Secrets of War: A Military Romance (5 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
t’d been a month since their
first date
, well at least that was what Jamie referred to it as. He’d been able to convince her to have coffee with him every week after their therapy session and today was no different, they were sitting in Cultivar coffee house, a barista heaven in the center of town.

They served organic and fair trade espresso which was their main attraction, but if you’re hungry, they also served delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner. The ambiance begged you to sink into a dark booth, crack open a good book, and enjoy a cup of espresso, but if you wanted company, you were welcome to bring your best friend, as dogs were allowed on the outdoor patio. They were right across the street from Suzanne ’s store and therefore, she spent a lot of time there.

Jamie had thought a lot about forgiving Suzy for the note and cruelty all those years ago. They had both been so young. Maybe she’d been confused? He’d wanted to ask her a dozen times about why she’d done it, but pride kept him from doing it. After all, he was confronted everyday with her sweet, loving nature and that note…her act of cruelty back then, just did not make sense.

He at times, even forgot about his DEA assignment when he sat with her like this. “So how does it feel to get something like that?” he asked her of the letter she’d been sent by one of her old patients.

It was from a solider who’d struggled so much with PTSD, he’d had to been institutionalized for the safety of his family and himself. He’d spent a lot of time in his room listening to a CD Suzanne had made for him to help him to sleep. Soon, he was coming to her class then going home to his loving wife and daughter. Next, he’d come and started to learn to play a little on his own. Suzy had ordered a grand piano and had it shipped to his home, so it could quiet his mind anytime of the day or night.

“Thanks for the instrument,”
he wrote in his thank you letter to Suzanne.
“It means so much as I’m trying to learn to play. Music is keeping me alive.”
Tears had welled in her eyes the moment she’d read it.

“It’s amazing and overwhelming. I didn’t think I would be able to make a difference in any real way when I left my practice but this, this tells me I am.” She said smiling at him.

“Still don’t want to tell me why you stopped practicing medicine?” Jamie asked her quietly.

“Still don’t want to tell me what happened on the mission where lost you some of your fingers and your leg,” she countered.

“Nope!”

“Nope!”

They both looked at each other and laughed.

* * * *

Suzy genuinely enjoyed his company, Jamie was the most charismatic, funny, and smart man she’d ever known. He still had a way of creating butterflies in her stomach and making her see things in crystal colored glasses. She’d already forgiven him for that devastating note he’d left her. Life was just too short to hang on to grudges. She knew this only too well. She wanted them to at least be friends after all they’d meant to each other before.

“Well, well isn’t this cozy?” Sally Merrik asked approaching their table.

“Oh Lord,” Suzy muttered softly.

“Good Afternoon mother, to what do we owe this pleasure?”

Sally was of course, dressed to the nines in a navy blue pinstriped pantsuit with her silver gray hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. Carrying her Ralph Lauren, crafted in Italy American alligator, vintage-inspired high-gloss finish twenty five thousand dollar handbag. “Well, I came into my favorite coffee house for a cappuccino and I see my son having lunch, so I figured I would come over and say hello.”

“Your favorite? Really? Because I am in here every day and I’ve never seen you here,” Suzy replied breaking Sally’s lie.

Sally ignored her as if she hadn’t spoken, but her next statement confirmed why she was really here today, “Jamie, I hear you are spending a lot of time with the doctor lately. Is there something wrong with my precious grandson, you haven’t told me and your father about?”

Jamie rolled his eyes heaven ward annoyed with his mother’s fake bullshit. “Mother what is your grandson’s name? What size clothes does he wear? Better yet, when is his bedtime? You don’t know. Why? Because you don’t give a shit about my son, so stop the nonsense and tell me what it is you really want?”

“I’m your mother and you have no right to speak to me that way. I love you and my grandson, and for you to suggest such a thing is very, very hurtful. I have nothing against Ms. Stephenson and her family,” Sally defended fake tears welling in her eyes.

“Well, you could have fooled us,” Geraldine said from behind her.

“I—well, hello Momma Geri. It’s nice to s-see you,” Sally stammered turning toward the woman standing behind her.

“Shuga, my friends and family call me Momma Geri. You are neither. Mrs. Stephenson will suffice, thank you.” Geraldine glared at her.

Suzy and Jamie were shocked at Momma Geri’s words. She was the sweetest woman in town. But only if you didn’t cross her family. Sally had been crossing her family for many years and for her daughter’s sake she’d kept quiet. Well, she wasn’t about to let her get away with that on her granddaughter not anymore. “Are you coming in to give my granddaughter a hard time again and threaten her to stay away from your son?”

