He turned his head, looked at her, and she saw the stark desolation in his gaze. “I know it would be better if she had died. Why was I in the right time and right place for Savannah and her baby, for so many missions, and not for my mother and sister? What kind of God fucks with you like that? You can make yourself crazy with the questions. Even if He couldn’t stop it, why would He let only a part of her mind survive it? Why not be merciful, take her life?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it works like that. I never have. I don’t think God, whatever It is, is like some kind of movie director, on top of every action and reaction. I think it’s much more high level than that.”
“As a SEAL, you learned it was all up to you and your team, and you don’t quit until the mission is accomplished, no matter what goes wrong. That’s the way life is. You don’t give up, you don’t quit.” He sighed. “Superman. That’s what Amanda called me, because of the jaw.” He gestured to it wryly, the square cut that defined his strong face. “But it didn’t matter. I was trained to be the best of the best, but it means nothing if I’m not there at the critical moment I’m needed. I wasn’t there. That’s nothing you can predict, change or help. Completely out of my control. It makes no sense. I felt like God was fucking laughing at me.”
Janet stroked his hair, touched the handsome jaw. “I’ve done that too. Thought about the moment Jorge said the right combination of words, the things that made me decide to stay with him instead of going home with my dance company. I think of a hundred ways I might have noticed this or that, chosen differently. But I didn’t. Maybe in some alternative universe I did, and as a result, I became a different person. Maybe a less strong, less certain person than I am now. But when this happens to an innocent, one who was given no choices at all in her Fate, there seems to be no clear answer.”
He nodded, a bleak look in his gray eyes. She put her lips to his temple, spreading her fingers between his shoulder blades. “In this situation, you can only love her,” she said softly. “Help keep the pieces together. That was the lesson I learned when I crossed paths with Matt, and he helped me pick up my pieces. If he hadn’t been there, it’s very likely I would be in a far worse place than I am now. Each of us has this sense that we’re somehow divinely touched, a chosen person, but the reality is we’re no different from any other creature struggling to survive. We try to find moments of peace and contentment, ways to enjoy the life we’ve been given, because this life is the only sure promise we have. You’ve given her the very best option she can have, and she has you.”
Janet touched his face, drawing his gaze up to hers. “I can tell you that if I was reduced to nothing, but you were a part of my life, I’d still feel blessed. The fact that girl’s eyes light up at the sight of you says she knows it too, even if she knows nothing else. You’re her peace and contentment, Max.”
He stared at her. She’d never been gladder for her hard-ass, no-nonsense bitch reputation, because it meant the sincere words had the power to startle him, shock him out of the dark place his mind had been trying to take him. And she did mean it. It even shook her up a little, given that her words weren’t much different from a declaration of love. Perhaps even more significant than that.
“Thank you.” His voice cracked a little. He cleared his throat. His arms had slipped down into a loose coil on her hips, his fingers curved over her buttocks. Not as a sexual tease, but more as a resting place from where they’d fallen, loose and tired. She kept her arm around his shoulders, stroked the hair at his nape, encouraging him to lay his head back down on her breast. You can rest for a little while, Max, she thought to herself. I’ve got you.
Even a warrior deserved a port in a storm. Maybe especially a warrior.
“My mom and I were really close,” he said, his breath warm on her flesh. “Like partners, as I got into my teens and could bring home some money. We were in such a crappy neighborhood, broke, barely making it. I wasn’t great at academics, but I had such self-discipline and determination, the school guidance counselor suggested I look at the SEAL program. Mom encouraged me in every way possible to do it, and kicked my ass if I even looked toward the riffraff in our neighborhood that wanted me to go a different way. She was so proud when I graduated from BUD/S, both her and Amanda.”
That was where he’d acquired his deep respect for women, Janet realized. He’d experienced firsthand the power of a tough, loving mother. “I was worried about leaving them in that neighborhood, but I sent them home money, which she could put away to get them into a better place eventually.” He swallowed. “There was this one op…I can’t tell you much about it, but basically for a short time we had our hands on a shitload of drug money, confiscated on a raid. It was just us six guys watching over it, guys who knew everything about one another.
