American Wife (32 page)

On December 13, I filed suit. I asked to see the financial records of Craft to determine whether Craft had made unauthorized payments or loans and whether Craft International Risk Management, the company Chris thought he had been shut out of, had usurped any business opportunities of Craft. The suit asserted claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and conversion, to name a few.

The conflict got worse. Just before Bo and Steven were to be deposed in the lawsuit, they declared Craft bankrupt. They also insisted that they had the right to use Chris's name, likeness, image and his skull logo for company business. That seemed outrageous to me. If the company was bankrupt, then surely the company should no longer control Chris's name and trademarks.

If the principals were Chris's friends to begin with, why had they not included him in the new company? And why all the BS now? If the business was worthless, so be it—let everything drop.

They suggested at one point that Craft should receive money from the publication of
American Sniper.
Craft benefited from
American Sniper
in several ways. For one thing, the publisher contracted with them to provide security for Chris during the book tour, an unusual move. More importantly, Chris's new fame helped raise the company's profile; he wore the logo at almost all of his appearances, at least partly at their request. But there was no specific connection between Craft and the book.

I don't know what to think. Maybe the idea was to procrastinate and make me spend more money on lawyers. Maybe they just lost touch with reality. Who knows?

I do know this: Dealing with Craft and worrying about the Jesse lawsuit at the same time caused a lot more stress than anyone could handle under any circumstances, let alone mine.

CHRISTMAS

I tried not to think about the fact that this was going to be the first Christmas without Chris. I didn't want to ruin the holiday, or all the days leading up to it. I wanted to celebrate the season and let the kids have fun.

I'll feel what I feel that day, I told myself.

It was a great day for the kids. My parents, sister, and brother-in-law were all there. After they opened their presents, the kids went and played with friends; they said it was the best Christmas ever.

But for me, it felt empty. True, I felt some joy watching them, but it was as if in between the happiness and me was a thick layer of Lucite that bent and distorted the emotion, reducing it the way cloudy plastic reduces light.

My sister Ashley and brother-in-law Stewart flew in from Australia for the holiday, but they ended up doing far more than celebrating. Stewart especially was a godsend. He just started pitching in on the many business issues involved in the foundation, helping me understand what had to be done and then making sure it was followed through. His guidance as well as my family's love really helped get me out of the metaphorical hole I'd sunk into and rededicate my efforts to the foundation.

Did God send my family to my side exactly when I needed them?

In late January, a friend pointed out that there were flags all through the neighborhood.

“Taya,” she asked, “what national holiday is coming up?”

None that I could think of. Then I realized that it was to honor Chris—our neighbors and the local Rotary Club had gotten together and put the flags up in Chad and Chris's memory.

I wondered what I should do to mark the anniversary of his death. I thought of going to the cemetery. But then I realized that I shouldn't celebrate the day he died—there was no way I was going to honor his end like that. Instead, I treated it as a normal day, or at least as normal a day as I could muster. I wrote about my feelings and posted them on Facebook, pouring my heart out and crying as I hit enter on the keyboard.

ALL OUR BURDENS

Late that winter, there was a hearing for Chris's accused murderer, Eddie Routh. The hearing was important; it gave him the option to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty.

The courthouse was an hour and a half away, but I felt I had to be there to bear witness for Chris. Chris's mom and dad and his brother Jeff felt the same way. My brother-in-law Stewart, my friend Vanessa, and some other family friends also came along for support.

Thank God they were all there with me. I went in thinking that I was fine, only to find my strength sliding away as the proceedings began. Occasionally one of my friends or family would put their hand on my back and help ease my anxiety. I tried to do the same for Jeff, who was sitting beside me; I could feel his anger seething.

A lot of our friends were hoping Routh would plead guilty and spare us the ordeal of a trial. I didn't really have an opinion. Part of me wanted things over with, but another part wanted the man judged.

Tears rolled down my eyes for much of the proceedings, even though from a legal point of view they were routine. In the end, Routh didn't plead guilty. A date was set for a May trial.

So be it, I thought.

I was standing on the aisle as court was dismissed. Routh's family had taken seats on the other side, and I caught a glimpse of his mother as she got up.

Somehow I realized she was going to come over and try and talk to us.

I wasn't ready to deal with that. There had been reports in the media that her son had threatened people with violence, something I doubt Chris knew. That doesn't make her responsible for what happened, but I have to wonder if things would have been different had Chris realized how severe her son's problems were.

I caught the prosecutor's eye as she started toward us.

Help!

He walked down to intercept her.

“I just want to say something,” said the woman.

The bailiff stepped in, keeping her away.

“I just want to talk to them,” she said tearfully. “This is just as hard for us as it is for them.”

What a weird thing to say, certainly at that time and place. Her son was still alive; my husband was dead. As hard as it was for her, things were far more difficult for us.

Maybe some people will wish I could have taken a different, more generous view. It's not that I don't understand her pain; it has to be brutal. But I don't know what I could have said, let alone done, that would have assuaged it.

I know as Christians we need to show mercy and forgiveness, just as we will one day ask the same of God. But at that moment and place, I would have had to be a saint to do any more than tremble as I walked from the courthouse.

My stance on the death penalty is one of the many things that I have had to wrestle with since Chris's death.

As a Christian, I know that judgment is God's. Yet I want justice for my husband.

I believe that, if we have faith and repent our sins, we will be forgiven when we get to heaven; the Bible says as much. On earth, things are more complicated. In Texas, the alternative to the death penalty is life without parole. The prison where murderers serve out their sentence is truly a terrible place, and there is no hope of parole.