“I—well—I never! I would never do such a thing!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, you would!” all three of them countered simultaneously.

“Jamie! Are you going to stand here and let these…these…women talk to your mother that way?” She looked flustered.

“Well actually, I was just going to sit…” Jamie extended his leg with the prosthetic limb and raised his pant leg, so it could be seen. Something he knew his mother was ashamed of.

“Oh! Put that down!” she exclaimed looking around at the patrons making sure none of them had seen it, but unfortunately for her, she was too late.

Two older veterans that were in the corner stood up, saluting Jamie which caused other people in the coffee shop to stand up and applaud them all. It was a few moments before everyone went about what they’d been doing.

“It’s funny mother, but it doesn’t seem like my leg makes anyone uncomfortable but you.” Jamie glared her.

“It doesn’t make me—Jamie we have talked about this and her,” she said pointing to Suzanne.

“Look granny, I’m a
her
!” Suzy said laughing.

“Listen here. I let you run my daughter out of town seventeen years ago, because you thought she’d been sleeping with your old decrepit husband. Well, let me make this clear, my daughter was a good woman. She was the salt of the earth and a gift from God,” Geraldine told her angrily. “She was Mercer’s friend and God knows, he needed one being married to the likes of you. But I am not going to let you hurt my granddaughters. So, take your overpriced, tacky purse and go and buy a bunch of crap that you don’t need.”

Sally looked to Jamie to stand up for her but he just played with his coffee cup as a smile played on his lips as he looked away.

“This is not the end of this. I promise you,” she finally replied storming out.

“She forgot her cappuccino,” Suzy said laughing “Thank you Momma!” She hugged her grandmother.

Jamie stole a chair from another table making room for Geri to sit down. “Okay, Momma Geri. What was that all about?” he asked the question Suzy had been thinking.

Geri took a deep breath waving her hand. “I promised Sassy a long time ago I would never speak of this. But she’s gone now, lord rest her soul and you deserve to know the truth.” She patted both their hands. “Excuse my language son, but your mother had been a bitter gold digging trash box her entire life. Your father met my Sassy in high school and he adored her. But Sassy never thought she could live in Mercer’s world. Your father always had more money than baby Jesus. So when your daddy joined the service, Sassy, well, I hate to put it this way but it’s the truth…She settled for your daddy, sweetie. Mercer came back from Vietnam a broken man, nightmares, hallucinations, unable to sleep, and there was Sally ready to be the wife of a very rich man. Whether he was ready, or even well, she didn’t care. As long and she became Mrs. Mercer Merrick,” Geri paused taking a sip of her tea.

The pair sat and stared at her, both with knowing expressions on their faces. They knew all about Sally’s greedy, selfish nature.

“Well, you know they didn’t have a title for it back then. There wasn’t help for the men who were suffering. They drank and lived alone. Seventeen years later, your daddy was a drunken mess. He came to see Sassy the day after Suzanne’s father died, to wish her the best and tell her he was there for her. Well, that boy was so drunk, he couldn’t get up the porch steps. Sassy helped him into the house poured coffee and food down his throat and just listened to him talk all night. Telling her about the friends, he lost over there. The people he’d had to kill. That boy talked himself to sleep. Yes, for the first time in months probably, your daddy fell asleep on my couch and slept until the middle of the afternoon the next day. When your mother came banging on my front door, she accused Sassy of sleeping with her husband. Which was untrue. Mercer told her to take her tail home and he would be home later that afternoon. By the time Mercer got back out to that God awful mausoleum your parents call a home, your mother had spread all over town how she caught my Sassy in bed with Mercer and that is what had killed Suzy’s daddy. Well, you know the small minded people in this town don’t know shit from shynola, or have any tolerance for people and things that are different. Well, Mercer tried to clear Sassy’s name but a couple of the old biddies’ that lived near us at the time had seen him staggering up to our door late that night and not coming out until the next afternoon. So the lie spread like wildfire.”

Suzy bit her lip, as Jamie shook his head.

Geri sighed wiping a tear from her cheek, thinking of the pain her daughter had suffered at the time. “She’d just lost her husband and was the town pariah soon after. It had almost been more then she could bare. Then she’d been offered a job in California. So to get some peace for her daughters, and so they wouldn’t have to live under that lie…She took it. Although, she’d never even been anywhere on vacation and this was her home. She packed up and left town. Your father is a good man, Jamie…he just married the devil. Sally kept writing him over the years helping him with his demons. It broke my heart to have to tell him she had passed on.”

Suzy stood up, pulling her grandmother into a hug.

