Olivia
Several hours later, when the house is still enough to hear the walls expanding from the heat of the day, I decide to head downstairs to see what I can rustle up for supper. There’s an endless supply of casseroles in the giant freezer, many with names written on the Tupperware, and I wonder why August hasn’t fed any of this to Bettina in place of the frozen pizzas she complained about last night. Pity casseroles. Likely from well-meaning neighbors and townsfolk. I decide not to touch any of them. There’s enough food here to feed an army, but whatever August’s reasons were for not eating it, I’ll respect them and leave them be.
Instead, I start taking inventory of what he does have in the cupboard and fridge, as well as the freezer. There are vegetables fresh enough, and an uncooked pot roast. Two hours later when August comes back inside from working in the yard, he makes his way to the kitchen to find me, his mother’s apron on, all four burners on the stove going, and the scent of home cooking filling the large house around us.
He’s annoyed. That much is evident by the furrow in his brow and the midnight eyes that narrow on me when I turn to face him, but he bites his lip, likely to keep from saying whatever bitterness is on the tip of his tongue.
Bettina comes traipsing into the kitchen and stops dead, staring at me by the stove. “Are you a fairy gawdmother?”
I smile at her, but before I can say anything in the way of reply, August snaps, “Bett, go wash up.”
“But—”
“Go,” he commands, and the little girl pouts and drags her stuffed pig along the ground behind her. I watch her leave with a sad smile. When she’s no longer in hearing distance, he turns on me.
“Are you stupid or somethin’? A man strangles you, and you make him supper?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Believe it or not, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
He looks alarmed at this, and he stares at me for a beat too long. This is what I do in my line of work. I fix broken men. Sometimes that means I wind up with a bruise or two that I wasn’t expecting, and sometimes I wind up with a Marine who’s just found his will to live. There have been those cases that went awry, when no matter how much training we did with dog and man, the man didn’t make it. My friend Jake was almost one of those cases, and now he’s married to the love of his life with a beautiful baby girl and an adopted son. Not every day is hunky dory, he still has as much shit to wade through as any returned soldier, but wade he did, and he came out on the other side stronger for it.
It won’t take long to break August Cotton. I just need to find that thing that makes him tick—the one reason he hasn’t tried to kill himself already. And find it I will. I’m going to wear this man down until he can’t stand the sight of me, and then I’m going to build him back up again until he wonders how he ever did without me.
“What wouldn’t be the first time—you walking into a stranger’s house and sticking your nose where it don’t belong?” August finally says, snapping me out of my reverie.
I smile, just the hint of my mouth turning up in the corners. “Making a man supper after he’s strangled me half to death.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he bites out. “You think this is funny?”
I don’t reply, just give him a stern look and turn back to mixing my gravy. “Supper will be ready in thirty minutes. You best go wash up.”
August is at my back, his body towering over me from behind, his hot breath on the nape of my neck, making my hair all stand on end, but I hold my head high and don’t let on how much he unnerves me. A beat later, he scoffs and walks away. I exhale a huge breath and sag against the counter in relief. I might have a decent poker face, but I can’t ignore the pounding of my heart or the quaking in my legs as I step away from the stove. August Cotton scares the shit outta me, but I’ll be damned if I ever let him see that.
Within thirty minutes, I have both Cottons sitting at the small kitchen table that Bettina helped me set, and thank goodness because I had no idea what Mrs. Cotton considered good china and what she didn’t, and I’d hate to put another foot wrong in front of August. We eat in silence—or I eat in silence. August and Bettina scarf down the creamy mash, green beans and pot roast with gravy as if it’s their first real meal in weeks. I watch them both for a moment and smile before I take a bite of my own food. Both fill their plates with seconds, and I laugh when August even goes back for a third time.
He glares at me. “What?”
“Nothing. Just wondering if you got yourself some hollow legs there?”
He narrows his eyes. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
Bettina pipes up, “Auggie got his leg blowed off in the war.”
August’s jaw tightens, and he stands and slams his fist down on the table, “Enough, Bettina.”
The little girl squeals and shoots up from her chair, running out of the kitchen and up the stairs where she slams her bedroom door.
“Goddamn it,” August shouts, and picks up his plate, tossing it into the sink where it shatters against the chipped porcelain. He swallows the steps to the counter in a single stride and rests his arms against it. He bows his head. His shoulders hunch; every muscle in his large body is pulled taut as a bowstring.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” I whisper.
“Course you didn’t,” he snaps.
I rise from my seat and remove my plate from the table, taking it over to the sink where I place it beside his hands. “You ever talk to anyone after you returned home?”
“Christ.” He shakes his head. “I bet you’re just lovin’ this, aren’t you? What was it you said? That you were itching to get your hands on me? To fix me?”
I nod and level my gaze on him. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was unprofessional of me, and it was out of line, but I—”
“You’re damn right it was,” he says, taking a step toward me. “And for the record, I have no intention of talking to you or anyone else, so get that out of your pretty little head right now.”
“That’s your choice, but who’s talking to Bettina?”
“If you know what’s good for you, Ms. Anders, you’ll keep your nose out of our business.”
I fold my arms across my chest and glare up at him. I know attacking him isn’t the way to go about earning this man’s trust, but it’s as if everything I know, all my training as a psychologist, has just flown out the window.
“She just lost her mamma, August. She’s a little girl who’s scared outta her mind, and her brother? The man who’s supposed to do everything in his power to protect her and make her feel safe, shuts her out and screams and loses his temper like a child, and makes her feel like a burden.”
August reels back as if I just dealt him a physical blow, and for the first time since my arrival, I feel something other than anger or annoyance from him. I’m tempted to quit while I’m ahead, but I never was a quitter, and I wouldn’t be doing either of us any favors if I did.
“Now, I’ll be out of your hair the first chance I get, but that little girl is going to be with you for the next eighteen years of her life, so I think maybe it’s time to do something about that rage you been hanging onto.”
“You don’t know shit about it,” he says, quietly, and if I weren’t staring at his midnight eyes I might mistake his tone for sadness, but August isn’t sad. There’s a much more destructive emotion playing on his features. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about what it means to be back here.”
“You’d be surprised, Cotton.” I glower up at him. All I want to do is run. Every bone, every muscle and every nerve in my body are telling me to put as much distance between us as possible, but I stand my ground despite my better judgment. “Just because I never donned a uniform doesn’t mean I haven’t fought a war all of my own.”
“What war? Black Friday at the mall?”
I laugh. All the anger drains from August’s face. “Some of us have battle scars in places others can’t see. Bettina will be one of those people. She’s already got the worst of it etched on her heart after losing her parents—do you really want your suicide to be another scar she can’t erase? Just think on it,” I say and walk away, up the stairs where I close my door.
I wait for the thundering of his footsteps that never come. Even though I want to, I don’t go to Bettina, because I think I’ve pushed August far enough for one night.
People end up in my program because at any given moment they’re seconds away from pulling the trigger, and they’re brave enough to admit they need help, but August is different. He’s not asking for help, and I get the distinct feeling that he won’t pull the trigger yet because he’s happy tormenting himself. His penance is a life of emptiness. It’s a debt many veterans believe they must repay for making it out alive when so many of their buddies didn’t, and until he believes that he deserves more than that, more than a lifetime of horror and nightmares, loneliness and torment, he’ll continue to push everyone around him away. When he can learn to love himself again, to forgive himself, then he’ll be ready, and not a second before. At some point, that moment of clarity comes for all returned soldiers, or death does.
It’s my job to ensure that pulling the trigger is no longer an option for August Cotton.