Doc’s leave only allowed him to be home for twenty-four hours before he needed to catch a plane in Butte and head back to base in Little Creek, Virginia. He’d wanted to spend that limited time enjoying his parents’ company and avoiding heavy subjects. But his old man had never been one to skirt around an issue he felt needed addressing.
They sat in the front porch rocking chairs, and the air smelled of fresh-cut hay and cow manure. As the sun sank behind the mountains to the west, Doc was reminded of the way Lily had always said sunsets were god’s poetry, that He painted the sky in silent verses of color.
Lord, how Doc missed her.
Dad just doesn’t understand,he thought sadly.He’s had Mom for over three decades.
Using his tongue to shove his toothpick to the left side of his mouth, he asked, “And what way am I carrying on, Dad?”
“Like you’re trying to get yourself killed so you can join Lily wherever she is. You do a disservice to her, my boy, by throwing away your life when she’d probably give anything just to have one more day on this beautiful earth. Besides…” His father’s stern face was pointed toward the mountaintops. “It’d break my damn heart to lose you. And I don’t think your momma would ever recover.”
Doc stopped rocking. The only sounds to break the silence then were the subtle squeaks of his father’s chair and the gently tinkling knells of his mother’s windchimes.
All Doc’s irritation leaked out of him. In its place was sadness. Sadness and shame.
He’d been so caught up in his own grief, he’d never stopped to think what his dying would do to his parents.
“I’m sorry, Dad.” His voice was so quiet it was nearly lost beneath the sound of a cow mooing in a nearby pasture.
His father heard him though. Rocking softly, his dad shook his head. “Nothin’ to be sorry about, son. Just do me a favor and start taking care of yourself, okay? And maybe phone home more often. Your momma worries.”
Doc smiled, knowing his mother wasn’t the only one. But in the way of rugged men who’d been raised in the West, his father couldn’t bring himself to sayheworried too.
“You know I can’t when I’m out in the field. But once I’m inside the wire, I’ll do better about calling.”
“I’d appreciate it.” His father adjusted his cowboy hat and turned to him. Doc was struck anew at how much the two of them looked alike. Same eyes. Same lines around their mouths, although his dad’s were cut more deeply. Same raggedy toothpicks sticking out of their mouths.
“Now, tell me more about Rusty’s tangle with that bartender in Bogotá,” his father said. “That guy sounds like a hoot.”
Doc laughed and launched into the tale of Rusty Lawrence’s latest exploits. By the time his mother called them in for dinner, he had his father clutching his stomach and howling with laughter.
Doc snapped out of the memory and ran a finger over the tattoo on the inside of his arm, thinking of how that had been the last time the two of them had sat on the front porch together.
So much loss,he thought.Lily’s gone. Dad’s gone. Rusty’s gone.
Uncle John noticed his gesture and cleared his throat. “Death comes for all of us eventually. So do yourself a favor, Doc, and don’t go wastin’ any more of your life, okay?”
Before Doc could say anything to that, Uncle John turned and headed for the kitchen where the sounds of clinking silverware, conversation, and laughter echoed. But once he reached the doorway, he turned back to Doc. “Aren’t ya comin’,” he asked.
Doc shook his head. “Save a plate for me, will you? I’m going for a walk.”
He needed to think.
Because Uncle John wasn’t right about him coming down too hard on Cami. He wasn’t right in saying Doc was using Cami’s mistake as an excuse to push her away. He wasn’t right about Doc doing Lily’s memory a disservice by hanging onto his pain.
Was he?
That voice piped up again.You know he is.
This time Doc didn’t ignore the voice. Hecouldn’tignore it. It had gone from small and quiet to loud and reverberating.
Shit.He turned and pushed out through the front door, not feeling the warm evening air as it swept over his bare arms and legs.Shit, shit, SHIT!
If Uncle Johnwasright, then there was more than one person he’d been too hard on and who deserved his apology.
Chapter 30
The next day
