Church
I’d spent the last ten years of my life putting myself in dangerous situation after dangerous situation. I’d lost friends and come close to losing myself on more than one occasion. I’d been injured and broken down. I’d been exhausted and pushed to the limit, but in all of that time I’d refused to let fear be a factor in how I did my job. It was there, always hovering on the periphery of my consciousness, but I tuned it out and ignored it. I focused on the task at hand, on the mission, and I never froze. I believed I was bigger, badder, and my mission was more important than the things that scared me and I brazened my way through every situation I found myself in, even the ones that should have terrified me. I went into the army with a purpose.
Today all of that long-practiced bravado fled.
Today I couldn’t wrestle back the fear and camouflage it with bluster and balls.
Today my hands shook so badly I couldn’t even hide my fear that another person I cared so deeply about had left this world for whatever was beyond.
There was no hiding the stark terror that had made it almost impossible for me to open the door keeping Elma Mae from me and there was no stopping the truth from rocketing loose from the jagged place in my soul when Dixie questioned my obvious hesitation. It ripped free from the place inside where I kept it perched high and visible to constantly remind me why I refused to let myself care about anyone in a deep and meaningful way. I couldn’t withstand the loss of another vital, beautiful, loving, and generous woman. I already carried around the weight of the loss of both the women Jules had loved, and if there was any more added to the load I would buckle and never be able to get back on my feet. Senseless and wasteful. There was no rhyme or reason to why we couldn’t keep the women we loved safe and that shredded me, especially when I thought about the way I squandered time with one of them and wasted days being mad at the other because they both chose to love a good man. I should have done better, been better.
I knew Dixie wanted an explanation. I could feel her tiny frame practically vibrating behind me and it had nothing to do with the rumble of the motorcycle and everything to do with the conversation she was waiting to have. A conversation I wanted to have about as much as I wanted to spend another year eating nothing but MREs. Telling her about my mother passing far too soon had been hard and had forced me to be far more honest than I wanted to be with anyone. If she pinned me down and made me tell her about how I knew things could go from bad to worse especially when it came to Caroline there would be no more softening of her eyes when I asked her if she was okay and no more little grins when I told her I wanted to keep her safe. She looked at me like I was a hero and I selfishly wanted to keep it that way. The truth was anything but heroic.
Taking her from the hospital to the house I grew up in was a literal trip down memory lane. I absently catalogued all the things that were the same in the sleepy suburb where Jules’s sprawling brick ranch home was located, but it was all the things that were different that really stuck out. I forced myself to believe that home was better off without me, and me without it, but I hadn’t really prepared myself for home to go on and grow and prosper without me. The streets were lined with new homes and happy families playing in the perfectly landscaped yards. There was a park on the corner that hadn’t been there years ago, and instead of a single stoplight in the center of town there were now three—and a slew of convenience stores and a new chain superstore that felt woefully out of place in the memories I had of my hometown.
Luckily when I pulled into the driveway of my childhood home, Jules was just pulling in as well. That meant I could put the conversation Dixie was chomping at the bit to have on the back burner for a little while longer. She liked me too much to strip me bare and drag me over the coals in front of a man I obviously respected and admired. My relationship with Jules was complicated at best, and I knew the spunky redhead well enough to know that there was no way she would want any part of driving the wedge any further between me and the man in the sheriff’s uniform that greeted us with an easy smile and a warm, fatherly glint in his dark eyes.
“How was Elma?” Jules offered Dixie a hand as she clamored off the back of the bike. When she grinned up at the man her smile was so easy, so bright I was surprised Jules wasn’t temporarily blinded by it. I knew that when she looked at me like that I felt like I couldn’t see anything but the sunshine that glowed out of her too-big heart.
Dixie took her helmet off and shook out her hair. I wanted to comb my fingers through her rowdy curls and bury my face in them. They always smelled like fresh air and sunbeams. They felt like warm silk and luxurious satin. She was like the perfect day if the perfect day was a human being.
“She looked good to me, but she did not hide the fact that she thinks it’s my fault Church didn’t come home as soon as his discharge papers were signed. She was not a fan of this particular Yankee.”
Jules threw his head back and let out a laugh that made his entire body shake. “The old bird did not call you a Yankee.”
Dixie laughed. “She didn’t, but I was waiting for her to.”
