“He’s a SEAL,” Lani snapped. “What do you think?” Then she winced. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about him.”
“Of course you are.” Maura touched her shoulder. “But sharing in a group isn’t everyone’s style. It might not be Geo’s, and that’s okay.”
Frustration made Lani’s voice sharp once again. “But it’s not enough just to talk to me, is it?”
“For some people, the relationship is more important than the expertise,” Maura said gently. “He obviously trusts you, and I have a feeling that trust isn’t easily given. He also knows you’ve been where he is, that you’ll listen to him with empathy and compassion, and without judgment. Don’t underestimate the power of any of that.”
With a final pat to her shoulder, Maura moved off to greet some other new arrivals. Lani stalked out through the open door to the large patio and sucked in huge gulps of the sea air, her stomach churning.
Being a part of this group had helped turn her life around. Before it, she’d been isolated, convinced she was alone. Learning to understand herself, and her grief, had enabled her to loosen her grip on the past and embrace her new life without the self-doubt that used to dog her every step.
She wanted that for Geo. With every bit of her heart and soul, she wanted that for him, too.
“Hey.”
The husky drawl behind her made her whirl around, the sight of Geo’s tentative smile flooding her with relief. “Oh! Hey, you.”
“Guess I’m in the right place after all,” he said. “Wasn’t sure for a second. Wow.” He gazed over her shoulder at the stunning ocean view. “I totally didn’t expect this.”
“I think everyone expects the dingy church basement.” Lani studied his face, and although his cheeks looked a little pale, the warmth in his eyes was genuine. “How was your morning?”
“Good. Spent some time with Renae.”
She listened as he told her about his visit. “Going over there is something I never would’ve wanted—or had the courage—to do on my own. Thank you. It helped both of us, I think.”
He seemed to stand a little taller, as if some of the weight on his shoulders had finally been lifted.
“Oh, I’m so glad.”
After a quick glance around, Geo bent his head for a kiss, which lingered just long enough to turn her knees to jelly. “So what do we do now?”
Still quivering, she took his arm and led him back into the bright, airy room. “Now we eat.”
The laughter and conversation flowed as the fifteen members of the group helped themselves to the delicious spread of food. Geo loaded his plate sparingly and barely touched what he did take, his discomfort apparent in the set of his jaw and compressed lips.
Maura was right, Lani thought anxiously, watching him. He’s not going to open up here in front of all these strangers.
As the lunch went on, though, several people approached him to introduce themselves, like this was any old social gathering. Their friendliness, along with the beautiful setting and casual vibe, eventually seemed to put him more at ease.
“This is, uh, different,” he muttered at one point, slinging his arm over the back of her chair and leaning close. “Not what I was expecting at all.”
“Which was what? A bunch of wild-eyed people clutching tear-stained Kleenex?”
“Umm...”
She chuckled. “Sometimes it’s like that, if someone is having a particularly bad day. What’s wonderful is how we all help each other. Whatever someone might be struggling with, it’s likely that someone else has already experienced that, and maybe found a way through it. We’re here to support each other, which is all we can do.”
Blowing out a breath, he sat back again, leaving his arm where it was, his thumb idly stroking the ball of her shoulder.
After the meal wound down and everyone settled in with their desserts, Maura said, “For those who haven’t had a chance to meet him yet, this is Geo.”
Some murmured greetings, which Geo acknowledged with a lift of his hand.
“Geo’s loss is fairly recent, within the last year, so we all know he’s still trying to find his footing in a lot of ways.” Maura turned to him. “Feel free to just listen and absorb today, okay?”
Lani could see a bit more of his tension ease, and he nodded, his hand heavy and warm as he relaxed it against her upper arm. She reached over and squeezed his knee, leaving her palm splayed over his muscular thigh.
“So, my friends,” Maura was saying, “how has your story changed since we last met?”
A few people shared their victories, and ongoing struggles, before Bruce said abruptly, “I keep going over what you said about acceptance, and I don’t think there’s any way to accept that I drove my daughter off that bridge almost as surely as if I’d pushed her myself.”
As Bruce spoke, Lani couldn’t help but remember Maura’s earlier words about grieving styles. If Geo’s style was to hold it close to him, Bruce’s was to talk about it. He described his daughter Christie’s struggle with addiction, her unwillingness to go to rehab, the untold chances he’d given her to seek help before finally drawing the line in the sand and telling her that she had to move out.
“She begged me for just two more weeks,” Bruce sobbed. “Just two more weeks. But I’d already given her months, and I’d had enough. Tough love, right?”
Despite the fact everyone in the group had heard this story countless times before, nobody acted impatient, or bored, their attention fixed unwaveringly on Bruce as he struggled to live with something Lani wasn’t sure she herself could bear.
Once again, she breathed a silent prayer of thanks that her last memories of Tyler were good ones. Geo sat frozen next to her, the muscles of his thigh bunched tightly under her hand.