I've thought quite a bit about it, and come around to the view that life without parole may in fact be a worse punishment than death. It does provide protection for society as well as justice for a person who has murdered. I haven't changed my mind about the death penalty—I think it is an appropriate punishment for certain crimes—but I have come to see life without parole as an appropriate punishment as well.

Can a criminal redeem himself in the eyes of God by asking for forgiveness? That's for God to judge and decide.

As a Christian, I hope he can. But at the same time, forgiveness does not mean that they are absolved of the consequences of their actions on earth.

Asked by the prosecutor, I said that I was good with whatever they decided to seek as a penalty, provided he didn't walk the earth as a free man again. Otherwise, I deferred to anyone else in the family with strong feelings. That was as far as I could go toward forgiveness.

A few months later, the trial was postponed until early 2015 because of a new law that required comprehensive DNA testing and processing. Every bit of DNA material found in Chris's truck, for example, had to be collected and analyzed—a process that would take months under the best circumstances. So any hope of closure had to be put off for a year.

I don't have post-traumatic stress disorder, but Chris's death and the things that followed brought me a little closer to understanding what it must be like. Simple things can catch you off guard.

Parents' Back-to-School Night, for example.

I went to one recently. Pretty much your routine, suburban middle-class experience. But walking in one of the hallways I began feeling very sweaty and panicky. The walls didn't close in, exactly, but there was a certain unease that I couldn't classify, let alone get rid of.

There was no reason for me to be panicky in that moment, but I was. I saw people I knew and should say hello to, but I just couldn't make the effort. All I could do was stay in my corner.

I know PTSD has become a very overused term; in some ways it's the disease of the week. Still, I do have a lot of sympathy for people who have it.

But I need to make it clear: having PTSD does not make you schizophrenic, or a murderer. Plenty of good people have PTSD, and the only ones they harm are themselves.

The diagnosis is not, and should not be, a Get Out of Jail Free card. It can't excuse bad behavior, let alone criminal behavior, even if it can give us some understanding of people's conditions. Even people who are hurt or injured are responsible for their actions. From everything I have heard, PTSD doesn't change your core character—it doesn't turn you into an evil person or sociopath.

I know it's a difficult balance. We have to be sympathetic toward the victims of PTSD while not letting them use it as an excuse. We can't risk putting a black mark on anyone who has the diagnosis, or even has trouble readjusting to normal life after experiencing trauma.

GOD

I know for a fact that my life with Chris changed my relationship with God.

I was raised Episcopalian—Sunday school and all that. I always felt, from the time I was young, that God was real. There were times when I doubted if Jesus was the only way to God—people all over the world believe in God, so why does there have to be only one way to find salvation? I've come to a place now where I've accepted Jesus as my savior, but I also wouldn't be prepared to tell others that they're wrong for taking another path to God.

If I am going to believe in God and Jesus this strongly, my faith should be able to stand the test of examination. And I think it has.

Soon after I moved to Texas, I read
The Case for Christ
. The author, Lee Strobel, says that he approached the topic of Christ's divinity and existence with great skepticism; he even considered himself an atheist at one time. He interviewed a series of expert witnesses and proved to his satisfaction that Jesus was in fact real.

For me, that's important. I need more than faith to believe.

The churches that I have always liked are the ones that I call “come as you are.” They bring the Bible to you, interpreting it for everyday situations. For me, they make faith relevant as well as real. More than one of my favorite churches has referred to their congregation as a “motley crew”—and I think that's a good thing.

Chris could readily reference certain parts of the Bible that applied to war and fighting. But his knowledge and beliefs went far beyond that.

We were talking about religion and the Bible one night while he was deployed. I don't remember exactly the conversation, but I do recall being surprised that Chris was able to talk about the Bible in such depth. Maybe misinterpreting my surprise, he told me I could look up what he was talking about in the Bible myself.

“I have one in the truck,” he said.

“You do?”

“I always have one with me.”

It was something I'd never known. He was not the sort of person who made a big deal out of religion. I guess he lived it more than proclaimed it.

During the nights of Chris's first deployment, I would pray to God that He would protect him. The prayers were deeply personal, and as I prayed, I sensed the weight of what I was asking settle on my chest like a physical thing. In that weight, I felt God's hand. It was a connection I had never known before.

Some people say God hears you most strongly when you need Him the most. I came to believe this during Chris's time in Iraq, and that faith has strengthened over the years. But what I needed to believe after Chris's death was that God has a plan for us. More important, I had to accept that His plan is the best plan. Even if I didn't like it. Maybe it is less about the best plan for an individual and more about others—the ripple effect of life and faith.

During the war, I was constantly afraid Chris would die. What made it worse was that he told me many times that he wanted to die on the battlefield.

Let me refine that.

He didn't
want
to die, but if he
had
to die, then he couldn't imagine anything better than dying on the battlefield. It was part of his sense of duty: dying on the battlefield would mean that he had been doing his utmost to protect others. There was no higher calling, and no higher proof of dedication, for Chris. So there was no sense fearing death in combat. It would be an honor.

That idea hurt me. I knew my husband wasn't reckless—far from it—but in war there is a very thin line between being brave and being foolish, and when Chris talked like that I worried the line might be crossed.

I started going to church more during his first deployment, and eventually went to women's Bible studies to learn more about the Bible. But fitting the idea of God and faith and service together was never easy. What should I pray for? My husband to live, certainly. But wasn't that selfish? What if that wasn't God's will?

I prayed Chris would make the right decision when it came time to reenlist or leave the Navy. I wanted him to leave, yet that wasn't exactly what I prayed for.