“I don’t know for certain that it was what my gut said it was, but I can’t let it go.”
“Okay.” Holy shit.
“After everything we’ve been through, I feel like you might be the only one who could understand what I’m wrestling with.”
“Say it. Whatever it is, just tell me.” Helene slapped her hand down on the bed sheets between them.
The light from the lamp didn’t stop the memories from flooding in once he opened the door to the day he’d tried to forget so many times. He didn’t start the story there, though. He started back when he’d met Dyonte Lofton during his first tour. They’d been paired to scout forward and an instant friendship had grown from discovering they could rely on each other. Lofton had become more of a brother to Andrew than any of his biological siblings had ever been.
He told Helene about the woman who had driven Lofton crazy during that tour, how he’d gone home to discover that she’d been sleeping with one of his friends for months, and how devastated he’d been. He retold how he’d teased Lofton mercilessly when his friend had first started talking to a woman, Gabrielle, who he’d met on a single’s dating site. It had seemed like a sure-fire way to ensure history repeated itself.
Then Lofton came back after spending his leave with his online obsession and said he’d found his reason to keep fighting. No one had expected it to last. Deployments tested even the most solid of relationships, but his friend had found his mate and Gabrielle had accepted Andrew as if he’d been born his brother. He was best man in their wedding, Uncle Andrew to their daughter, and their home had always been open to him.
Andrew leaned his back against the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes. He described how excited he and the other three Marines had felt to be at the end of the tour. He explained that it was that excitement, that cockiness, that made not reviewing the details of the colonel’s orders easy. The colonel had arranged every step of the mission, something Andrew normally would have done himself. He hadn’t cared. In his mind, they were already on their way home.
When it came to describing what had happened, Andrew didn’t pretty it up for Helene. He wanted her to know exactly what he was guilty of. He described how he’d been on the street watching for any trouble. Then the explosion. His friends inside. How deadly the rigged box had been when it had exploded. It had been instantaneous. He was back in that building, reliving carrying Lofton’s bloodied, lifeless body to the Hummer. He struggled to breathe as he described the smoke that had choked his lungs as he’d run up the stairs to carry out the remains of another of his friends.
And then the contents of the box. The remains had appeared to be pieces of a Russian aircraft seat. How it hadn’t made sense nor had it matched what the colonel had later said they’d been sent to retrieve. Lofton and the others had been given hero burials. Their families had received their Silver Stars for bravery. He’d received one as well, one that he’d put away in a drawer because he didn’t feel he’d done anything to deserve it. No matter what his superiors told him, there’d been nothing heroic about leading his best friend and fellow Marines to their death.
Torn between the past and the present, Andrew met Helene’s eyes and growled, “The contents of the crate were scattered around the room. I didn’t see anything but pieces of a pilot seat. The colonel lied. We were there to pick up a personal trophy for his office. I have no proof, but I know it. What I don’t know is if the truth is better than the lie he propagated. Gabrielle believes her husband was a hero. How do I look her daughter in the eye and tell her that her daddy wasn’t a hero at all, he was just a casualty of a senseless illegal request that I would have refused if I had bothered to look into it? How do I tell them that he’s gone because of me?”
Helene moved across the bed and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t say anything. She simply hugged him with her whole body.
“The guilt is slowly killing me, but is that any more than I deserve? It would feel good to out the colonel, to bring him down, but that same victory would tear Lofton’s family apart a second time. I used to know what to do, but I don’t know this time.”
They sat in silence for a long time. He had no idea what Helene thought, but she was the only person he trusted completely.
When she did speak it was in a tone he’d heard her use when she spoke about the importance of the rescue. “My mother says that inaction is humanity’s greatest enemy. She says people don’t wake up and decide to do nothing. Like you, when faced with two unacceptable choices it paralyzes them. What they fail to see is that it’s not a matter of this or that. Solutions are rarely all one or all the other. Sometimes you have to fight part of the battle and count it as a win. If I were you, I’d ask myself if there was something I could do that might make things better without making them worse.”
Andrew shifted so he was lying on his back again and pulled her down with him. He cupped her face with his hand. “That sounds like a bumper sticker—make things better without making them worse.”
She shrugged and kissed his chest. “That’s all I have. I would tell you that your friend’s death wasn’t your fault, that there was no reason for you to second guess your orders, but you know that.” She tapped his temple softly. “Up here you know.” She laid her hand over his heart. “This is where the problem is. Your friend wouldn’t have wanted you to die with him. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave you with the guilt, either. Maybe if you ask yourself what he would have wanted, maybe that’s your answer.”
He held her for a long time, long after she fell asleep in his arms. Her words echoed through him. What would Lofton have wanted?
Shortly after the sun came up, he slid out of bed, walked into the living room, and made several phone calls. When he was done, he wrote her a note and tucked it on the nightstand beside her. He bent and kissed her gently, careful not to rouse her, then he gathered his things and left the suite.
He finally knew what he needed to do. It was something he should have done months before.