“The next morning she drove onto the bridge, parked her car and jumped off.” Bruce sucked in a breath. “I killed her!”
The people on either side of him reached out to grip his shoulders in support.
“No, Bruce,” Maura said. “She killed herself.”
“Because of me! If I hadn’t kicked her out, she’d still be alive!”
Lani’s heart ached as Maura took him through it once again, reiterating the fact that he hadn’t been responsible for Christie’s actions. “You were only doing what you thought was right at the time. If you’d known Christie was going to kill herself, you would have acted differently, but you’re not omniscient. You can’t blame yourself for something you didn’t know would happen.”
His face pale, Bruce whispered, “I’ve never told anyone this before, but—” He seemed to steel himself, then blurted, “A few minutes before the cameras on the bridge said she jumped, sh-she called me.”
Around the circle, eyes widened, and even Lani had to fight an involuntary gasp.
Maura remained unruffled, her voice calm. “And you didn’t answer.”
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t want to talk to her.”
“Because you were angry.”
“Yes. I wanted to teach her a lesson!”
Next to Lani, a giant shudder went through Geo’s body, and his fingers dug almost painfully into her arm.
“I wanted to show her that Dad wasn’t going to be at her beck and call anymore,” Bruce said raggedly. “I declined the call, and a few minutes later, she jumped. How the fuck am I ever gonna accept that or live with the guilt of knowing I killed her?”
The people next to Bruce continued to hold on to him as Maura got up from her seat and pulled her chair over to sit in front of him knee-to-knee.
“Let’s try something,” she said softly. “Let’s try replacing the word guilt with the word regret, okay? When you think of Christie, instead of ‘I killed her,’ try saying, ‘I regret that I chose that particular time to draw my line in the sand.’ Or, ‘I regret my anger in that moment.’”
Bruce mopped
his face.
“Something else to add to that,” Maura said, “is to make what I like to call ‘living amends’ to your loved one, which is taking the action with others that you wish you’d taken with them in that moment. For example, Bruce, you might say: ‘My living amends to Christie is that I will always answer my phone, especially after an argument.’”
Bruce was already shaking his head. “That’s too simple—”
“But sometimes the simplest things are the most obvious,” Maura broke in gently. “Not answering the phone didn’t cause Christie’s suicide—her mental illness did. The fact you had a complicated relationship with her, and the fact that your last interaction was acrimonious, doesn’t negate the fact that Christie was ill and she lost her battle with that illness.”
She reached out and took Bruce’s hands in hers. “I’m not saying it’s easy, or that it ever goes completely away. Some days I struggle with regret so crippling I can barely breathe. Vincent was my son. As his mother, how could I not know he was in so much pain?”
Bruce squeezed his eyes shut.
“My work here is part of my own living amends to my son. Finding meaning in his death has helped me move forward, and I want to help others find their way forward, too.” Maura released him and sat back. “You regret the things you said to her. You regret not answering the phone that morning. But you’re not ‘guilty’ of anything except being human.”
Letting her gaze drift around the room, she said, “My friends, thank you for being here, for witnessing Bruce’s grief. Thank you for letting him witness your own. Sharing our pain, and having it reflected back at us, reminds us that we’re not alone.”
Next to Lani, Geo grunted, his hand slipping off her shoulder. Then he got up, yanked open the sliding glass door, and walked away.
* * *
“Should I go to him?”
Indecision roiled in her gut as Lani gazed out over the sand toward Geo’s distant figure. He sat facing the ocean, unmoving, his arms linked loosely around his upraised knees.
Next to her, Maura said, “I don’t know him as you do, my dear. What are your instincts telling you?”
“That if he really wanted to leave, he would’ve taken his bike and gone.”
“But instead, he’s sitting on the beach in plain sight.” Maura’s voice was soft.
Raking her hair back from her forehead, Lani bit her lip. “If I go to him, I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Well, to start with, just sit with him. Whatever he’s trying to work out, he’ll let you know if he wants to talk about it or not. If he does, then listen. That’s all.”
With a reassuring pat to her shoulder, Maura went back inside to join the rest of the group.
After another long hesitation, Lani finally made her way down the stairs and headed out across the sand. She could tell the moment he heard her scuffing toward him, because he turned his head slightly, shoulders bunching up.
She fought the impulse to turn and scurry away. What if he didn’t want her here? How dare she intrude?
Before she could retreat, Geo swiveled around to face her. “Hey,” he said, then reached out his hand.
Relief making her knees weak, she grasped it and lowered herself to sit at his side. For a while, neither of them spoke. She could see him watching her out of the corner of her eye, so she kept her expression smooth, serene.
“Are you mad at me?” he finally asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“I’m sorry I left like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s just—” He combed his fingers through the sand, sifting it, his throat working “—that Bruce guy, you know? His story hit a little too close to home for me.”
She waited, and when he didn’t go on, asked gently, “Why did it hit close to home?”
“Because—” Tilting his head back toward the sky, Geo sucked in a few deep breaths. “Because, like him, I missed my chance to stop it. Stop Cade.”
