Captured(83)

“Little late for that, bro. No choice but to handle it now.” He grabs my shoulders and shakes me, hard. “Listen, Derek. You got this. You got this. Do you love her?”

“Yeah. Shit, yeah, I really do. I wouldn’t know what to do without her.”

“Then you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think it won’t be fine. I’ll f*ck it up. The shit that goes on in my head—”

Hunter grabs another pair of beers from the fridge. “You are more than the sum of your experiences, Derek. When I first got home with Rania, I was having all these dreams, all sorts of nasty shit. It didn’t hit right away, though. I thought I was cool, I thought everything was fine. But after a few months, shit started to get gnarly. I’d get angry for no reason. Snap at Rania. Started some fights with guys on the road crew. Finally, my boss cornered me after work one day. He took me out for drinks. He was in Desert Storm. Army, but he’s a solid guy despite that. Told me I had to get my shit together. Hooked me up with the lady who helped him work his bullshit out. And that’s the first thing she told me that really stuck with me: You are more than the sum of your experiences. I had to chew on it for a while, but what it means to me is that I’m not just a veteran. Not just a Marine.” He hands me a beer, and we clink and drink. “I’m not just the poor f*cker who went through all that shit in Iraq, you know? That doesn’t define me. It happened. It has had some serious and lasting effects on me, obviously. Can’t escape that. But it’s not who I am. I had Rania depending on me. I had to work it out. So I did. Wasn’t easy, still isn’t. But you deal. You have to deal. For her, you have to.”

“But I—”

He’s not done. Cuts in over me. “You were a POW. That happened. You’ve seen and done some ugly shit. That happened. You lost your leg. That happened.” He stabs my chest with a finger. “I can’t fix your shit in one conversation, Derek. No one can. You gotta start somewhere, though. Shit happened. Bad shit, granted. But the question is, are you gonna puss out and let it own you? Or are you gonna man up and be what Reagan needs you to be? Reagan, and that baby of yours you didn’t tell me about.”

“I guess I thought you’d figure it out on your own.”

“Shoulda told me, dumbass.”

“Sorry.”

“You know if it’s a boy or girl yet?”

I shake my head. “No. We’re letting it be a surprise.”

“Gotcha.”

There’s a radio suspended from underneath a cabinet beside the stove. It’s always on, the volume turned low, tuned to the local country station. I always thought I hated country music, but it’s just a part of life here somehow. I don’t even think about it. It’s just there, background noise. Sometimes I’ll find myself humming along to a song, but usually I hardly notice it. Now, though, the end of a Dierks Bentley song fades out, static crackles, and then the fiddles start. The guitar joins. Tim McGraw’s voice fills the kitchen, singing “Where The Green Grass Grows,” and my head spins. Suddenly, I’m in the Humvee again, Barrett’s beside me, chewing me out for humming the song. Blink, breathe, hands on my knees. Try to block it out.

Nope.

I can hear the whoosh-BOOM of the RPG that takes out the first truck, and I’m hyperventilating.

Dizzy.

I hit the floor, gasping for breath. Hunter is talking to me, but all I can see is Reagan pushing through the back screen door, falling to her knees beside me, cradling my head in her lap. Whispering something to me. It’s just buzzing at first, but it evolves into her voice, telling me it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not real, I’m okay….

Finally, everything settles back to normal. The tight ache in my chest fades, and my breathing slows. I struggle up to my feet. I grab my cane from beside the door and push past everyone. “And that, people, is why I’m worried about being a father.”

After a while, Reagan finds me out at the pond. “I’m not worried, you know.”

“You should be.”

She sits behind me, rests her cheek on my back. “But I’m not. Flashbacks, panic attacks? They don’t make you unfit to be a father.”

“What if that had happened while I’d been holding Emma? I’d have dropped her. What if it happens when I’m holding our child? How are you gonna explain to a kid that I freak out for no reason? I’ve woken Tommy up more than once already.”

“It’s not for no reason, Derek. And we’d handle that, if it came to it.” She pulls at my shoulder, and I pivot in place to face her. “I trust you. And I believe in you. Watching you with Emma? It’s making me crazy. You’re so f*cking hot and adorable and sweet, it makes me crazy. You’ll be an amazing father, Derek. You just have to trust me, and trust yourself. I wasn’t ready to be a mother when I had Tommy. I had no idea what I was doing. And I did it alone. I had to figure it all out by myself. I thought for sure I’d screw him up. But, the thing is, babies are simple. Not easy, but simple. Keep them fed, keep their butts clean, and love them. That’s all they need. It’s hard raising a kid. I’m not gonna lie. You wake up a million times a night, trying to figure out what they want. You think for sure you’re f*cking up somehow, because they just won’t…stop…crying. But you figure it out. You love them, hold them, feed them. And they forgive you when you mess up.” She touches my face. “And so will I.”