Chapter Nineteen
Helene knew she was alone before she opened her eyes. She touched her lips. Had he kissed her while she slept or had she imagined it? She told herself that he was most likely out for his morning run and that if she closed her eyes and didn’t get up he’d be back when she woke again.
Her stomach churned when she saw a folded note on the nightstand. He might have written anything in it, but she knew it was goodbye.
She picked it up, lay back on the bed, and held it for a moment. Whatever it says, I know what we have is real. It might have been too much for him, but that doesn’t mean being with him was a mistake.
She opened the note:
Helene,
I hired a car to pick you up and take you to the airport. Call the front desk when you’re ready. There is a private plane waiting to take you home.
Thank you for last night and for every moment we’ve spent together. I’m sorry to leave you this way, but I know what I need to do now.
If I can, I’ll come back to you, but I can’t return until I know I can give you all that you give me.
Andrew
She hugged the note to her chest and closed her eyes. Halfway through the note, her throat had clenched because it had sounded like a man’s last words, but the final sentence implied he’d chosen another course. She was relieved, but also sad he didn’t feel she could be part of whatever he needed to do. Alone wasn’t how her family handled their problems. She rolled over, picked up her phone, and called her parents.
She didn’t tell them the details Andrew had shared with her. She would take those to her grave. She did, however, tell them he had shared painful memories with her, and then she read his note to them.
Ever the voice of reason, her father said, “You need to come home. He may be on his way to kill someone.”
Her mother’s lack of instant dismissal of that as unlikely was sobering. Helene took a moment to review everything she knew about him. From how he behaved when he w
as angry in Aruba to what he’d said he’d wanted for his friend’s family. Killing the colonel would make things much, much worse without making anything better. “If he is, then I don’t know him at all. Coming home now doesn’t feel right. I’d feel like I left him.”
“Honey, he left you,” her mother said gently.
“No,” Helene said firmly. Her uncle had left her. He’d chosen his own welfare over hers. Andrew needed time, and she had to believe he was trying to find a way to heal, not only for himself, but for her. Whether he was putting himself in a mental health program or going back to see his friend’s family, she needed him to know she believed in him. “He went to do something. He’ll come back to me and when he does I want to be here in Boston with his family. They need me, too. They won’t understand this.”
Not missing a beat, her father asked, “Do you need us with you? We can be there by tonight.”
A tear rolled down Helene’s cheek as she considered how lucky she was to have the parents she did. She didn’t need them holding her hand because their love was her strength. “No, I’m okay.” She took a moment to fill her parents in on how dinner the night before had gone. She even told them what Sophie had said about how the death of her son had changed her.
Her father cleared his throat. “That couldn’t have been easy for you to hear.”
Her mother made a sad sound. “Your father told me about my brother and what happened in Aruba. I can’t believe he had anything to do with that baby’s death, but even if he did, you know that’s not your guilt to carry, right?”
“I know,” she said. She’d told herself that already, but it had taken seeing how Andrew was crumbling beneath a guilt that shouldn’t have been his to bear to make that distinction crystal clear to her. “Uncle Clarence has to live with what he did, whatever he did. I won’t let it stop me from being with Andrew or his family. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other.”
Her father said, “How did we get such a wise daughter?”
“It might have something to do with the quality of the parents who raised me.” Her parents chuckled. She thought of one more thing she wanted their opinion on. “Would it be over-the-top pushy of me if I called a family meeting with his family?”
“Oh, honey,” her mother said, “that might lead to a huge clash with them.”
“What if I showed up at the breakfast they invited us to this morning? Just went without Andrew?”
“It’s not what I would do,” her mother hedged.
Her father said, “What are you hoping to get out of going?”
“His mother said that her children don’t know how to talk out their problems. They don’t know how to pull together when things go wrong. This is an awkward situation and telling them what Andrew said will be painful, but if I share how I feel, maybe it’ll help them see that love is always worth the pain. You taught me that, Dad. I’m not ashamed to let anyone see my tears. I love Andrew, and I think it would help them if they see how a Franklin loves.”
“Oh, what the hell,” her father said, “call a family meeting. They sound like they need one.”
Chapter Twenty
Later that day, Helene stood in the Barrington living room, the center of attention of three generations of Andrew’s family. She’d called Sophie and asked her to gather them and there they all were, looking at her with a myriad of expressions on their faces. Some appeared anxious. Some were impatient. When she’d arrived they’d asked her where Andrew was, and she’d said that she’d tell them all at the same time.
She cleared her throat, took out the note Andrew had written to her, and read it aloud. There was a tense silence when she finished. She put the note back into her pocket and met Sophie’s eyes across the room. “I could have gone home, but I believe he’ll come back to me, just like he’ll come back to you. When he does, I want to make sure that we’re ready to support him, because he needs us even if he doesn’t know how to ask for help.” She sniffed. “There’s a number people throw around when they talk about veterans and suicide: twenty-two. It’s the believed number of veterans who kill themselves each day. Some say it’s more. Some say less. These aren’t weak men. They’re not cowards. These are our strongest and bravest. They went out to protect us and they came back broken. Andrew doesn’t want to talk about what happened to him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need each of you. Don’t make him apologize for taking time to heal. Don’t make him relive what he wants to forget. When he comes back, just love him with all your heart. That’s what I intend to do.”