Jules laughed again and reached out for the backpack that she had been hauling around with her for the last few days. I growled a little under my breath. It was such a simple gesture, a basic act of chivalry, and I hadn’t thought to do that for her the entire time we had been together. I’d been home for less than a day and already I was being reminded of the ways I wasn’t ever going to live up to the example Julian had set for me.
“Did you tell her your name is Dixie? That might have softened her up a little bit. You can’t be a Yankee when you’re named after the south.”
Dixie smiled up at him and shook her head, which sent her curls bouncing. “We didn’t get that far. She gave Church the what for and told him that she would throw herself down the stairs a hundred more times if that’s what it took to finally get him home. She was equal parts impressive and terrifying.”
Jules nodded in agreement and paused at the front door. It was like stepping back in time. I remembered the first time we walked across that doorstep as a family. I also remembered the first time Jules and I walked over it grieving my mother, both of us at a loss as to what we should do with a newborn. I remembered him bringing Caroline over for the first time and refusing to come out of my room to say hello to her. I remembered her tripping and stumbling, sick from chemo and still trying to reassure me that she would be all right. All the memories raced around, the good colliding with the bad. The happy getting shredded by the sorrow that was so much sharper.
“She’s protective of both my boys. She never wanted Dash to leave, none of us did. She’s going to be greedy and possessive now that he’s back. She’ll warm up. Just give it some time.” Jules talked like Dixie was going to be around forever. She cast a look over her shoulder at me and I silently wished that was the case. Forever and her right in the center of it weren’t the worst things that could happen to me even if I was pretty sure I was the worst thing that could happen to her.
“Dixie has a life and a job back in Denver she has to get back to, Jules. She agreed to ride down with me so we could extend our good-bye, but she isn’t staying.” I was surprised that the thought of letting her go of my own free will hurt almost as much as letting go of a loved one when I had no choice in the matter.
Jules gave me a hard look as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. He shifted his attention back to Dixie and his expression softened because it was impossible to be anything but soft with her, well, impossible for everyone but me, but luckily she seemed to like it when I was hard. “Well, if that’s the case I suggest you make the most of the time you do have while you’re here together. Let Elma fawn all over Dash. Help her out, but don’t make her feel like she’s an invalid, and make sure she gets her tea in the afternoon. Take a minute to make sure her garden is watered and her flowers are tended and you’ll have a fast friend. She knows how to Skype now so don’t be surprised if she wants to keep in touch after you head back to the mountains.”
“I’ll keep all of that in mind. Thanks for the tips.”
Jules said something else but it was drowned out by the rush of blood into my head and the whoosh of it in my ears as I was engulfed in memories and history when I finally stepped into the house.
The neighborhood and the surrounding city might have changed but the home where I had grown up hadn’t. Sure, there was a new couch and a massive flat screen in the living area but the pictures on the walls that showed a happy family and then another happy family were all the same. There were no signs of either of those families being ripped apart and tattered. There were smiling faces and joy. No signs of everything that had been lost and buried. Jules was focused on what he’d had, not on what he’d lost.
There were new additions as well. Pictures of me in my football uniform and pictures of Dalen in his. Even with me being gone and communication between the two of us sparse and stilted it was obvious Jules wanted reminders of both his children front and center in his home. That knowledge hit me like a punch right in the center of my chest. It hit me so hard that I had to put a hand on the wall to brace myself as I stumbled over my feet. All this time I thought he would be disappointed in the way I left, in the way I abandoned him and Dalen to deal with the same grief we shared on their own. Those pictures made it seem like he was as proud of me now as he was when I stood by his side both times he married the women he loved.
“You all right, son?” I was going to nod in response when a teenager that was almost as tall as me came around the corner. Tall and lanky, Dalen in person bore a striking resemblance to me when I was the same age. He had the same darker than gold skin tone and the same not quite brown or blond hair color as I did. His features took strongly from his father, but his eyes were like mine, a hazel that borrowed heavily from the ocean blue that his mother had been blessed with. He wasn’t a baby or a little boy anymore. He was a young man, a teenager with an obvious chip on his shoulder if the way he narrowed his eyes at me and tilted his head in blatant challenge was any indication. I’d missed watching my little brother grow up, missed watching him become someone that I knew I would be proud of, and while the desert was an easy place to forget about that, here in this house where I had grown up it was impossible to ignore.
