by Liz Durano
“You were busy, Sawyer. You and Todd were building your earthships and you’d just gotten that job guarding the rich and famous.” I pick a loose thread from the napkin I’m holding in my hands. Next to me, Tyler is happy with his cereal. “But I think the change in routine affected him the most. He loved being a Marine. He loved leading his men. But as much as Drew also liked the idea of leaving the Corps so we could live in his hometown, he didn’t expect to hate the absence of a structure. It also didn’t help that he couldn’t get the jobs he wanted.”
“I referred him to the agency that I work for,” Sawyer says, “Trident Elite.”
“They didn’t take him.”
“I heard.”
And he was angry with you for not pushing for his hiring. You had clout. You knew the owner from when you were kids, I almost add. It was one of the things Drew grew to resent about Sawyer later on though he only said it out loud once.
If they’re so fucking elite, why’d they hire a cripple like Sawyer to guard some billionaire when I’m so much better than he is? I’ve served longer than he did. And I sure as hell don’t have shrapnel stuck in my leg stopping me from running after the bad guys.
“What about therapy?” Sawyer asks, his deep voice breaking through my thoughts. “Was he getting that from the VA for his PTSD?”
“He said it didn’t do anything for him. He didn’t like the therapist that he had to see and he went through three of them in a span of six months. He said they didn’t understand what he was going through,” I reply. “But don’t get me wrong, Sawyer. He tried. They also gave him medications but he hated them because the ones that helped him sleep gave him nightmares—intense ones. Sometimes he’d start swinging and shouting. It was scary.”
Sawyer reaches for my hands and holds it between his, his blue eyes grounding me as I continue.
“The day he died, Drew texted me while I was at work. He told me he loved me and that he knew I’d be a good mother to our son. I knew then something wasn’t right.” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. “I rushed home but the police were already there when I arrived. The neighbor made the call.”
The moment I finish speaking, the tears come. I pull my hand from Sawyer’s grasp and dab my eyes with the napkin. I hate crying in front of him or anyone for that matter. I’ve had to appear strong for Tyler’s sake, even during Drew’s memorial when my contractions were coming at one hour intervals. I had had the worst timing but it couldn’t be helped. They were still too far apart for the hospital to admit me and I had a memorial to attend for Drew’s sake. At least, Tyler was born without any complications later that evening.
Sawyer continues to hold my other hand. “Alma, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have done more for him. After that day when I came by, he wouldn’t take my calls.”
“You tried, Sawyer, and that’s what matters,” I say. “But nothing’s going to bring him back now.”
“Did his parents know about his PTSD, about how bad it was?”
“Does it matter now if they did?”
I hate that I’m suddenly short but I can’t stop myself. Drew was a private man. He didn’t want anyone to know about his problems; even his family didn’t know. To them, he was the son they always knew, the hometown hero who visited his old high school to talk about being in Marine Corps, and that’s how Drew liked it. He was determined to leave a legacy his family would be proud of even though the demons he fought in that desert followed him home and changed him.
And I’m determined to keep it that way because even after everything that happened—the arguments behind closed doors, the broken furniture and punched-out walls, the flashbacks and that morning when he choked me—Drew was a good man, a Marine who put his life on the line countless times to save others and a husband who tried his best to be the man he used to be. And no matter what happens, I’d rather have people remember him for the hero that he was, the son his parents adored, and the amazing husband he could have been—not the stranger who slept next to me in bed night after night, the tortured man who would later end it all because he believed the demons inside his head. He believed everyone would be better off without him.
But even though he’s gone, I’ll never forget the promise I made to him that day, that no one would ever know the darkness that overtook him. And no matter what happens, it’s a promise I’m determined to keep.
3
Sawyer
Ten minutes later, I follow Alma back to her apartment a few miles away in San Pedro. I’m surprised to find that her apartment is not in the best part of town. It’s not in the quietest part of town either, not with a car repair shop next door, the constant drone of an air compressor serving as background noise along with the whine of an air ratchet.
When I step through her front door, it feels like I’ve entered a stranger’s house. It’s a far cry from the places she and Drew used to live in where the walls were covered with framed pictures of places they’d been together and the shelves held her books. Drew told me she turned every place they lived into a home and he was right. Alma knew just how to turn any drab space like home with warm colors and handmade touches. But in this apartment with its off-white walls and impersonal furniture, other than Tyler’s toys on the floor, one framed photograph of her and Drew taken during their wedding next to Drew’s memorial burial flag in a display case and a poem torn from a poetry book and framed, there’s nothing else that tells me it’s her home. Is this what grief looks like?
“I’ll be right back,” she says as I shut the front door behind me. “Could you keep an eye on Tyler for me? I’ll just take a few minutes.”
“Sure,” I reply as she sets Tyler in his playpen and disappears down the hallway.
I turn my attention to Tyler who’s banging away on a piano-like toy and he stops and looks at me. He pulls himself up and holding on to the railing, watches me intently. I’m struck by how much he looks like Drew with his intense blue eyes, light blond hair and broad grin.
“Hey, little dude, how ya doing?”
Tyler replies with a hearty laugh and ba-ba before attempting to pull himself up over the railing.
