Mason held a chair out for Carol. They’d walked and fed Harry and come down to breakfast at Junonia. With coffee and juice ordered, they both moved silverware around.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Mason said. “I guess I was more upset about my uncle than I realized.”
“That’s all right.”
“Dixie helped me through some of it but she said my mother knew more and that I should talk to her.”
“That’s good.”
“If I can get her to tell me what she knows maybe I can get over this whole thing.”
“Oh, Mason. You’ll never be over the loss of your uncle. He was too important to you.”
Mason stared at the table. “If I can find out why he…did what he did, I can let it go. I know I’ll feel a lot better.”
“What if you find out something distasteful? What if you find out something you don’t want to believe?”
“I can’t imagine what that might be.” The hollow space inside him swelled until it filled him with darkness. It was always this way. He’d start thinking about Uncle Max and the darkness would come. “But I feel dread whenever I think about finding out what he was going through. Like, it fills me up until I don’t want to know anything anymore.”
Carol reached over and covered his hand. “My own memories scare the daylights out of me. I see war in downtown Barefoot Bay. I see women and children dying in the fields of Mimosa Key.” She shook her head. “It’s ridiculous.”
Mason lifted his chin. She stared out the window at the Gulf of Mexico. She had a faraway look in her eyes that made him believe what she said. He had kind of thought the PTSD thing was 99% imagination, 1% memory. He didn’t know scenes played out in your head.
“You see those things in your mind?”
She glanced at him. “Yes, that’s what they tell me. But when it’s happening, I believe it’s real. That there really are people dying on the streets of Barefoot Bay.”
He turned his hand over and threaded his fingers with hers. “What are you seeing now?”
“Now? Right now?” she asked. “The Gulf of Mexico, a beautiful resort on the shore and cozy bungalows dotting the white sand beaches.”
“Huh.”
She gave him a questioning look.
“Do the visions come when they want to? Can you bring them up yourself?”
“A flashback is usually triggered by something. Like that pickup backfiring right next to me. And I have a lot of nightmares.”
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry.”
She gave a deprecating smile. “It’s been better since Harry moved in.”
He glanced around. “You really shouldn’t say things like that when you’re having breakfast with Mason, not Harry.”
She laughed out loud. “You’re such a conundrum, Mason. You don’t like to talk about PTSD but you have empathy for someone who has it. You don’t want to look into the one act that probably had the most effect on your life—and gave you PTSD—but probably wouldn’t even consider a therapy dog for yourself. You drive that gorgeous, restored Beemer but practically wave me away when I talk about paying for the damage. You love me until I’m a wet rag and you walk out. I just don’t get you.”
Mason froze with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. His hand shook so he set the cup gently on the table. He started to speak twice before he could find the words. And he only came up with one. “PTSD? I don’t have PTSD.”
She sat back in disbelief. “Of course you do. You may not want to call it that, but it’s there.”
Now he sat back. “I do not have PTSD. That’s something that comes from military service not real life.”
She sighed. “There’s so many things wrong with that. You experienced an emotional bashing at a very young age which haunts you to this day. It intrudes on your thoughts and makes you act certain ways in certain situations. And, if you think military service isn’t a part of real life, you can go take a flying leap into the Gulf right outside!” She ended pointing her finger at the water in case he hadn’t noticed it.
Heads were turning, conversations slowed and stopped. Mason wanted to thump his chest and prove he was the king of the jungle. Or restaurant. Whatever.
Speaking softly, he said, “Can you lower your voice a little so I’m not crushed like a bug by some of the soldiers and veterans I know must be here?”
Carol looked around and shared a smile with the room. “Sure,” she said quietly. “But you should know something.”
“What’s that?” he asked leaning forward.
“The only veteran you have to worry about is me.”
“May I take your order?” a waitress asked.
They both ordered breakfast and waited for the coffee refills before taking up the conversation.
“What do you—”
“And I can squash you like a bug as well as any of these men.”
He glanced over at the table of service men in fatigues. Then he looked at Carol. “I don’t think so.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. He didn’t like her smile.
“You think my tour of Afghanistan wasn’t real?”
“No—”
“You don’t think I’m fit enough to take you down in a fight?”
“Caro—”
She held up one hand. “And I get the feeling you don’t really believe in PTSD.”
Before he could do anything, she continued. “And, of course, you don’t have it. You wouldn’t stand for. It’s for weak little girls who can’t handle a battlefield.”
Mason’s jaw sagged as a tear rolled its way down her cheek. She flicked it off with contempt. Her comments were so far from what he really thought now that he couldn’t think, couldn’t speak.
Carol put her napkin on the table. She stood. As she walked out she passed the table of soldiers and saluted. They all saluted back.
All Mason could do was watch the waitress, with two plates of breakfast balanced on one arm, look confused as Carol left. That, and the disapproving looks from the table surrounded by desert camouflage.
