by Karina Bliss
His grip tightened. “Blaming yourself won’t help anybody.”
“Coming from you…” she said with a weary laugh, opened the window, let the wind dry her wet cheeks. “You know the last thing Steve said to me before he left for tour? ‘I swear, honey, I’ll make it up to you when I come home.’ And I said—” Her voice broke, tears streamed down her face. “‘The only promise I need from you is that you’ll stay safe.’”
Loosening her hand from Nate’s, she opened the glove box and fumbled for the box of tissues. “So that’s two promises he reneged on.” She dried her eyes, blew her nose and hardened her resolve. “You ever wonder why I don’t ask for more details of his death, Nate?” The car bumped gently over the uneven ground of the shared yard. “Because I’m so terribly afraid his last thoughts weren’t of us.”
“Of course they were.” He sounded appalled that she’d think any different.
“You don’t know that,” she said, beyond weary. “Nobody knows that.”
The car stopped beside the bach. Nate jerked on the hand brake. “You were,” he repeated fiercely.
Shaking her head, Claire got out of the car. “Believe that if you need to,” she said. “I can’t.”
* * *
Nate stared after Claire as she disappeared into the bach.
Steve’s last words rang in his ears, resonating on a whole new level. “Tell Claire I’m sorry.” Sorry that he was leaving her? Or sorry he was breaking his promise? It dawned on Nate with blinding force that he held the missing puzzle piece that might help Claire forgive Steve.
He’d wrestled with telling her many times after the ambush, desperate to be punished when self-hatred wasn’t enough. But he could never justify the pain that would cause her.
Instead, she doubted Steve’s love, doubted his love for their son. Which pain was worse? The scales that had always been weighted against telling her the truth were now finely balanced. For some ten minutes he sat in the car agonizing.
Which was the lesser evil, which the greater good?
She had to know. For the sake of her relationship with Steve. For the sake of Steve’s relationship with Lewis, because Claire might not always be able to contain her anger. This then was his ultimate penance—telling the woman he loved that he’d left her husband to die.
He glanced at the dashboard clock. They had a couple of hours before Lewis arrived home. Nate could pack and leave before then, because once he told Claire, she’d want him gone. Sick to his stomach, he followed her.
He’d never allowed himself to consider a future with her. This shouldn’t hurt as much as it did.
She was emptying her bag on the dining room table when he walked in. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said, picking out a Tylenol bottle from the debris.
Nate forced himself to say the words. Forced himself because it was the right thing to do. “Steve didn’t die instantly.”
Claire turned. “What?”
“The explosion twisted the front of the Humvee and trapped his lower leg.”
“Oh, my God.” She fumbled to pull out a chair and sat down hard, her expression stricken.
Nate looked at the floor because it was the only way he could finish telling this. “I tried to free him after we’d stabilized Ross.” Involuntarily his fingers flexed. He could still feel the weight of the crowbar, slippery with blood and sweat, still recall his increasing desperation as he strained every muscle to bend the twisted bull bar.
His body might be standing in a living room in Stingray Bay, but he was back in Afghanistan, struggling to free Steve. “We were under heavy fire,” he said. “They had an RPG launcher. With every shot, their aim improved.” There was a tremor in his voice, a tremor in every limb. “Steve told me to go,” he rasped. “I did.”
He heard Claire suck in a breath. No sugar-coating this.
“I told him I’d come back for him, but we both knew there wouldn’t be time for that. As I hauled Ross over my shoulder, Steve said…” Nate lifted his gaze, met Claire’s shell-shocked eyes. “‘Tell my family I love them. Tell Claire I’m sorry.’” He returned his gaze to the floor. “I should have stayed. I used Ross’s life as an excuse to save my own. In battle, a soldier has only one certainty. That his brothers will never leave him…” The trembling in his limbs reached his voice. “That he’ll never be abandoned.” His eyes burned, but he would not cry. He had no right.
Instead, he waited, arms held rigidly by his sides, for whatever punishment Claire wanted to mete out. If she told him to crawl out of here like the yellow-bellied coward he was, Nate would do it. For the first time he registered that his shoes were flecked with grass—the mowing contractor had been in their absence.
He could hear Claire’s breathing, halfway between a sob and a gasp, but made no move to touch her. That would only be adding insult to injury. Her chair scraped across the floor as she stood up.
Claire stumbled into him, her arms encircling his waist. She rested her cheek against his chest. For a moment he stood frozen in bewilderment. “What are you doing?”
Her arms tightened—such a powerful clasp for a small woman. “It’s not your fault.” Then she began to cry, great wrenching sobs that forestalled further argument. Gently, Nate freed his arms, shepherded her to the couch and held her while she wept.
Chapter Eighteen
Claire felt the same horror, the same shocked disbelief as in those early days following Steve’s death. Nate left her briefly to find a box of tissues and a blanket, which he laid over her shoulders. “Tell me he didn’t suffer,” she sobbed as he gathered her close again.
“He didn’t suffer.” The conviction in his voice comforted her.
“It’s so hard to bear, Nate,” she wept. “So hard.”
