Ella had to resist the urge to speak, to offer comfort. That he was talking about these things to her was a huge gift that she didn’t receive lightly. It might be the most important conversation they’d ever have. She was already surprised to hear that Gavin hadn’t wanted Caleb to go into the army.
“The last time he was home, before that final deployment, we went camping for a few days, just the two of us and Homer, of course. We never went anywhere without good old Homie. It was the first time we’d been able to get away by ourselves in a couple of years, and we had a lot of laughs as always. But the whole time we were gone and in the days before he left, I had this low buzz of foreboding. I didn’t recognize it then for what it was, but I had a knot in my stomach the size of a fist that would not go away. I thought maybe I was getting sick from Caleb’s camp cooking or something. I didn’t know then that it was fear. Raw, gritty fear. I never told anyone that when I said good-bye to him on the day he left for Iraq, I had the worst feeling I’d never see him again.”
“Gavin . . .” Ella brushed the tears off her cheeks, wishing she could be stronger for him, but her heart was breaking.
“At the time, I chalked it up to my overactive imagination. He was going to a part of Iraq where the fighting was mostly over. They were there to help train the Iraqi army and to provide aid. It wasn’t about active combat. Not this time. Even knowing that, I couldn’t shake the aching, gnawing fear. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, thinking the worst. I was a fucking mess for weeks.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“Who could I tell? My parents? Hannah? They didn’t need to hear that, not when they were contending with their own worries.” He shook his head. “At times, I seriously wondered if I was going insane. My brother was a grown man, the toughest dude I’d ever known. He was a highly trained army officer who could kick the shit out of anyone who dared to cross him. And here I was, a quivering, fearful wreck of a man in comparison. I hated myself for feeling the way I did.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Gavin. You can’t help the way you feel. None of us can.” It killed her to hear that he had suffered so profoundly in utter silence.
“I know, but still . . . It felt ridiculous to be so worried about a man who was more than capable of taking care of himself, especially when he’d been in far more dangerous situations than the one he was in then.” His shoulders hunched, he looked down at the floor, desolation coming off him in waves. “I was working outside of town, clearing land for a new development when my dad called. He asked if I could come to the house right away. I asked him why, and he just said . . . ‘Please come, Gav.’ I knew. I just knew. I didn’t want to go there. I actually thought about getting in my truck and driving north to Canada. I almost did it, too. Even all these years later, I’m still ashamed to admit how close I came to just driving away.”
“No one would’ve blamed you.”
“Wouldn’t have changed anything,” he said with a shrug. “And besides, I’d like to think I’m a better son than that. My parents needed me, so I went. I’ll never forget the sight of that blue four-door sedan with U.S. government plates sitting outside the house when I arrived. If I’d been looking for confirmation, there it was. I found out later that they’d already been to Hannah’s house.”
Ella couldn’t bear to remain separate from him any longer. She crawled into his lap and put her arms around him.
He was slow to respond, as if he didn’t think he deserved the comfort. But then his arms came around her, and he buried his face in her hair.
She was relieved that he was allowing her to comfort him. He’d been in bad need of some comfort for far too long.
“I finally went in there, and my parents . . . They were just wrecked. My mom was out of her mind. My dad had gone silent. He was blaming himself, I’m sure. He’d been so proud when Caleb went into the army. The chaplain told me what’d happened, and I remember thinking it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. He’d been blown up while playing a game of soccer? For real? It made absolutely no sense to me, and it still doesn’t. It never will.”
Ella drew in a shaky deep breath and ran her fingers through his hair, wishing there was something she could do or say that would help him. But all she could do was listen and offer what comfort she could.
“I don’t remember much about the rest of that day or the weeks that followed. It’s all a bit of a blur to me. The one thing I do remember, painfully and sickeningly, was that I never told Caleb how afraid I was for him. It was on my mind constantly, that maybe if I’d told him he would’ve been more careful.”
“Oh God, Gavin,” she whispered. “You haven’t been carrying that around with you all this time, have you?”
“I don’t think about it every day anymore, but I’ll always wish I’d told him.”
“He would’ve laughed it off. He would’ve said you were being ridiculous, that he was fine. You know how he was.”
“Yeah, I do, and I also never wanted to put something in his head that didn’t need to be there. Not when he had so many other things to think about.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference. You know that, don’t you?”
He shrugged, not entirely convinced.
Ella took him by the face and forced him to look at her. “It was his time to go. Nothing you or any of the rest of us who loved him could’ve done or said would’ve changed that irrefutable fact. This was how his life was meant to play out, even if we don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it. I hate it.”
“I hate it, too. I hate it for you and your parents and Hannah and all his friends and extended family. I hate it for all of us. But you know what I’m certain of?”
He shook his head.
“Caleb would hate, absolutely hate, that you feel any guilt whatsoever about what happened to him. He made his choices, and he owned them, Gavin. Nothing you could’ve said or done would’ve changed the outcome for him, as much as you’d like to think otherwise.”
“I don’t really believe I could’ve changed the outcome. I just like to think I could have,” he added with a ghost of a smile.
“He knew you loved him. He died with no doubt whatsoever that he was well and truly loved by so many people. I have to believe he was at peace with himself and his life in that last moment.”
“I hope so. I like to think he never knew what hit him.”
“He didn’t.”
They sat quietly, wrapped up in each other’s arms, and after a while, Ella felt him begin to relax ever so slightly. She wanted to know what he was thinking, if it had helped to talk about it, whether he was tired or sad. But she didn’t ask. She remained stoically silent, hoping he was getting whatever he needed from her.
After a long period of silence, she ventured a glance at him and saw that he was gazing into the fire, lost in thought. She reached up to caress his face, running her thumb over the stubble on his jaw.
He looked down at her. “Thanks.”
“Any time.” She swallowed the hot ball of fear that wanted to lodge in her throat. Had they done more harm than good by talking about this stuff that caused him so much pain? “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think I am.” He took a deep breath. “What happened tonight . . . Cindy’s story . . . I wasn’t expecting that. Things like that . . . some people can just hear them and commiserate and go on. For me, it tends to tear the scab off the wound, which starts the spinning. I might’ve gone off and done something stupid, but I didn’t do that this time. Because of you. Because you were here when I needed you.”