“I wish someone had been there for me back when I was going through a rough time and could have used a shoulder to cry on,” I explain. Melody doesn’t respond to my comment. Instead, she climbs up the steps, passes me, and unlocks the door where Benji greets her. “Want me to take him out for you?” I offer because it would be the only real selfless thing I could do at the moment.
She scratches behind Benji’s ears and mutters a slew of gibberish to him. “I could use a walk. We can both go.”
I’m surprised to hear her response, but grateful at the same time. “Of course.” I step into the house, basically uninvited to wait for Melody as she places down the bags she carried into the house. While hanging up her purse, she spots the bag I’ve been holding in my hand.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Something,” I say, smirking to lighten the mood a touch.
“Something you need to take with you on the walk?” When she asks the question in that way, I realize she might think I have something ridiculous in the bag, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume she knows me better than that, even though some might say, she hardly knows me at all now.
“Yes,” I say.
Melody attaches the leash to Benji’s red collar and takes a couple of steps toward me, hinting that I should exit the house. I open the door for her and wait until she’s down the front steps before closing the storm door behind me.
Benji heads right for the front lawn, forcing us to pause and wait. I’d rather she speaks first so I don’t ask something that could make her day worse, but silence lingers for a long minute before she starts to talk.
“I’m sorry again about last night,” she says.
I throw my head back, distraught that thoughts of last night are still tormenting her overloaded mind. “Please, do not worry about Parker or me right now. You have more than enough to think about.”
“She’s a little girl,” Melody responds, “and she lost her mother, so I have some understanding—maybe a lot of understanding.”
The last thing I want to do is get into detail about my misery with someone who is already going through enough pain, but she’s staring at me with more than just a question swimming through her mind. Her eyes are demanding more, and it’s enough to make me talk. “To make a long story short,” I begin. “Parker’s mom got pregnant, found out two months later, and had no clue who the father was. She wasn’t the type to hang around the men who disappear after a couple of dates, but it happened. Abby was terrified, had no clue how she would raise a baby while enlisted in the Marines, so I told her she should move in with me, and I’d help her in any way I could.”
Melody has shock written across her parted lips. “Oh, wow, I didn’t see the story going in this direction.”
That’s not where the story went; it’s just how it began. I swallow hard, trying to find the words to explain the rest. “It wasn’t in my plan to help raise a child then, especially not my own, but Abby was my best friend, and I truly believe everyone deserves someone to depend on in life.”
Melody turns her head around to spot Benji sniffing something in the dark then looks back at me. “You’re a good person, Brett.”
I didn’t do it for the recognition. I wondered if anyone would do the same for me if the tables were turned. I think Abby would have, so the answer was clear to me all along. “I don’t know if I’d say that, but thank you,” I sigh. “Anyway, when Parker was four, Abby left for a three-month deployment. Thankfully, I was between deployments, so I was free to take care of Parker while she was gone.”
Melody places her free hand on her cheek. “Is that when—?”
The thump in my hollow chest answers for me as it always does. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Abby wasn’t in active combat, but she was being transported to deliver documents to another battalion when her vehicle drove over an IED.” There was far too much shock and despondency on Melody’s face for me to continue with further details. This is why I left last night. She doesn’t need to be versed in my past, at least not now. “You know, this might not be a great story for tonight. I wanted to make you feel better, not bring you down.”
Melody runs her fingers through her long strands of windblown hair and shakes her head slowly without blinking. “You’re making me realize I'm not alone in this world right now.”
Benji forces a pause into our discussion by yanking Melody into the street, ultimately leading us down the darkened portion of the road.
I blow the air out of my mouth slowly and try to keep up with her, finding it impressive she can see so well on a dark road without proper street lighting. She asks me questions, but I’m not digesting them, and my words are short answers—fillers. We walk down a short path between an opening in the woods, and I’m terrified of my mind going somewhere dark. A crack of a stick could set me off. I hold my breath as I see the other side of the clearing, which opens into a large grass-covered park with lighting and an oversized aged gazebo. Benji finds it necessary to start running, so I grab the leash from Melody before she goes flying.
She doesn’t seem relieved when I take the leash, but rather curious as she studies my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re sweating.”
“Oh, I’m fine. I—it’s nothing.”
Melody stops in front of me. “Benji, sit,” she commands. With the back of her hand, Melody touched her cool skin to my forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“No, it’s—um—this is going to sound dumb … I just have issues on dark roads sometimes because—”
“The war?” I’m surprised she picked up on it so effortlessly.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to get into it—”