“Whoa, Ty! Hang on. I gotta ask your mama, okay?” I say as he lifts his foot against the netting, seeking a foothold. “Hey, Al, is it okay if I hold Tyler?”
“Sure,” she says from the bedroom and I turn to look at Tyler again, grinning.
“Looks like a jailbreak is on the schedule.” He shrieks happily as I carry him across the room like an airplane a few times before I sit on the couch and set him on the floor next to me. As he holds on to my hand, gazing at me intently, his blue eyes remind me just how much I miss his father. He should be where I’m sitting now, holding his son. When Tyler reaches for my face to touch my beard, I pretend to snap at his fingers and he laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen.
The front door suddenly swings open and a blond man walks in. He’s wearing a dirty white t-shirt and torn jeans, flip flops on his feet. He looks like he just rolled out of bed. My stomach tightens. Is Alma seeing someone?
“Who the fuck are you?” He glares at me as he slips the keys into his back pocket, his chest puffed up. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. “Guess the bitch found herself a replacement already. It didn’t take her long to move on, did it?”
From the hallway, Alma rushes out of the bedroom carrying a shoe box. “Kevin, get out.”
“I’m here to see my nephew,” Kevin says as he approaches Tyler but I pull the child toward me. I remember him now: Kevin, Drew’s baby brother. After the way he just spoke to Alma, he could be the President of the United States but there’s still no way I’m letting him do whatever he pleases, definitely not with me around.
“You can’t just come in here any time you want, Kevin,” Alma says as she sets the box on the table and takes Tyler from me. “If you want to play with Ty, you wait until I bring him over your parents’ house tomorrow. We already set the rules, remember?”
“So says the wo
man who couldn’t even be there for my brother when he needed her the most. You left him, Alma. That’s why he killed himself, and that makes you a first class bitch in my book,” scoffs Kevin. As he speaks, he casts a sideways glance at me as if he wants me to see that, like a dog claiming his turf, this is his. “I don’t want the same shit to happen to my nephew, you just getting up and leaving him.”
“That’s it, kid. You heard the lady. Get out.” I grab Kevin by the arm and drag him toward the door.
“Get your fucking hands off me or I’ll call the police, man,” he protests as I pull the door open. “You her new guy? Because let me tell you, man, she’s gonna leave you like she did Drew, left him cold and he killed himself because of her.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, kid,” I say through gritted teeth. “Drew shooting himself is not Alma’s fault. He had PTSD and that’s not something anyone can control as easily as you’d like to believe. So get your facts straight next time.”
“I don’t care. If she only stayed with him, he would still be alive today,” he says, almost spitting out the words.
“You can tell yourself that lie all you want, but that’s not how it works.”
“Yeah. Like you know how it works.” He scoffs.
“You know how it works?” I say angrily, my voice lowering as I continue. “You can’t close your eyes because all you see are the friends who didn’t make it, the brothers who went out on patrol and didn’t come back alive. The people you had to shoot? Some of them might have been women or children. But because they were running at you with an RPG in their hands, it’s either them or your unit. Imagine seeing that every time you close your eyes. And that little thing on the road that could be a piece of trash? It just might be an IED and you don’t want to get yourself all blown up.” I pause, seeing his eyes widen with fear. “I could tell you what your brother saw… the things he told me, but it’s not going to be worth it. Not for you because you won’t understand, and you won’t care.”
Kevin’s eyes are as large as saucers and I swear the kid’s using. “Alright, alright, man. I got it. Let me go, alright? You don’t have to be overdramatic about it. Jesus Christ, you’re fucking crazy.”
“Overdramatic? Is that what you’d call what your brother went through?” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “There’s nothing overdramatic about war. Nothing.”
Kevin stares at me for a few moments. “I know who you are now. You’re Sawyer.”
“Yeah. And?”
“That’s why you’re here,” he says. “You waited until my brother was gone before you made your move on her.”
“Kevin, I get it. You hate me,” Alma says calmly, the steel in her voice evident. “But if you don’t leave right now, I am calling the police.”
Kevin presses his lips together. I see his jaw clench as he glares at her. “Bitch–”
“Get out,” I growl, pushing him out the door. “And don’t come back here until you learn some manners.”
I close the front door and turn to face Alma as she rocks Tyler in her arms, her face pale. “Why the hell does he have the key to your place?”
“I didn’t give it to him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she replies as she sets Tyler on the floor. He’s stopped crying, his attention on the box that Alma set on the coffee table. “I gave Drew’s parents a copy of the keys when Ty and I first moved in, just in case I’d lock myself out. When it happened, Kevin was the one who came over with the spare and he helped himself to a copy.”
“That’s called trespassing, Alma. Why didn’t you call the police? Drew would never stand for that kind of behavior from anyone, not even from his family.” Even Drew knew his parents wasn’t thrilled about Alma. To them, she was just a girl who went after Marines for the benefits. It didn’t matter to them that Alma was working towards her Masters in Early Childhood Education and had dreams of opening her own preschool.
“But Drew’s not here, is he?” she counters. “Besides, there’s no point in calling the police. I’m moving at the end of the month, and no, I’m not giving anyone the spare key.”