“One of my buddies joked about grabbing a handful before the politicians had their hands on it. They even did the Mel Gibson impersonation. You know, from Lethal Weapon II, where Murtaugh is thinking about taking some drug money to put his kids through college, but then puts it back, saying it’s fucking drug money. And Riggs says, ‘So? Do some good with it’. That haunts me now. If I’d taken one fucking fistful of that money home, my mom and sister could have moved out of that neighborhood. That’s a stain I could have borne on my soul.”
She considered that. “But it would have been different, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t have known then you were saving them from that fate. You would have been just some guy who did something immoral, going against everything the SEALs stand for. You would have taken the easy way out to give your mom and sister a better place to live, and if your mom’s the type of person you say she is, she wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. She would have donated the money to some charity, and kicked your ass seven different ways.”
His lips twisted. “Yeah, she would have. Dale—he’s a buddy of mine—says the same thing you do, that the only sure thing we know is that we have this life. That the code we live by says what and who we are. Nothing else matters, everything different is just an excuse. You’d like him. He’s a hard-ass like you. Metaphorically.” He gave her a discreet squeeze. “The actual ass feels pretty good.”
“Mine or Dale’s?”
“I’ve never felt Dale’s. Never had the urge and he’d probably shoot me in the balls if I did, but my guess is yours feels better.”
“At least you didn’t say it was soft,” she sniffed.
“Only in the exact right way.”
“Good answer.” Janet sighed, put her head on top of his.
“There’s a part of me that knows it wasn’t in my control,” he continued. “Within a few years of me serving in the SEALs, Mom could have moved them out of there. But Amanda had graduated high school, was working a job. She’d been in ROTC, was thinking about enlisting, and they both…Mom had friends in the neighborhood, and so did Amanda. They ran a community watch, were trying to make things better. And they both had this attitude of ‘this is our home, and no one’s going to make us leave it’. The fucking irony is that’s why they were targeted. The bastards wanted to make an example out of the ones who stood up to the monsters, who refused to be broken by them.”
“The what-ifs can put you on a lifetime-numbing dose of Xanax, trust me. There’s what-is, and that’s that. You live your life based on the what-ifs, and you’ll never live.” She touched his cheek, trying to change the direction of his thoughts. “Tell me something wonderful you remember about being a SEAL.”
He shifted, propping his chin against her shoulder. “Underwater dives in tropical waters. It’s a different kind of garden, but still a garden. There are so many things that glitter at night. Particles, the trails that fish leave. You don’t expect it. In some ways, you want to stay down there forever.”
He remained silent in her arms for a while. “Dale was with me when I got home, had to identify my mom’s body and figure out what to do for Amanda. Mom was always so strong, and seeing her broken like that… I wanted to die. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Dale got me through, he and a couple of the other guys. Matt was connected to them, and they introduced us. He helped me find this place for Amanda. The guy who founded it, he was a doctor who had a son in Vietnam. The kid came back with PTSD, killed himself. When Matt told him about my situation, he worked out a payment plan I could afford, probably a tenth of what it costs to be here. He died a year after that happened, but even left it in his will, that Amanda could always be here, no matter my income level.”
He shook his head. “It’s things like that which don’t make much sense. How some people can be so good, and others can be so bad. My SEAL buddies checked in on my mom when they were home and I wasn’t. One of them talked to me about moving them into the adjacent unit of his duplex when the renter’s lease was up. It wasn’t too far from where Mom and Amanda were living, but it was a better area, and would have been safer. And Eric’s wife and kids lived in that other side. Mom was killed two months before the renter moved out. Eric felt so bad about it, but I told him Mom wouldn’t put up with him feeling like that.”
She felt his lips curve against her, a painful grimace. “She always said she had her hammer and her pepper spray, bars on the windows, and I’d taught her to use a gun. But she wasn’t able to get to it, they cut her off. Everything was the wrong timing, too fucking late.”
Some things worked out perfectly, other things went so wrong it was hard to imagine how they could have been any worse. And like he’d said, it was good and bad. A person just had to learn how to appreciate the one and survive the other.
“How about I buy you some lunch, sailor?” she murmured. “That sandwich place off the highway looked pretty good.”