Page 92 of Salute, To Bravery
I glance over, shocked. “They didn’t send you home for that?”
He huffs a dark laugh. “Hell no. They put me on a psych rotation and gave me decaf for a week. We’ve all got blood on our hands, brother.”
Silence stretches between us, but it feels like something useful. Like standing in the ashes with someone who knows the burn.
“I left her there,” I murmur. “After it happened. I couldn’t face her. What kind of man does that?”
“One who’s drowning and doesn’t know which way is up,” he replies. “You want to fix this? You go back. You look her in theeye, tell her what’s going on in your head. Youdon’tlet her sit with that alone. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
Before I can answer, a soft voice interrupts us from the kitchen door.
“You didn’t make mistakes,” the woman says, stepping out onto the patio. Then she adds to me, “His wife got tired of being with an amputee and left him.”
Big Hoss groans. “Ash. Really?”
She shrugs as she approaches, mug in shaky hands, her silver-streaked hair pulled into a loose braid.
“Craig, this is Ash,” Hoss says. “Ash, Craig—he’s new.”
Ash nods to me, her expression more amused than sympathetic. “Nice to meet you. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Hoss. She thought love was supposed to be clean and easy. And when it wasn’t, when the nightmares and the surgeries and the guilt got too messy, she bailed. Sorry about your nightmare, by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I murmur.Fuck had everyone heard it?
Big Hoss rises to take her mug and steady her as she eases onto the bench beside him. There’s an ease between them, a familiarity that says more than either of them is willing to.
Ash takes another slow sip from her mug, then leans forward slightly, her voice a little gentler now. “Look, I don’t know your whole story. But Idoknow this—whatever happened this morning, it scared both of you. And right now, she’s probably sitting somewhere wondering what to do, alone.”
That hits me square in the chest.
“She’s not the enemy, Craig,” Ash continues, steady and sure. “She didn’t sign up expecting this, no one does. But she’s still here, isn’t she? Still trying. You don’t just get to shut the door on her because you’re ashamed.”
“I could’ve really hurt her,” I breathe, the words feeling like broken glass in my mouth.
“Then tell her that,” Ash says, her eyes locked on mine. “Tell her exactly that. Tell her it wasn’t her, that it was the war, the loss, the noise you still hear in the dark. Just don’t let her fill in the silence with something worse, neither one of you can do this alone.”
Big Hoss nods slowly. “She deserves to hear it from you, man. Not the ghosts.” The silence that follows is heavier than the morning fog. It’s the kind that leaves room for reckoning.
I rise slowly. “Thanks. Both of you.”
Ash lifts her mug, a tired but sincere smile on her lips. “Go talk to your wife. And take the hits if they come—but make damn sure she knows you’re still standing in the ring.”
Heading back to our room to talk with my wife, I find she’s gone. Her running shoes are missing, which tells me everything I need to know. She needed space.
I shut the door quietly behind me, the latch clicking like punctuation at the end of a fight I never wanted to have. The silence in the room feels heavier now, pressing down on me as I stare at the empty bed. I lower myself into the chair near the window and cover my face with both hands.
I’m fucking everything up. Again.
I sit there for a long time, not moving. Just breathing. Barely. The image of her face—terrified, gasping, clawing at my arms—keeps replaying in my mind. I want to vomit. I want to scream. I want to be anyone but the man who woke up choking his wife.
Eventually, I force myself toward the bathroom. Showering these days is a slow, exhausting ritual. There’s a bench in there, and rails to grab onto, but nothing makes it feel normal. Nothing makes it feel likebefore.
It takes time just to transfer from the chair to the bench safely, everything deliberate, slow, and cautious. I undress awkwardly, still not used to the way my body looks now. The mirror isn’t kind. I avoid it.
The water is too hot at first, stinging the hypersensitive skin near the surgical sites. I grit my teeth and bear it, letting it run over me while I grip the handle with white knuckles. Every scar, every missing piece, feels more visible under the stream.
This used to be the place I reset. Now it’s just a reminder of how much harder everything is.
Afterward, I dry off as best I can without slipping, then slowly work my way back into clothes—loose athletic stuff, easier to manage.