He rocked her in his arms. “He died loving you and Lewis so much,” he said brokenly. “Maybe his last words were an apology? Forgive him, Claire, please. Don’t abandon him like I did.”
She struggled to a sitting position and fumbled for the tissues. “I’ll forgive him,” she said when she’d blown her nose, “when you forgive yourself.”
His mouth tightened.
“Steve would never think three men dying instead of one was justified. If the situation had been reversed, you would have done exactly the same thing.”
“You don’t know that.” Bleakly he repeated her earlier words. “I don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Integrity was in every fiber of this man’s being. “You had no choice but to leave Steve and carry Ross to safety and he had no choice but to make you,” she argued passionately. “Because you’re both good men.” She wept again for all of them. “Can’t you see it took as much courage to leave as it did to send you away?”
“I was running for cover when the Humvee got hit, and the blast threw me into a ditch. I came to with Ross sprawled unconscious on top of me, looking at a patch of blue sky through the black smoke. And my first feeling was relief that I was still alive. Not concern, not grief but gladness, Claire. That’s what I can’t live with.”
“Oh, Nate.” Her heart broke for him. “Our primary instinct is survival, don’t blame yourself for that.”
He shook his head and she felt helpless against his guilt. He would never have left Steve if he didn’t have Ross’s life to save. He always put others before himself. And Steve had used that to make Nate go. Suddenly she saw her way forward.
“Steve saved your life,” she said. “Don’t you dare dishonor his sacrifice by wasting it in misplaced guilt.” Claire gathered all the sternness she could muster. “Don’t be selfish.”
Nate winced. “Have I been selfish?” he said, and she had to frown to hold back tears.
“Yes.” Steve had made the wrong decision in going on tour and she and Lewis would forever pay the price of that. But he’d made right choices, too. Unable to save himself, he’d saved Nate, and by saving Nate, he’d saved Ross. For the first time since his death, Claire understood him, and in understanding him
she let go of the anger. It had always been a defense mechanism. Her heart overflowed with love—for Steve, for Nate, for herself and Lewis. There was enough to go around again, for everyone.
She cupped Nate’s jaw in her hands, looked deep into his eyes; let him see the truth in hers. “I forgive Steve,” she said. “And I forgive you, Nate. Do you hear me? And if I can forgive you, then it’s only arrogance that stops you forgiving yourself.”
Tears filled his eyes. She couldn’t ever remember him crying, not ever, even when Steve and Lee died. He bent over his legs and wept and she wrapped her arms around his broad back, holding him while he did, her own grief spent.
“It’s going to be okay,” she told him. And believed it.
By the time Ellie dropped Lewis home, it was dark. They arrived with a newspaper parcel of fish and chips, which the four of them ate with squeezes of lemon juice, to cut through the delicious grease of the battered schnapper. Claire licked her fingers when she finished and said it was one of the best meals she’d ever eaten.
She could feel more tears building for another cry later, but she couldn’t regret Nate’s confession.
Showers hadn’t done much to repair the effects of this afternoon’s catharsis; both of them looked like wrecks, pale with red-rimmed eyes.
Claire told Ellie she thought she had a cold coming, which had triggered her headache. Ellie looked at Nate and suggested he might be catching it, too, which enabled him to plead an early night and leave for the boat shed immediately after dinner.
Claire waited until he’d left, then said, “Oh, I forgot to mention something about tomorrow.” Running after him, she hugged him briefly and hard. “Sleep well, Nate.”
He returned the pressure, dropping a light kiss on her hair. “Good night, Claire.”
They both needed to be alone now, but as he walked into the darkness, the flashlight beam dancing ahead, she felt easy about him. He was going to be okay. She was going to be okay. She had to believe that.
On her return a few minutes later, Ellie and Lewis were watching TV. “Stay the night,” she said to Steve’s mother. “Drive home in daylight. You take my bed and I’ll sleep in Lewis’s room. I’ll lend you nightwear.”
“You know I will,” Ellie said. “It’s been a busy day.”
“Let me make you a hot chocolate.”
“Should you be in bed, honey?”
“Soon.”
After she’d delivered the drinks, Claire nudged in between them on the couch, suddenly loving them so much that she could have cried again, simply for the gift of them in her life.
Ellie glimpsed her watery eyes as she passed her the hot chocolate. “Don’t you give me your cold,” she warned. “It’s full on in the shop this week.”
Claire laughed. There went her precious moment. “I’m thinking it’s more a spring hay fever thing. Really, I’m feeling a lot better. What’s on the box?”
“Top Gear,” Lewis said, his gaze glued to the television. His favorite British motoring show. He crossed his feet at the ankle, showing off his new Converse shoes—bright red suede.
“Cool shoes,” said Claire, and he gave her a swift grin.
“I know.”
“Thank you, Nana,” she prompted.
“I already said it.”
She jabbed him in the ribs.
“Thank you, Nana.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie…. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re getting a cold, Claire. This bach needs more insulation.”
“Are you chilly?”
“A little.”
“Here.” She reached for the blanket folded over the back of the couch and covered everyone. Lewis frowned but didn’t protest when Claire snuggled closer. They watched television and sipped their hot chocolate.
