American Wife (23 page)

Words came—a few, then a torrent. I recounted what the last hours had been like, seeing Chris dead, seeing the unbelievable, the unimaginable, the thing that I always dreaded and yet never thought could happen. Sometimes I whispered.

I got to feel his hair. His body was soft. I kissed his face. I told him I loved him. He wasn't all cleaned up. I was glad—I was glad. I could see his eyes, his set jaw. I could see, I could touch
 . . .

We sat there together, my friends around me, all of us wrapped in my tears. They said nothing, yet their powerful presence was more eloquent to me than any words can describe. It was one of the most beautiful yet saddest moments of my life. My friends didn't speak, but they understood.

How long we stayed like that, I have no idea. If I had needed them to stay for a hundred years, they would have.

People talk about how important women friends are; that night I understood.

FRIENDS, AND MORE FRIENDS

People started flooding back in, doing what they could. Marcus Luttrell and his wife Melanie were among the first to arrive from out of town. They ended up staying for days, even though they'd driven up from Houston with only the clothes on their backs. I didn't know Melanie very well, but over the next few weeks we would form a friendship that has bonds of steel. She has a quiet, calm presence and a grace that is contagious. Laughing or crying—anytime I'm around her, I feel calm.

The house filled up with active-duty and retired SEALs whom I hadn't seen in years. The military even pulled a few men who'd been close to Chris off deployment, flying them in to be with us. Southwest and American Airlines donated flights for family and close friends; someone else donated a tour bus to park on the street, giving people a place to go outside the house. The kids used it as a makeshift playhouse; we used it for meetings about the funeral arrangements and other business.

There were countless donations, large and small, of items for the funeral, food, and even cash for whatever expenses we had. People pitched in in ways I would never have imagined. The street was blockaded, and police put up a 24/7 watch.

There were many media requests—all very polite—for interviews and statements. Chris's brother Jeff took on the burden of speaking for the family, and he did so eloquently, with a simple dignity that would have made his brother proud.

I was too shattered to talk to the press, let alone appear on camera.

We took the kids to see Chris's body the next day.

He'd been cleaned up a lot. Leanne had suggested that we have a photo book with pictures of Chris; it was a brilliant idea, a way of putting their good-byes in a better, if not exactly happy, context.

Before going in, I told them they were going to see their father's body without his soul. Their dad was now in heaven; all they were going to see was the body God had loaned him for this world.

How much comfort that was, I don't know.

Bubba stood near him for a bit, then decided he was done. At some point he told me he didn't like to cry. “It hurts too much when I cry.” Instead, he would run hard, play hard. The thing about grief is, we all do it in our own way, in our own time, kids included.

He went out with V and they sat together on a couch, looking at the book. Within a few moments I heard V's deep voice boom; laughter echoed in the hall. Bubba was telling him stories about his father, reminding him and all of us of who Chris really was.

Angel and I stayed with Chris.

“Can I touch his hand?” she asked.

“Yes.”

There was a flower in the room. She put it on him.

In the immediate aftermath of Chris's death, Bubba dealt with his grief by playing. He played all the time, with anyone and everyone who came to the house. It was his way of staying busy and not focusing on sadness.

Angel, younger, was a little more direct, though quieter. She often looked toward her brother as her spokesman and maybe test case: his emotions guided hers. She expressed her connection with her dad directly, mentioning that she often felt him still close to her. I came to take that as a comfort and reassurance: Chris walked with us still.

Over those first few days, people continuously brought the kids toys and games. They were showered with gifts but for weeks and months. It was a touching, natural gesture, an attempt to do something tangible for them to ease their pain. But after a while, it became problematic. They got so many things that they couldn't possibly play with everything. And I was afraid they might get spoiled. There were signs of that—an expensive tablet computer left carelessly around, piles of neglected toys scattered in every room.

Eventually, we came up with the idea of sharing some of the toys with other children. We filled up a laundry basket with brand-new things, then gave them to a local charity. We've continued doing that since: Lego sets, video games, dolls, action figures—more toys than the kids could have played with in ten years have gone to other children, hopefully providing them with some comfort and happiness.

I would never have thought generosity might have its negative effects. But I also learned that it shouldn't—and that I was the one who had to do something about it. Other people's kindness taught the kids how to be generous toward others.

There was much kindness and generosity toward us in those dark days. I'll never forget some of my friends doing dishes at my sink. Some were there until eleven or twelve at night, day after day. Little things were major things at the time. I remember a few days after Chris's death realizing that Angel needed to change. I went to her dresser drawer, desperate to find something—anything—she could wear that was clean. I hadn't had a chance to do the wash, so I cringed when I opened the drawer . . .

Only to find the dresser stuffed with freshly laundered clothes. Two of my friends had washed and dried all of our laundry without a word.

I can't list everything people did for us. Husbands as well as wives pitched in. They didn't ask—I would have told them,
NO!
I don't need help!
They just did it. They knew, because they were moms and dads, too. They knew.

Angel mentioned to my sister that we had let her release helium balloons to send to the kids in heaven.

“I want to send some to my dad,” she said.

My sister and some friends went and got a huge batch of red, white, and blue balloons. That evening, the kids and the adults went outside. There must have been 150 people there—neighbors, relatives, friends, Team guys. Someone said a prayer, and then everyone released them.