The waitress approached the table.
“Would you please make mine to go? And send that one to Miss Lee’s room, will you? And charge it to mine.” At her nod, he stood up. “Thanks.”
When the waitress returned with his packed up breakfast, he tipped her very well and headed for his bungalow. Packing didn’t take long. He stowed everything in his car and drove around to the front entrance.
Mason stopped at the front desk of the Casa Blanca Resort & Spa in a mental fog. With some hard-won clarity, he explained he might be gone overnight but would return as soon as possible.
He wasn’t sure what was going on between him and Carol right now. He’d made her mad though. That was clear. And, after several minutes passed, he recalled she said something about him leaving her. Not well done of you, son. Next time wait until morning to talk to your sister. Once he got in his car, made his way off Mimosa Key and connected with State Road 41, he let his subconscious do the driving and his head do the thinking.
He was fit and able-bodied. With the occasional exception of stitches, bruises and pulled muscles. Kids did not go screaming into the night to avoid him so he wasn’t all that bad looking. He owned his own business. Financially, he was comfortable plus a little and his savings account and retirement fund were growing nicely, thank you very much. He didn’t have any bad habits except pissing off most of the women currently in his life.
All he had to do was get his head on straight about Uncle Max and…what? Then what? He thumped the steering wheel. Beg forgiveness from Carol? Or from Dixie? Ask Carol what he’d done wrong to make her so mad? Or give up and go home.
It was looking like that was the easy way out of it. But he wouldn’t have Carol around anymore and that did not sit well with him. He wanted her. And her little dog, too.
“Step one,” he said. “Find out what Mom knows about Uncle Max’s death.” He thought a few more minutes. “I’ll figure out step two later.”
He was nearing State Road 44, his turn off. He shifted into the right lane and stopped for the stop sign. Waiting for the traffic to clear for his turn toward Rutland, he thought back over Carol’s tirade. She definitely had the support of the servicemen at the restaurant. Mason had actually looked over his shoulder a few times to make sure they didn’t follow him out of the parking lot. Or north on SR 41. He could have asked them what she was so mad about. Shaking his head he turned onto 44. Nope, they would have carved him up for breakfast scrapple and still not answered his questions.
Questions for Carol aside, he traveled the familiar roads until he saw the house in the distance. It sat on a small hill overlooking acres and acres of produce. There were five or six dogs under the front porch that ran out the minute they realized a car was pulling into their territory. It didn’t take them long to recognize not only the car but the driver. Ecstasy ensued. But this time he responded by patting them and rubbing ears and talking to them.
“Hey, that’s all right now. Good boys, good boys.” The screen door opened and banged shut. Mason raised his head.
“Who are you and what did you to with my son?”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Why are you petting the dogs?”
He laughed. “I can’t pet the family dogs?”
She shifted to lean against the porch post. “Not when you haven’t done it since you were eight. Not without being questioned.”
Mason looked into the face of the dopey-looking, short-legged mutt staring up at him. He could see the dog wondering why the human who usually pushed through the pack without stopping was now patting his head. At least he didn’t seem to mind.
“Dogs love you no matter what you do to them.” His mother came down the steps and was mobbed by the pack. She greeted them and petted them, all without taking her eyes off him.
“Is that Rocket?” Mason asked peering at the porch.
Him mother turned and looked. “Yeah, that’s Rocket.”
“He must be twenty years old.”
“Twenty-one. He’s blind, deaf and has diabetes. But he’s still king of the ranch.”
“He still the only one who’s allowed indoors?”
“Of course. And he still sleeps with me and your father.”
“Geez, Mom.”
“What? You think I should put him down?” Indignation sounded in her voice.
“No!” Why did everyone misunderstand what he meant? I have to learn to speak all over again. Mason went up the stairs and put his hand under Rocket’s tiny nose. He was a Chihuahua with an attitude. The dog sniffed, growled and put his head back down.
“Yeah, that’s Rocket all right,” Mason said with a smile.
“Who is she?”
“She? She who?”
“She must be a dog lover.”
Mason shrank to the size of a ten-year-old. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And how the hell do you know I’ve met a woman who has a dog?
“What the hell happened to your car?” his father said as he came out on the porch.
“The car’s not important.”
He scoffed as he looked at his wife. Then he looked at Mason with both eyebrows raised.
“Come on. It’s lunch time. Let’s have a beer,” his mother said.
Rocket growled as the three of them trooped back in. He hated being interrupted during his naps.
“A beer pow-wow?” his dad asked.
“Yeah. We’re gonna talk about Mason’s new girlfriend.”
Dad stopped in his tracks. Mason ran into his back.
“Girlfriend?”
“Mostly,” Mason said. Dad moved forward. “But more about Uncle Max.” This time his mother stopped and his dad ran into her. They both turned to look at him.
“Sure you’re ready?” his mother asked.
“No. But it’s time,” Mason admitted.