I felt my mouth open, but no words came out. My brother and I stared at each other, me stunned and in shock as the real ramifications of my disappearance slammed into me hard enough to knock me over. Dalen didn’t look happy or relieved to see me, and I couldn’t blame him. I was a stranger … made one through my own bad choices.
“Hi. I’m Dalen.” He took a step towards Dixie and extended a hand. She gave the massive paw a shake and smiled at him. His voice was deep like Jules’s and echoed the same strong southern tones that colored all of our speech. The boy was good-looking and polite. I had a pang of worry that this town couldn’t appreciate everything he had going for him the way they had squandered my distinctive contributions. I never felt like I belonged anywhere until I joined the army and I didn’t want that for him.
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Dixie. I’m a friend of your brother’s.”
Dalen shot me a look from the corner of his eye as he let Dixie’s hand fall. “I would say I’ve heard a lot about you but that would be a lie. We haven’t heard much about anything where Dash is concerned in a long time. I had Calvin’s mom stop so I could pick up some barbecue for dinner when she picked us up after practice.” He turned so that his back was to me and asked Jules with scorn clearly threaded into his tone, “I already ate. Is it cool if I go do homework in my room?”
He didn’t want to be around me. I sucked in a sharp breath and gave Jules a little chin lift when he looked at me over his other son’s head. I wasn’t about to force the boy to endure my company or any kind of brotherly bonding.
“That’s fine but you aren’t going to make a habit of hiding out while your brother is home. I haven’t had both my boys under the same roof in way too long. You’re going to indulge your old man and let me enjoy having my family all together.” He clapped the teen on the shoulder and gave him a little shake. “We’ve got to get Dash out to one of your games while he’s here.”
Dalen snorted in a very teenaged way and stepped away from Jules. He shot me a scathing look and turned on his heel. “Like he suddenly cares what’s going on in our lives. He’s more worried about what’s happening to strangers in a different country than he is about what’s happening here. He wouldn’t have bothered to come home if Elma Mae hadn’t hurt herself.” The words were sharp and cutting. They were also far too cynical to come from someone so young.
“Dalen.” Jules didn’t even bother to sound like he was going to lay into the boy for putting the truth out there but he did sound exasperated, which let me know this wasn’t the first time my little brother had mentioned how he truly felt about my absence in his life.
I held up a hand before Jules could launch into dad mode. “It’s cool. Dalen doesn’t have to hang around if he doesn’t want to. He’s old enough to decide who he invests his time and energy in. I made some hard choices when I was close to his age and I can’t stand here and say I don’t regret most of them. I’m not going to force my company on you, Dalen, and I’m not going to ask you to pretend like you’re happy to see me if you aren’t.”
The kid gave me a look over his shoulder that spoke volumes. I had secret fears and insecurities that I struggled to keep at bay, so did my little brother, and me being home had more than mine rearing up and fighting to break free. He left us standing in the entryway locked in an awkward silence.
Jules sighed and lifted a hand so that he could rub it over the top of his head. “Sorry about that. I guess I shoulda warned you that he’s been a little out of sorts since I told him you were on your way home. He was so young when you shipped out … I don’t think he remembers that he used to look at you like you hung the moon and the stars.”
I grunted and reached for Dixie’s bag that he was still holding on to. “Can’t say I blame him. I did a shit job trying to be a part of his life these last ten years. I’d be pissed if I was in his shoes. You want this stuff in my old room?”
He dipped his chin in a nod. “Yeah. Haven’t changed it much since you left. Guess I wanted it to be familiar when you came back.” A wry grin tugged at his mouth and made his goatee twitch. “Reminds me of the good ole days when I stick my head in there.”
I cringed. “We had good ole days? I don’t recall those.” They were obscured by too much tragedy and misfortune. The bad memories tended to engulf the good ones. They fed on them like hungry vultures and left nothing but bones picked clean.
“Then you need to try harder, son. You two go and get settled. I’ll leave dinner in the kitchen. Don’t feel like you have to rush on my account. It sounds like you had a long trip to get here.”
I grabbed Dixie’s hand and tugged her down the hallway to where my childhood bedroom was located. There were more pictures on the walls that made my knees weak and that had my heart trying to turn itself inside out. Those were the good ole days that Jules wanted me to remember, and the days I had tried my damnedest to forget. There was no outrunning the past. Somehow and someway it always managed to catch up to you, and when it did you were so tired from all the running that when it wrapped its arms around you there was no possible chance of evading it again. It held on too tightly.
