Broken Road Read Free

she would have wanted to say yes.   She didn’t want to look too eager especially after all she had told him about not wanting to date anyone. But at that moment she didn’t really care.   He was fun, attractive, studious, goal oriented, and interested in her. The details and the distance seemed inconsequential. That was the beginning. The beginning of a friendship, a relationship, and eventually a life together that ended abruptly on a road outside of Baghdad. Her head was pounding from all the thoughts, all the memories. The one thing she took comfort in was the fact that he loved Callan and Taylor. That’s why he lived for the times when he could take the boys fishing and riding on their bikes. During that final camping trip they explored every inch of the campgrounds, ate every s’more, sang every silly fire camp song they could remember and had the time of their lives. The last trip hadn’t seemed any different except that it really was. It was the little things she noticed then that made it all the more special now. She remembered the way Shane held Taylor on his lap and whispered silly secret things into to his ear as they roasted marshmallows over the campfire. She could still hear Taylor’s giggles filling the hot, humid night air. She could still hear the serious conversation Shane had with Callan about earning his Eagle Badge for Scouts. He regretted, she knew, the fact that his deployment meant Cal would be working on it alone maybe with some help from his mother.   Shane was right, Callan was disappointed because they’d spent almost a year planning the project that father and son felt would guarantee Cal the Eagle Badge.   She had been privy to some of the information but on a very limited basis. Now, almost a year and a half later, Cal’s project had come to a standstill. What were they going to do about it?   She willed herself to remember but her mind was filled with the image of Shane looking out at her with that peaceful smile plastered all over his face that she couldn’t think straight.   God, she needed to fill her mind with that image, she thought so she could fight off the ones that were still coming.   In a few short hours they would go to the airport to meet the plane carrying Shane home and talk with Earl Hanley the assistant funeral director over at Memorial Park about the arrangements. She looked out the window of their bedroom and watched the wind sway the branches on the old oak outside. How many times had they laid there together watching the birds land, the wind move through the leaves, the frost drip off the branches and the seasons go by?   Not enough, she thought.   Her cell phone rang and she hesitated, closed her eyes and willed it to stop.   It kept ringing. She reached for it.
    "Hello?"
    "Brenda?" It wasn't a voice she was expecting.
    "Jon?"  
    "I know I said I wouldn't call but. . ."  
    "I can't talk right now."
    "I just want to know that you're okay." She fought the urge to let everything out, to cry and to share her pain with him.
    "I can't talk to you, Jon.   My mother's here taking care of the boys and I..."
    "Please. I just want to help."
    "This isn't helping."  
    "Let me be there for you. I promise I won't butt in.   We don't have to talk. I'll sit at the back of the church. Then later when things are quiet I can meet you somewhere.   We can get a cup of coffee and talk.”
    The thought of having him there both tempted and repulsed her but the comforting sound of his voice made it difficult for her to think clearly.
    "No."
    "You need someone to be there with you. I can be there in a couple of hours."
    "Mom's here and so is Mark. I'll be fine."
    "You don't sound fine," he said and she sighed. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to have a familiar shoulder to lean on, someone who understood her and what her life had been like since Shane deployed again. God help her but for the longest time now that person had been Captain Jon Procter, a base psychiatrist