“I am so sorry Momma Geri. I had no idea,” Jamie said feeling the boil of shame and anger rise up in him.

“Oh, baby! Don’t you worry about that! You’re not responsible for your mother’s shenanigans,” Geri told him.

“So that’s why we moved away the way we did in the middle of the night. Like we were fugitives,” Suzy whispered.

Geri nodded. “Yes, Sally made things miserable for Sassy. All the people looking and whispering, talking about her behind her back, she lost her job. She had children to care for. She was devastated, she just wanted to hide and not be seen for a while.”

Jamie was taken back to the day he’d come to their house to pick Suzy up for school he’d found a note taped to the door from her, that simply said:
I’m ending this before we both make the biggest mistake of our lives. I need and deserve better.
He’d never understood the cruelty of that note until now. “Is that why you left the note you did that day?” he asked Suzy staring at her.

“What note? I didn’t leave you a note,” she replied looking at him confused. “You left me one. That said something about, ‘
I need and deserve better. I need a girl that is more like…’ ”
She stopped realizing at the same time he did, neither of them had left a note.

“Your momma wrote those,” Geri broke into their confusion and shock. “She knew you nor Jamie would let go, if she didn’t do it that way. She felt so guilty for the rest of her life because of that.”

“You didn’t just leave me?” he whispered. Looking angry, Jamie stood up and walked out of the coffee house.

“Jamie! Jamie, what’s wrong?” Suzy yelled confused.

“What just happened?” Geri asked her.

“I don’t know.”

CHAPTER NINE

J
amie parked his car in the driveway of his parents’ home, taking the porch steps two at a time. “POP! Pop you here?” he yelled looking for his father.

“Good Afternoon, Mister Jamie. He is in his office,” the housekeeper said coming from the kitchen.

Jamie turned and went toward his father’s office without a word to their long time housekeeper, which was very unusual. “Pop!” he yelled coming through the door.

“Jamie! What’s wrong? What happened?” Mercer asked his eyes full of concern.

“What was your relationship with Sassy Stephenson? Did you really let mom run her out of town? How could you allow that to happen?” Jamie accused.

“OK, OK. Slow down, slow down,” Mercer cautioned coming around his desk, placing his hands on his son’s shoulders to soothe him. The same way he had all of Jamie’s life.

After getting Jamie seated in one of the chairs in his office, he poured him a sniff of whiskey. “Okay, what has your cockles raised up?”

“I just got done having a very enlightening conversation with Momma Geri and Suzy about why they left town, seventeen years ago.”

* * * *

Mercer had prayed no one would ever know the truth about what happened back then, mostly because he felt guilty, he hadn’t done more back then to help Sassy. He’d been so wrapped up in his PTSD which he didn’t even know he had at the time. He hadn’t been able to take care of himself, let alone anyone else. He took a deep breath and dove in, “I’m sure momma Geri told you the truth.” Mercer looked away from his son in shame of the man he hadn’t been.

“Pop!” Jamie yelled jumping up. He slammed the drink down on his father’s desk. “How could you let that happen?”

“The only thing I can say is I was a broken man who couldn’t see anyone’s pain but my own. I prayed for years I would one day get to apologize to Sassy. When I heard she died a few years back, I knew that would never happen.”

Jamie turned and stared at him with eyes so cold he felt a chill. “Do you know what you and mother did to my life?” he asked in a low threatening tone. His fists clinched at his sides while he was vibrating with rage.

“What does this have to do with you?” his father asked feeling the heat of his son’s anger.

“Pop, I loved Suzanne! In a way that I’ve never loved and will never love anyone else. I went to war because I lost her. Because I thought she didn’t want me! And it was because of what YOU allowed my mother to do to that family. I let a man die…” Jamie stopped realizing what he’d let come out of his mouth.

“You what?” Mercer asked with concern. “Jay what did you do?”

Jamie gazed into his father’s eyes filled with love and concern as he fell to his knees in tears.

Doing the only thing he knew to do, Mercer went to his knees and held his son as he cried.

“I let him die, Pop! I let him die. I lost my leg, my fingers. I—I lost her…”

Mercer let him cry while saying soothing words to him. For Mercer, his son’s pain was like looking in the mirror at the reflection of himself. It brought him back to the support and kindness Sassy had given him. Even after he’d allowed Sally to ruin her reputation. After he hadn’t stood up for her.

It took three glasses of whiskey and time of silent support before Jamie was able to compose himself. “I’m sorry I yelled at you Pop,” he finally mumbled.

“Hey, that was nothing compared to your momma when I restrict her black card.”