Nate had said Steve didn’t suffer. She had to keep reminding herself of that. Tears threatened, and she blinked them away. Shortly after his death she’d worked out what she’d been doing at the time of the ambush. Rushing through the supermarket, hurrying to make sure she was home for Lewis when school finished. And now she knew that across the world her husband had been sending his last goodbyes.
“You know, I will turn in,” she said.
“Want anything, sweetie?”
“No, I’ll leave a nightgown for you on my bed. Good night.” She bent to hug her son, distracting him from the television with her intensity.
“What?” said Lewis.
“I love you.”
Lewis hesitated. “Me, too.” He was already returning his attention to the screen. Claire laughed and embraced Ellie.
“Love you, too,” she told her mother-in-law.
“You’re very affectionate this evening.” But Ellie held on equally tight. “I think your color’s returning,” she added when they separated.
“I think so, too.”
Claire collected nightwear for Ellie, a new toothbrush and clean towel and laid them on her bed. In Lewis’s room, she folded back his covers and laid out his pajamas, feeling Steve’s presence as she went through the domestic rituals. What mattered was that she’d been keeping the home fires burning when he’d said his goodbyes.
Lewis had taken a framed picture of his dad to Dan’s. She noticed he’d finally unpacked and replaced it on the nightstand. Picking it up, Claire looked at the man who’d shaped her adult life, then hugged it to her breast. “Goodbye, my darling,” she whispered. “Rest in peace.”
* * *
The boat shed was cold when Nate unlocked the side door. Pointing the flashlight at the barometer in the wheelhouse, he saw the temperature was actually warmer tonight than it’d been the last couple. Odd. The smell of varnish and new paint mixed with packed dirt permeated the air and the handrail slid smoothly against his palm as he descended the narrow stairs into the cabin and found the switch.
He stood for a moment after turning it on, looking around the cabin’s womblike interior, conscious of the jewel colors of the soft furnishings, the golden glow of the kauri table and galley counter. Kicking off his shoes, he lay on top of the bedcovers and stared at the pearlescent white of the low ceiling overhead, its smoothness a testament to Claire’s careful painting.
His mind was an exhausted blank, but his senses were alive to his surroundings, sensitive in a way they hadn’t been for a long time. To shapes and colors, to temperature, to smells. He fancied he could even distinguish the lingering aroma of coffee left in the plunger on the counter from this morning.
On impulse, he got up and warmed some in the microwave, adding two sugars and milk. He cupped it in his hands, and the warmth permeated to the bone, then lifted the mug to his nose and inhaled deeply. The first taste was sweet. Two and he’d had enough of the richness.
Satisfied, he put it down and returned to bed, stripping to his underwear before sliding between the sheets. The cool linen softness bringing unexpected tears to his eyes. He wiped them away with his forearm, felt the skin prickle as they dried.
He closed his eyes without turning off the light. Only then did Nate register the silence. The boat shed was exposed to the elements and any breeze rattled the loose roofing iron. It was eerie somehow. Even unnerving.
And then faintly, high in the eaves, he caught the faint chirrup of baby birds through the open cabin door. He’d forgotten to shut it and the light was disturbing them. Reluctantly he flicked the switch and prepared for another insomniac’s night.
But tonight the darkness was friendly. Tomorrow, he thought, his body growing heavy as he relaxed into sleep. Tomorrow I’ll tell her the rest.
But it would be okay because there was nothing left to be ashamed of.
Chapter Nineteen
Two days later Nate stuck his head around the door of the Whangarei house. “That’s the tools sorted,” he said to Claire. “A sweep-out and the garage is done.” She was sitting on the wooden floor in the living room, taping up the last of the boxes destined for the bach. Only the furniture going into storage remained and the movers would pick i
t up this afternoon.
She started almost guiltily and picked up the tape. “Oops,” she said. “You caught me slacking off.”
“It’s been a long morning.” He hesitated. From the kitchen came the bang of a cupboard door where Ellie was scrubbing out shelves. Even from here, he could smell the cleaning products. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she reassured him, pulling tape along the box. “I’ve been moving on for a while.” There were dents in the carpet from the coffee table, pinholes in the wall left by the picture hooks and a couple of scuff marks on the skirting board from a ball or skateboard. A good house, a family house.
“Still, it can’t be easy leaving a place you and Steve lavished so much DIY on,” Nate said. It had become a standing joke in the unit, the Langfords spent years renovating.
As he’d hoped, Claire laughed. “And it only took fifteen years to knock into shape.”
“Lewis, take that dratted ball outside!” Ellie’s raised voice wafted from the kitchen. “I’ve just washed that cupboard door.”
“It was an accident!”
Claire pushed to her feet and picked up the taped box. “Time for an intervention.”
“Let’s take a break,” Nate suggested. “We’ve been working all morning.”
“Good idea, there’s a picnic hamper in the car.”
“I’ll get it. Here, give me that.” He took the box from her. “Get some fresh air.”
Smiling, she touched his arm. “Thanks.” There was an understanding between them now, a quiet and considerate tenderness. Physical awareness was still there, but it was muted, patient, waiting for the right time. This period was a deep breath between the past and the future. Steve was forefront on both their minds, but gently.