“Jules and Dalen have the rooms on the other side of the house. The bathroom is across the hall here.” I pointed to a closed door that was a few feet down from the door that was cracked open to reveal the time capsule that was my old bedroom.
“Oh my.” Dixie’s voice broke on a laugh as she followed me into the blue-painted room that really hadn’t been touched since I was a teenager.
Luckily I’d always been a big guy, so the bed that was covered in a dark blue and white striped comforter was queen-sized, but that was the only sight for sore eyes in the space. There were still trophies from when I played high school sports on the dresser along with an outdated video game system that some hipster would probably pay an arm and a leg for now. There were posters of hip-hop artists and sexy pop singers on the walls that hadn’t had hits in a decade. Tucked into the side of the mirror that hung over a small desk with a computer on it that probably ran the first version of Windows were snapshots of a much younger me and the few friends I did have back in the day.
“He really didn’t touch anything in here did he?” I tossed her backpack on the bed as she wandered over to the mirror and started looking at the pictures pinned there. “You’re actually smiling.” She ran her finger over the image of me and the girl whose name I couldn’t remember that I took to senior prom. I only went because Caroline forced me to and I was only smiling because even when she was sick it was impossible not to around her. She told me I needed to get out of the house and that no son of hers was going to spend his last year of high school on death watch. Always looking out for me, just like the woman shooting me a look over her shoulder and muttering sarcastically, “I wasn’t sure you knew how to do that.”
Right after that prom picture was when I’d run to the closest recruitment office and signed my life away. It was the day that I knew for certain that it wasn’t better to love and lose than to never love at all. You could survive without love. It was a hollow, empty existence, but it hurt less than living each and every day knowing what you were missing, knowing how awful it was to love someone and lose them.
“It’s so weird to see this and know you were a normal teenager at some point in your life. I can’t get my head around you being anything but broody and badass.”
I ran a hand over my face and took my jacket off and tossed it on the bed next to where her stuff had landed. “Well, I’m sure you weren’t this much of a ray of sunshine before your dad got hurt. Our experience shapes who we are, good and bad.”
She shrugged a little and tapped a finger on a picture of me as a teen with Jules and a pretty blonde woman who wasn’t my mother holding on to a baby Dalen. “I always tried to focus on the positive instead of the negative, even before my dad got hurt. I let it out a little more after the accident. I stayed buoyant and refused to sink like everyone else that seemed all too willing to drown in their own sorrows. My experience maybe should have changed that but I’m glad it didn’t.” She changed the subject so quickly it took me a minute to catch up with her. “Who is this woman? You’re older in these pictures, so it can’t be your mom.”
I walked over so that I was standing directly behind her. That picture had the air locking in my lungs and my hands curling into fists at my sides. “That’s Caroline.”
She sucked in an audible breath. “Oh.” She cocked her head to the side and a soft smile toyed at the corners of her mouth. “She looks really happy with you, Church.”
I sighed and moved away from her to sit on the edge of the bed. “She was, when I finally let her in.”
I heard her soft gasp but I couldn’t look up at her. Her experience should have dampened her spirits. It should have knocked some of that constant cheer out of her but she refused to be defined by the hand fate dealt her. She was a thousand times stronger than I was. I took what fate handed me and let it not only define the way I would live my life but also dictate the man I would become. “When Jules first started dating her he didn’t tell me. Can’t say I blamed him, I was a little shit when my mom first brought him around. I guess I didn’t like to share.” I rubbed a hand over my face and looked at the floor between my feet. “Wasted a lot of time being angry that the people that I loved and that loved me were happy when I wasn’t. I treated Jules like an interloper and he didn’t want that for the woman that did her best to keep him together when my mom passed. He taught me better but I still acted like an idiot. I didn’t want him to replace my mom and I didn’t want another woman in my life that might eventually matter. I had Elma and that was good enough.”