They both chuckled having memory of the first time Mercer had done that.

“You ready to tell me what happened?”

*  *  *  *

Jamie leaned against the wall resting his head in his hands.

He was quiet for so long Mercer started to think he wasn’t going to answer.

“Pop, I shouldn’t have gotten that medal. I don’t deserve it. I’m nobody’s hero.”

“It seemed like you never really wanted to talk about what happened, so I never asked. Those four boys you saved seemed to think something different.”

“Yeah! They were so glad to be alive. I was glad for them too. Hell, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now about my leg, all I cared about was those boys going home to their families.” He stared out the window of his father’s office his mind going back to that terrible day. “We were at a combat outpost Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan. That morning, Me, Keating, Marks, Arturo, Blanks and Todd awakened to an attack by a little over three hundred enemy fighters occupying the high ground on all four sides of the complex. They were using concentrated fire from recoilless rifles, and rocket propelled grenades, anti-aircraft machine guns, mortars and small arms fire. I moved uncovered under intense enemy fire to conduct a reconnaissance of the battlefield and seek reinforcements from the barracks before returning to action with my gunner, Todd. “

Mercer nodded his head, as he understood battle tactics, having been there himself.

“I took out an enemy with my machine gun and while engaging a second, the generator we were using for cover was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, inflicting me and Todd with shrapnel wounds. He got the most of the shrapnel. His intestines were exposed and blood was squirting from his stomach like a water fountain. I was taking my lace off to tie the bleed off and he looked at me and said, “Be careful man I got HIV.” I froze Pop, I couldn’t move, I already couldn’t feel my leg. I backed away from him. I couldn’t let him touch me. I could hear him screaming for me to help him, begging and pleading. I decided if I got him help from someone else, he would still be okay.”

Mercer let out a sigh as he listened.

“So I kept fighting until I could get to where Keating was, I told him I needed him to go back with me to help Todd. His arm was already ripped to shreds and he couldn’t even defend himself. So I tied off his bleed. Since my leg wasn’t hurting anymore I thought things couldn’t be that bad, so I rushed through the exposed avenue to get some more guys. I was finally able to get to the post and mobilize a team to get Todd and Keating. I didn’t care what was going on with my leg. I still had a good hand to shoot with, so I was getting out there with my sniper rifle. I did whatever I had to do, including exposing myself to heavy enemy fire, as he moved back to first Keating and then toward Todd taking out the enemy targets, including three Taliban fighters who had breached the combat outpost perimeter. The Taliban had reinforcements that were closer by then we thought...” Jamie paused as if he’d mentally went back and was stuck there.

Mercer remained silent as he clenched his hands together and waited for more.

“…Then they unleashed a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and recoilless rifle rounds. I communicated with air support to destroy over 30 enemy fighters. We provided cover fire, so they could get to Todd, Marks, Arturo, and Blanks. But it was too late Todd had bled to death out there, alone in the dirt and sand. Everyone else was no worse for the wear but Todd—Todd died. He left the majority of his blood volume out there. Because I didn’t tie off the damn bleed, because the guy had HIV. He was always there Pop! Whatever we needed, he was there for us. When I ran into the fire, so did he. He trusted me with his life. He didn’t have to tell me he had HIV, he could have waited, but even then in that moment, he was looking out for me. I killed him Pop, I killed him!”

Taking a deep breath Mercer thought long and hard about what to say next. After several minutes of listening to Jamie’s quiet sobs, he finally cleared his throat to speak, “War is the worst kind of hell a man can experience. You go in one man and come out another. No solider ever wants to admit they are afraid to lose their life on the battlefield. Now I’m not gonna pull any punches with you son, I never have. While what you did was not the best you could have done for your fellow Marine, it is human. Todd wanted you safe he didn’t want you to risk your life, for his. You do him a disservice by trying to take the brunt of the decision.”

“Pop, how do I as a Marine, take that medal? A Marine is a man of honor, there’s no honor in what did,” Jamie muttered.

“You take that medal proudly, if not for you then for Todd, and for those other young men that are grateful to you for their lives. You take that medal because it’s not about you. But about those men, all the soldiers before them and all the ones after.”

Jamie simply stared out the window over their land, watching the breeze rustle the leaves of the oak trees that lined their property. The ranch was his place, the place where he felt at peace and the most connected to the God that created it all. It hadn’t been that place for him since returning from Afghanistan. It’d become a vivid reminder of all the joy, patience, love, and laughs Todd would never have.

“Now get yourself together, with all this crying like a female and go and enjoy your day,” His father urged going to sit behind his desk again.