Page 295 of Unexpected Heroine

TOMER

Agentle click of the gear shifter sliding into park breaks the silence. Big Al doesn’t make a move to turn off the car. As I examine the front of the house, I’m assaulted with a lifetime of memories, each one worse than the one before.

The familiar sting of hunger and gut-wrenching loneliness settle in my muscles. Echoes of a life I’ve been dead set on burying in the past. And I’ve been quite successful at doing so. Or so I thought until Big Al told me otherwise.

Be a man. Face him.

Fred Stillman doesn’t deserve to occupy any more of your thoughts.

That’s what he said. That’s what brought us here.

I’m unsure whether I agreed out of a compulsion to please him or a desire to truly fix something broken inside of me. Probably the former, if I think critically about it. No sense in attempting to repair something irreparable.

I glance in his direction, pondering once more why he isn’t making me embark on this mission solo. After he suggested this would help put my fucked-up childhood behind me, his gaze pierced me so sharply I feared he could see clear through my skull. A three-second glance turned into ten, maybe twenty seconds.

Then he nodded and told me he’d drive. That was it. I assumed it was his way of supporting me without making me ask for assistance. Allowing me to save face.

Now I’m left second-guessing it. Perhaps he determined I’m too weak to do this on my own.

Oh well. Too late to change my approach. And he’s right, anyhow.

Now we’re sitting in a rental car in the South Carolina sticks on a freezing cold night, about to confront the man who raised me.

Correction. The man who had sexual intercourse with my mother, then made the first eighteen years of my life a living hell. Same difference.

Big Al heaves a haggard sigh, tossing a look at me. “Well, kid. Now or never. Am I going in with you or waiting here? How can I help?”

There it is again. An offer he knows I need without forcing me to speak the request and reveal my cowardice.

He’s such a good fucking man. Tough and kind. Honest and loyal. Why he’s taken a shine to me, I’ll never know.

Since our last deployment ended, he’s been on me like white on rice. All the other guys in our unit went home to see their families and friends. Since I have none, I stayed on base at Fort Benning. So did Big Al.

He caught me one night, shitfaced in the barracks, trying to drown the memories of bloody battles. A half-empty bottle of whiskey in my hand. That was the night I drunkenly rambled about the horrors of my childhood. I spilled my life story like the bottle I eventually knocked over when I could no longer see straight.

The next evening, he invited me to dinner, sat me down, and said he’d done some thinking about the shit I shared with him. Then he did a mind trick to get me to agree to this plan.

Running my palms over my jean-clad thighs, I offer a single, crisp nod. “No time like the present.” I meet his eyes as I unlock my seat belt. “You should come in. It’s too cold to stay out here.”

He doesn’t call me on my lie.

Thirty seconds later, we’re on the front porch, my fist poised at the door to knock.

On my own front door.

I might have lived here, but this was never my home. When I left to join the Army, I made that abundantly clear. Also promised never to return. Not even for his funeral.

Tonight is an exception.

The icy wind whips around us as I call upon my inner fortitude, allowing it to solidify my resolve. With determination coating my entire body, I flick my wrist to rap on the distressed wood door. Heavy footsteps approach from inside the rundown shack.

Big Al clamps his hand on my shoulder. “I’m right here.”

His words steady me, grounding me in the moment.

By the time the door flings open, I’m disconnected from the sparks of humanity he brings out in me.

Cold. Distant.

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