The bed dipped as she sat down next to me on the mattress. Her tiny hand covered both of mine where they were clutched together between my legs, my knuckles white as I squeezed them together. I looked at our hands until our skin blurred. “Couldn’t not love Caroline. She was sweet, sunny, and soft. She never tried to force her way in but one day she was … all the way in. I was looking for her in the mornings, I was rushing home from school to have her help me with homework. She put a Band-Aid on my broken heart and I didn’t even realize that’s what she was doing. She pulled this family back together and she did it with nothing more than a smile. I had to love her and when I knew I was going to lose her it killed something inside of me. I hated myself for making her earn my love at first and I hated myself for letting that love take root. I already knew how it felt to lose a mom and I never wanted to go through it again.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and a soft sigh whooshed out and tickled my neck. “You had to do that twice. That’s two times too many, Church.”
I agreed. “I was a little bastard to my mom when she picked Jules. I was a little asshole to Caroline when Jules picked her. I wasted time with both of them for nothing. I’ve had good handed to me, hell I’ve had the best, two great women that loved me and raised me right, but I’ve also lost that goodness and I’m not willing to go through it ever again. I keep anything that might be good, that might make me happy at bay and I do it knowing I’m not a man that’s strong enough to survive another blow. Pushed my own little brother away because that was easier than thinking about having him ripped away.” I tilted my head so that my cheek rested on her curls and told her the truth about the man I was. I was a coward, not a hero. “Left the only person in the world that ever picked me, the man that chose me, in the dust because I woke up in the middle of the night choking on fear thinking about the things that could happen to him while he was on the job. I was almost a full-grown man when I made the choice to run away from home because it hurt too bad to be here and I abandoned everyone that needed me so I could fight monsters that made sense. If I was going to be surrounded by death I figured it might as well be in a place where it wasn’t a shock to lose someone.” I ran a hand over my face. “You didn’t let your circumstances ruin you when your world got turned upside down. I let mine destroy me. I wasn’t a son anymore. I wasn’t a brother or friend. I refused to be a boyfriend or a partner. I became a soldier, a man that forgot the past and refused to focus on the future. All that mattered was the moment and staying alive. I refused to be all those things that I had been before the army because I was bad at being them. I was a good soldier. Even on the worst days I was still good at war.”
She was crying. Silent tears rolled off the ends of lashes that were spiked together with moisture. I didn’t want her to cry for me. I didn’t deserve her sympathy but I knew her heart was too soft for the kind of brutal kick to the teeth my past carried with it. I leaned towards her and touched my lips to the crest of her damp cheek. I heard her breath shudder out as she sighed and leaned into the touch of my lips.
“You weren’t bad at being all the things you were before you became a soldier, Church. Life just made being them more challenging for you than they typically are for everyone else.” One of her hands reached up to curl around the side of my neck and I felt her fingers trace the line of my pulse that pounded there.
“You don’t need to make excuses for me, Dixie. I know what I did was wrong. I know I took the coward’s way out. Sometimes I think I’m going to choke on self-loathing. It tastes bad and it lingers for a long time. I buried my head in the sand and pretended that all the bad things happening here didn’t affect me. One look from Dalen, the distance between Jules and I, there is no getting around the fact that I fucked up. They needed me here and I needed to be anywhere else.”
Her hand slid around the back of my neck and her fingers scraped over the short hair at the back of my head. It was soothing. She was trying to tame the vicious sorrow that howled and pawed at my insides like a wild, living thing.
“You were a scared kid, Church, and yeah, maybe you were kind of a bratty one but you were still just a kid. A lot of kids act out when their parents introduce a new dynamic into the fold. I can’t say that I blame you for wanting to run or for wanting to find a place where loss and devastation make sense. Especially after having suffered so much. It takes a big man to recognize the mistakes he’s made and try to repair the damage he has done. You are moving in the right direction now.”
I kissed her on the tip of her nose and lifted a hand so that I could wrap it around her slender wrist. “You will always see the best in people even when they give you every reason imaginable not to.”
She exhaled softly and moved her head so that her lips were touching mine. “All I see is what you’re showing me, Church.” The kiss was swift and not nearly enough. “Now let’s go eat and spend some time with your dad. You have fences to mend.”
She slid off the bed and held out a hand so that she could tug me to my feet. I could still feel the sting of those memories all across my insides but when I rose to my feet and towered over her I also felt lighter. This time when her arms wrapped around my waist in a hug I managed not to screw it up and embraced her back.
It felt as natural as breathing. I thought distance was the answer to keeping myself safe from all that bad that was lurking, I was starting to wonder if I was very, very wrong.