She faced them, chin held high, eyes full of tears but none shed. For a long moment the only sound was that of Asher and Emily’s son fussing. The couple exchanged a look and Asher walked over to Helene. She stood her ground and looked him right in the eye when he stopped in front of her.
“Have you talked to him since he left?”
She shook her head.
He let out a long breath. “Do you have any idea where he is?”
She shook her head again.
“I do love him. We all do. No one wants to see him in pain or, God forbid, hurt himself. He doesn’t bring his problems to us or we would help him.”
“Have you actually ever told him that? That you love him? That this is a place where he can bring his problems?”
Asher frowned and Andrew’s father, Dale, stepped forward. “This is my fault. Kenzi told us how she felt she couldn’t be herself here, but I didn’t understand that Andrew felt the same way.”
“This isn’t your fault, Dad,” Asher said.
“It is. I told you to be careful around your mother. I told you to take it outside . . .”
Sophie went to stand beside Dale and held his hand. “You did that because you thought it was the best for our family. You thought that’s what I needed.”
Dale shook his head. “How could I have been so wrong? All I wanted to do was to keep this family together.”
Kenzi walked over and laid a hand on her father’s arm. “You did, Dad. We’re all still here.”
“All except Andrew,” Dale said in a deep, sad voice.
“He’ll be back,” Helene said. “I’m here because I’m confident he’ll return. Hopefully with less guilt on his shoulders. Less pain. The question is, what will you say when he does? How will you show him that when things matter, the Barringtons pull together?”
“We don’t need you to tell us how to talk to our own brother,” Asher said.
His wife walked up and put her arm around him. “We could hear her out.”
Andrew sat across from Colonel Ahearn on the porch of the man’s house on the Marine base in North Carolina. They were both dressed in civilian attire.
“What can I do for you, Marine?”
“I’m here to talk to you about my last mission.”
“It was a tragic and unfortunate loss of life. I was sorry to hear that you chose not to reenlist. You had a promising career with the Corps.”
“Thank you. Something’s been eating at me since that day. I saw the contents of the crate before it burned in the fire. It was nothing more than a pilot seat from a MiG.”
“What are you trying to say, Marine?”
“I think you lied when you said we went there to pick up classified equipment. You sent us on a personal errand that cost Marines their lives and then covered it up.”
“My intel said different. I don’t know what was in that crate, and I don’t care. My orders were to retrieve it. Your orders were the same.”
“I looked into the mission and it didn’t come down from higher than you. This was your personal order. I can prove this and have friends who will hang you if need be.”
“Who the hell do you think you’re threatening? I could have MPs here and you in the brig before you reached your car.”
Andrew stood. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I don’t think you know who you are dealing with. I not only have the resources and the connections to crush you, it would feel really fucking good to do it.
”
The colonel was on his feet. “Do it. I don’t believe you can or you would have.”
Andrew went nose to nose with him. “The only thing that has stopped me so far is my concern for the families of the Marines who died, but after some soul-searching, I believe they’d approve of what I’m about to say. You resign today. You leave. I don’t care what reason you give. You’re done. I don’t believe you meant for them to die, but you showed a lack of respect for the lives of all Marines when you sent us in for a trophy. If the MPs come for anyone, it’ll be you. I’m giving you one chance to leave with what’s left of your honor or everyone will know what happened. If you’re still here tomorrow, I won’t stop until you’re court-martialed and spending time in Leavenworth.”
The colonel’s face went bright red. “How dare you stand there and threaten me. Get the hell out of my house.”
“Gladly,” Andrew said, and as he was walking out the door, he stopped. “I was proudly a platoon sergeant, but I have always been and will always be a Barrington. If you don’t know the name, you might want to learn it.” He left with another look. Andrew held his head high and proud as he walked out. Nothing would bring his friends back, but he had honored them that day. The bastard who had sent them to their deaths would send no one else to theirs.
He was back in the air less than an hour later and in Virginia shortly after that. He walked across the thick green grass between rows and rows of white headstone markers. Every stone was the same, because every man’s life was valued the same. There they were all equal, all brothers and sisters, all mourned deeply.
Three stones. Three Marines. Laid to rest side by side in death, as they had been in life. He dropped to one knee, placed one hand on his heart and the other on the stone. “I know what you’re thinking, Lofton. If I dragged my feet for one more damn minute you were going to come back and do it yourself. It’s done, though. One way or another, I did what I think you would have wanted me to do. I’ll make sure your family never wants for anything, and I’ll do it in a way they can be proud of. I don’t know what that will look like yet, but I know you would have done it for me and mine. I haven’t seen Gabrielle since the funeral, but I promise to give all of Giniya’s future boyfriends hell for you.”