Suddenly the sparseness of the apartment makes sense. “The end of the month is in a few days. Where are your moving boxes?”
“I rented this place furnished so it’s mostly just Ty’s stuff and my clothes,” she replies. “The stuff from the old house is in storage.”
“Where are you moving to?”
“I’m still looking. Not a lot of landlords are eager to rent to an unemployed single mother,” she replies, ruffling the top of Tyler’s head as she sits down on the couch next to him.
I almost tell Alma that it’s not like her to be this unprepared, but then what do I know about her? Other than she’s the woman Drew pursued right before we deployed six years ago and then married as soon as he got back seven months later? He was crazy about her. It was love at first sight and you just don’t argue with that. I saw it the night it happened.
“So let me get this straight, Al. You’re moving out in a week but you’ve got no definite place yet?”
“I’ve got one more place lined up to see this afternoon. But don’t worry about me, Sawyer. I’ll find a place.” She takes the box she set aside earlier on the coffee table and hands it to me. As I lift the lid, she pulls something from her pocket and places it on my palm. “This fell out of the box when I was taking it down from the closet. I don’t want to forget to give it to you.”
I recognize Drew’s beat-up compass right away and I feel all the color drain from my face. It feels like someone just punched me in the gut and I let out a ragged breath before sitting down. I close my eyes, the room seeming to disappear around me and in its place, other images come, fast and unrelenting. The desert, the threat of the enemy hiding in the tree line to the west of us, and then the boom when Smith took the wrong step.
“Are you okay?” Alma asks, her voice sounding distant as I force myself to look at the compass again. It’s Drew’s, all right, his lucky charm. Just about every Marine had one. Along with a picture of Alma tucked in his pocket, the compass was Drew’s.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just never expected to see this thing again.” The last time I saw Drew holding the compass was the day we hit that IED, before we set out to get into position. We were all tense then. A sniper’s bullet had barely missed us a week before, hitting the tree between us and spraying bark all over Drew’s face. I still remember Jonas joking as we dropped to the ground.
Not today, motherfucker.
I turn my attention to the box on my lap and lift the lid. Besides the compass, the box contains random souvenirs that I recognize immediately. A group picture of the unit when we first arrived and then another taken a few weeks before we were scheduled to return home, missing a few friends. I pick each one and study it. Pieces of shrapnel, empty bullet casings, a creased map, and an Afghan afghani. Some things we weren’t allowed to take home with us, some we took anyway. And then there were those things you didn’t have to see to know what they were, like the promise that went with the compass—a promise I’d long forgotten.
“Do you know why he gave it to you?” Alma asks as she sets Tyler on her lap.
I clear my throat, my mouth suddenly dry. In my mind, I can see Drew rubbing the cracked glass just before slipping it back into his pocket that morning. “It’s a promise we made to each other when we were first deployed.”
“To keep each other on the right course no matter… no matter what happened.” I barely finish the words, the realization that there’s another promise that comes with the compass, the one I can’t tell her, hanging at the back of my mind.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Villier. If anything happens to me, you know what to do, right?
Shut up, Thomas. Don’t talk shit. We’re going home in two weeks.
I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and index finger, willing the tears not to fall, my other hand tightening around the compass. “I should have been there for
him, Al. I should have known he was hurting. Instead, I failed him. I fucking failed him.”
As I utter the last four words, I’m grateful that Alma doesn’t say anything. With Tyler on her lap, she wraps her arm around my bicep and leans her head on my shoulder. It’s a move so subtle yet speaks volumes, a reminder of the bond the three of us used to share before things got complicated between us—before I fucked things up.
4
Alma
Sawyer and I don’t speak for a few minutes. There’s not much left to say about the matter, really. I’ve rehashed it in my head again and again for the last year since Drew killed himself and I’m tired of asking the questions that will never get any answers. I just hope he found peace in the end. I hope one day, I will, too.
A few minutes later, Tyler starts pulling on my top and I raise my head from Sawyer’s shoulder. “Do you need to leave right away? I have to nurse him.”
Sawyer shakes his head, wiping the moisture from the corners of his eyes sheepishly. “My flight isn’t in a few hours. But if you’d rather I leave…”
“No, of course not. But I need to nurse him and then get him to nap.” I unwind my hand from his bicep and get up from the couch, Tyler still perched on one hip. “If you can stay awhile, that would be great. I’ve got water and juice in the fridge, and some fruit, too.”
He smiles. “Go and do what you need to do, Al. I’ll be fine here.”
As I make my way to the nursery, I can’t help but feel safe with Sawyer. He didn’t have to defend me against Kevin but he did. After losing Drew and being blamed for his death, Sawyer’s defense means a lot to me.
Half an hour later, I quietly step out of the nursery and see Sawyer standing in front of the entertainment center. He’s holding the framed poem in front of him, his expression distant, as if deep in thought. Besides our wedding picture and Drew’s memorial flag, William Henley’s poem Invictus is among the precious few things that got spared from being put into storage. It’s a reminder that I’m the master of my fate, the captain of my soul. Too bad, I haven’t heeded its message since Drew died.