“So tell me.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not an easy story to hear—”
“I know. Tell me anyway.”
Lani kept up the comforting touch as he described Cade pulling a gun on Bosch after threatening an unarmed prisoner. “That was him unraveling in plain sight, and everyone had an excuse: ‘Cade’s burned out.’ ‘He’s been through a lot.’ ‘He just needs time.’”
When he paused, she said, “I think most people have preconceived notions about those who die by suicide. We don’t picture them as high-achievers, popular or larger-than-life.” Like a Navy SEAL. “Instead, we picture someone who cries all the time and is clearly depressed.”
Geo gave a jerky nod. “He had been through a lot. But the guys were getting sick of his unpredictability, and I was still pissed about how he’d pointed his gun at my dog, his own teammate. So when—” He broke off, his body coiling, tensing.
Before he could push to his feet, Lani slid her arm around his waist to anchor him. “No. Don’t run away from this anymore, because it’s eating you alive. Talk to me, please.”
A giant shudder went through him, and he clenched his fists, the knuckles white. Just when she was sure he wouldn’t answer, he ground out, “In our team room, we had a message board with all of our names on it. One night, after a clusterfuck of a mission, I was headed to bed when I saw that someone had—” He swallowed hard. “Someone had written ‘We don’t fucking want you here’ next to Cade’s name.”
“Ah.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Did you write it?”
“No!” The word burst out of him with a vehemence that left no doubt he was telling the truth. “But I—” His head drooped. “I also didn’t erase it. I left it. To teach him a lesson. To let him know that his actions were affecting unit cohesion.”
Her thumb rubbed his nape in soothing circles. “Which they were.”
“Yes, but—”
“Had you seen that kind of thing before? A message on the board like that?”
“Shit, yes. Dozens of times.”
“So it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. When you saw them before, would you ever erase them?”
“No, because they didn’t happen unless the dude deserved it.”
“Did Cade?”
Geo didn’t answer.
“From what you’re saying, it sounds like he was becoming a danger, not only to unit cohesion, but to people’s lives. Bosch’s life.”
When he still didn’t answer, she took another tack. “What would happen when the other guys would get those messages intended for them?”
“They’d either get their act together or be forced out of the unit.”
“Did they kill themselves?”
He blinked, his jaw bunching. “No.”
“Did any of them?”
“No one did. They fixed their shit or got out.”
“Okay. So I think we can conclude that messages on a white board don’t make people kill themselves.”
“But—”
“If you’d known Cade’s state of mind in that moment, you would have erased it.” She squeezed the back of his neck. “If the guy who wrote it knew, he wouldn’t have written it. But you didn’t know, and the things that were done, the things that were said, were things that’d been done and said dozens of times before. Right?”
Geo stared straight ahead.
“You didn’t do anything differently that night than what you’d always done. Someone thought Cade needed a wake-up call and wrote that on the board. You agreed, and you didn’t erase it.” Lani paused. “That message didn’t kill him. He killed himself.”
A tiny sob broke from Geo’s lips, quickly suppressed.
“You regret that it was the last straw for him—”
The next sob was harsher, deeper, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
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“—but you didn’t know. You. Didn’t. Know. And it’s not your fault.”
She held on to him while he shuddered against her, although he managed to hold back the tears.
All around, beachgoers went about their daily lives, while the two people huddled in the sand right in front of them were fighting to put theirs back together.
“You’re not alone, Geo,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m here with you.”
And I don’t know how I’m ever going to let you go.
Chapter Twenty
Lani followed him home, the cherry-red of his motorcycle taillight glowing bright in the gathering darkness.
Inside her apartment, she turned into Geo’s arms, her palms sliding up his chest to link around his neck. “Why don’t we get in the shower and have a good cry?”
He smiled, his hands settling on her hips as he started inching her down the hall. “How about we get in the shower and skip the crying part?”
“But that’s the beauty of it.” She stood on tiptoe to brush her mouth against his. “Whether you choose to cry or not, no one will ever know, will they? It’s between you and the shower.”
Geo didn’t answer, just reached behind his neck to unclasp her arms and ease them to her sides. “Turn around,” he said softly. When she did, he gathered her hair in his hand and draped it over her shoulder before leaning down to place an open-mouthed kiss on her exposed nape.
“Mmm,” he breathed. “There’s a distinct possibility that you’re overdressed for this shower. It’s a, er, way more casual event.”
“Ha. Did I misread the invitation?”
“I think you did.” Trailing his tongue along the side of her neck, he murmured, “Luckily, I’m here to help.”
“Yes. Lucky, lucky me.” She’d meant the words to sound teasing, but instead they came out fervent, with an emotional undertone that flushed her entire body hot.
“Baby...” Mouthing her earlobe, Geo eased the zipper of her dress down, inch by inch, until it sagged to the waist. With an expert flick of his fingers, the fastening of her bra popped open, making her gasp.
Trusting a Warrior Page 24
