It was taken before we got together, the time I came over for Thanksgiving dinner and we played cards and bet on chores. I won breakfast in bed from her, something I'd hoped to collect as soon as I got back. Now I'll probably never get the chance.
The program from the memorial service is next. Weird to see Matt and Gage’s name with the other two men killed. Mom sent me a copy of this. I shoved it into my footlocker without looking at it. Now I study it. Read every detail until the pain is replaced with numbness. Then, I put it back in the box. I’m suddenly tired. I scoop up the last of the papers. I doubt there’s anything else in here that I want to see.
I’m wrong.
Another picture—Jess and Lieutenant Stephens. His arm is around her. They both look flushed. They’re wearing parachute gear.
On the back it says,
Looking forward to our next adventure. I'll be thinking of you. Love Michael.
I figure it out pretty easily. He took her skydiving.
When?
Where?
How do you compete with that?
I study her face in the picture. She looks excited, happy. Beautiful.
Lieutenant Stephens is a big thrill-seeker. Skydiver, extreme skier, all of that. I study the picture. What happened after they jumped out of the plane? What was his next adventure? Her?
Looking at the picture makes me sick. Jess said she loved me, that she would wait for me, but I know too well how the heat of the moment can change everything. Especially after something as adrenaline-filled as jumping out of an airplane. Where did they go after this picture was taken? That will haunt me.
I put everything back in the box, establishing my own hierarchy. The picture of us and the locket on top. Stephens at the bottom. I resist the urge to rip him out of the picture completely.
I lie down on the bed and try burying my head in the pillow. Nothing but dryer sheet smell. No Jess.
I close my eyes and try to see her face. Now I see two faces. Her face and Michael’s, smiling, arms around each other. I can’t separate them in my mind.
thirty-six
Game
I’m back in Iraq.
We’re doing a building-to-building search. Tense, not knowing what’s behind the next corner.
Jess is with me. She’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, no Kevlar. No gun. No helmet. I keep telling her to get back, to take cover. She won’t talk to me, won’t even look at me.
Sniper fire.
I put my body between her and the gunshots. I raise my gun and fire. The sniper fires back. I’m trying to keep track of Jess while I shoot. I hit the sniper. He falls from the top of the building.
Jess screams and runs into the street. I’m trying to stop her, but she fights me off. She kneels beside the fallen man. I see his face.
Stephens.
She’s screaming at me. “You killed him.” She’s holding his body. Blood and sand are everywhere.
She looks like she did in the picture, covered in gray dust. Now she’s a little kid again. I’m trying to carry her out of the street. She’s fighting me. She gets free and runs.
“Jess!”
A sharp knock on the door brings me out of the dream. “Jacob, are you up?” It’s her dad.
I sit up in a daze. My legs are tangled in her sheets. I wonder if I yelled her name out loud. I can guess how that would sound to Mr. Roberts, standing outside the door. Me, yelling his daughter’s name in my sleep.
