrific beating of the young Afghan boy:
There was movement three hundred yards out on the street below. Unusual, David thought. It was a teenage boy, maybe fourteen, carrying a burlap bag and hurrying home before dark. Never seen him before, David thought.In a flash, a man—a Taliban fighter—jumped out of the shadows and grabbed the boy’s arm, pulling him to the street and spilling the contents of his sack. As the teenager yelled for help, another Taliban soldier emerged from the darkness. The boy screamed louder, but not a single soul came to his aid…
It only took a few seconds, but the whole scene played out in sequence in David’s mind—both men yelling and slapping the boy as he screamed for help, the slaps turning to a vicious beating until finally the boy was dead. He could almost hear Command say “Negative” again after he asked if he could intervene. He felt the anguish in his soul threatening to overwhelm him, but it was quickly replaced by a burning rage.
His eyes filled with tears, David returned to the present and started for the man in a mad rush. He was three steps from the shocked stranger when reality clicked in. It’s the boy’s father, he realized. He’s…he’s okay.
David’s body convulsed. He’d forgotten he was home, and the reality of it slapped him hard in the face.
The man pulled the teenage boy close to him; both of them were frightened by David’s sudden charge toward them.
“Sorry,” David said, though it sounded more like “Sigh.” Trying unsuccessfully to smile at them, he turned on his heels and hurried back to the Mustang.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
For the next hour, David sat alone in his car, trying to calm the physical effects of his anxiety. Once he’d reined that in, he spent another two hours beating back the depression that always followed in anxiety’s wake.
He wasn’t sure whether the abyss existed within his heart or mind, but he knew that he was now filled with a great void—nothingness. There was no light there, only darkness. There was no hope, only despair. In time, he’d learned to embrace the silence, as the screams and whimpers of faceless victims became echoes that returned again and again, pushing the line of madness. Yet, the solitude was relentless, enveloping, merciless. It would have been better had I never existed, he thought, fearing another moment more than cashing in and leaving it all behind. No love, he thought, no peace. His memories were slanted in such thick negativity that his entire past would have been better off erased. And no one knows I’m dying inside, he thought, inviting another wave of panic attacks to crash onto the shore of his weary mind.
He closed his eyes tightly and tried to calm the short labored gasps. Just ride the wave, he told himself. Just ride the wave.
But in another room in his mind, he knew that even if he rode that wave—and didn’t crack his skull on all the rocks beneath him—he’d have to take the ride again and again. It didn’t take long before the jagged rocks seemed like the more merciful option.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Enough time had passed for Lindsey to realize David was not coming after her. He’s obviously in a lot of pain, she thought, and doesn’t want to burden anyone with it. She shook her head. But I care way too much about him to let him go through this alone.
With Craig’s permission, she slammed David’s front door behind her and marched through the living room into the kitchen. “Don’t you dare play the coward with me, David McClain,” she shouted before even reaching the room.
As she expected, David had been staring out the kitchen window into nothingness. With tear-filled eyes, his head snapped up. “Don’t you ever call me that word…ever!”
She stared at him for a few long moments before her heart softened. “Then go ahead, tell me that you don’t want to see me anymore and I’ll leave you alone forever.”
He looked at her with tormented eyes but didn’t say a word.
“But you can’t, can you?” she said, her entire insides starting to tremble.
“It’s not you,” he vowed. “It’s me. I’m just not…”
“Don’t you dare feed me that tired line! I spent a year praying for you…writing letters and wishing for us to…” She stopped, trying in vain to contain her emotions.
His face looked panicked, as his mind obviously spiraled out of control to gather the right words. “I don’t have the words,” he said in less than a whisper.
“After the first time I came here, I thought for sure you’d chase after me,” she said. “I’m not stupid, David. I realize something happened over there that has you all twisted up. But I also thought that once you saw my face, you’d…” She stopped again and began to cry.
David placed his hand on hers. She started to pull away, but he stopped her, intertwining their fingers. “Lindsey, please…please don’t say anything until I finish. Just hear me out. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, her tears threatening to flood her face.
He took a few deep breaths. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I want you to know that I’ve never lied to you…and I don’t plan to now.” He shook his head. “I’m so messed up right now, Lindsey, I can’t even explain it.” He could barely hold eye contact with her. “I really hope we can be together someday…more than you can ever imagine. But I’m just not ready yet. I…I need to heal,” he stuttered.
She took a deep breath and held it.
“Torn isn’t even the word for what I’m feeling over this,” he babbled on. “The last thing I want to do is hurt either of us.”
“I don’t think we have to say goodbye, though,” she said, feeling the panic of desperation creep into her soul. “Don’t you remember the night we shared on that bench?”
His eyes grew even more distant. “I really wish things were different,” he said, “that life didn’t have to be so difficult.” He shrugged. “Time will tell, I guess.”
“You guess?” She returned his shrug to him, perturbed.
“Lindsey, I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that I don’t want to destroy any chance we might have at it…just because I might not be ready for it yet.” He grimaced. “I need time to find myself, okay?”
Lindsey, the child of a PTSD victim, shook her head. “You don’t have to find yourself, David. You just have to remember who you are…who you’ve always been.”
He nodded, tears streaming down his face.
Lindsey took a dee
p breath and surrendered. “David, I’ve told you the way that I feel for you and what I want for us. That’s all I can do. The rest is in your hands.” She peered into his dull eyes. “I can only hope that you’ll think of me every day, as I will you. I hope a lot of things, David.” She paused to collect herself. “Most of all, I hope the day will come when Afghanistan is behind you and we can fall in love all over again and catch up on all the things we’ve missed.” Mimicking him, she shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I guess time will tell.” She pulled her hand away from his and felt her heart rip clean out of her chest. “Until then, you’ll be in my thoughts,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry, Lindsey.” He sobbed, his shoulders rocking.
“I love you, David,” she said and, with one final attempt, grabbed his chin and forced eye contact between them. “Now tell me you don’t want to see me and I’ll leave you alone,” she whispered.
As he looked at her, Lindsey could clearly see the anguish in his eyes.
“You can’t, can you?” she said, hopefully.
His tears continued to leak down his cheeks. “I don’t want to see you…for now,” he said, and turned his eyes away from hers.
It felt as though someone had just slugged her in the gut. “Okay.” She gasped and ran out of the house crying harder than she’d ever cried before.
Long after Lindsey had run out of the kitchen, David remained catatonic—until he grabbed a drinking glass off the counter and threw it onto the floor where it broke into a hundred pieces. Enraged, he began smashing everything he could get his hands on in the kitchen. At the end of the violent outburst, he collapsed to the floor and began to weep. With his head in both hands, he screamed, “I love you, too, Lindsey.”
Day turned into dusk and, like most nights, just beyond the sobs and sniffles the world turned quiet and black.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
After four or five weeks of self-imposed solitary confinement—a punishment filled with death-defying panic attacks and long, treacherous tunnels of depression—David decided to reach out to the men he had served with. They’re the only ones who can relate, he thought. And I wonder how they’re doing…really doing?
Gooseberry Island Page 12