They floated up, slowly vanishing in the distance. Angel stayed and watched until the last one was out of sight.

Friends did more than help; they shared their grief. Some talked about it. I talked about it—I needed to know.

The conversations were as deep as our grieving. They didn't follow the simplest scripts you might read in book on grieving, because grief is a difficult and twisted emotion. Faith helps, but it's neither a cure-all nor a balm to anesthetize the wounds. It helps you get through, but it tests you at the same time.

I remember talking to Kelly, Ryan's widow. I especially valued her perspective because she knew what it meant to lose her husband unexpectedly.

“It's not going to be easy,” she told me. There was no reason to sugarcoat the truth, or ignore the pain. “This is going to suck for a long time.”

“God knew this was going to happen?” I asked, half questioning, half stating. “This is part of His plan?”

“I've always thought, in grief, God is crying with me.”

How true. Whatever we think of God, whether what humans do is part of His plan or not, surely He would weep for our sorrows.

“I feel so blessed that the kids had time to be with Chris,” I told her. “And it's so sad for your daughter, not having time with her dad.”

“She has a very real relationship with her father. We have pictures and we talk about him a lot.”

I marveled at her strength and quiet will. Would I achieve that? It surely felt impossible.

“Is it ever okay?” I asked. “How do you make it okay?”

“I can tell you that my life with Ryan now feels like a different life,” she said. “Time has a way of stealing the pain from you.”

I fell apart. I didn't want to lose any more of Chris, even if it meant stopping the pain.

POLICE BUSINESS

A few days after the murder—I'm not really sure when—our friend Sean came to me and said there was a Texas Ranger outside who wanted to talk to me.

“Why?” I demanded. “What's there to say? That guy murdered two people. What can I possibly say?”

I guess I was worried that, in some way, someone would try and turn it on Chris. Somehow they would try and make a case that he was responsible for his own death.

Looking back now, I see how ridiculous that is. But at the time, I didn't trust anyone. I was adamant: I wasn't talking to him.

Sean offered to go with me. “His name is Danny, and he's the lead investigator. I've talked to him,” he added. “I trust him.”

“You trust him?”

“Yeah,” said Sean. A former SEAL, Sean now worked in law enforcement himself. “I'll be right there with you if you want.”

I relented. “All right.”

We walked out to the bus where the Ranger was waiting. I don't know what I must have looked like. I spent that whole week wearing Chris's camo jacket over a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. If I remembered to brush my hair at any point, it had to have been because of divine intervention.

Chris's parents were already inside.

“I, uh—can I grab your hand?” I asked Sean, stuttering as I prepared for the worst.

I squeezed his hand hard as we talked. I squeezed so hard I might have broken bones.

Danny was the lead investigator on the case. I'm sure when he's dealing with criminals he's an undoubted bad-ass, but talking to me he was the kindest, gentlest man you could imagine. We spoke for quite a while. He started by asking me about how Chris had met Eddie Routh, and what had happened prior to the murder. We talked like two human beings who had met in the worst circumstances, yet somehow had to work together and even care about each other. Intermingled with the questions about the case were more personal ones, and just regular conversation. It was a two-way street: I learned a lot about his family, and I got a strong sense of respect and responsibility.

And I found out Sean has really strong hands.

Holding hands, whether it was a friend's, my father-in-law's, or even a stranger's, seemed to steady me somehow. I always needed that reassurance in the days right after the murder.

I told Danny that I hoped there was some way the accused could be released into the general prison population. I told him that because I was sure he would be brutally beaten and hurt, and maybe killed.

I know they didn't do that, and I know they couldn't do that, and I know they wouldn't do that. I also know it was not exactly a very Christian thing to hope for.

But it was what I wanted.

A couple of months after the murder, I asked Danny if he would take Leanne and me to the murder scene. While we were there, I asked if he had any pictures that showed what had happened.

He did. But that wasn't
really
what I wanted.

“Can I see them?”

He was reluctant, but by this time he knew me well enough to realize that the more information I had, the better I would feel. And so he showed me those horrible pictures, and in a way it made the murder not easier to accept, not easier to understand, but different in a way that was important to me.

The logical side of my brain took over. I talked to Danny about how it must have happened, where they'd been, where the murderer moved, the sequence of shots. I was very scientific, very far from the emotions I felt. It was as if re-creating it in my mind might somehow control the horror and sadness.

We walked around the range. Leanne put her fingers into the wood divots where the bullets had hit. She cried.

When we were leaving, a man came out who said he was the first on the scene.

“I used to be a paramedic,” he told me. “I want you to know I did everything I could do for him.”

“You're saying he wasn't dead?” I asked.

“There was definitely electricity going through his body.”

“Are you saying he wasn't dead?”

“I think if I'd have had paddles [for resuscitation], I could have saved him.”

“Oh.”

I knew by then that Chris had died instantaneously, and that no one could have saved him, even if they had been there instantly, not an hour or more later. There was no reason for the man to feel like he could have done more, but there was also no way for me to relieve whatever guilt he felt, or assuage whatever impulse led him to tell me the story.

“Please don't say anything to the Rangers,” he said. “I wouldn't be very popular.”

“Sure.”

Another man called us over a few minutes later. He told me he had seen Chad first and grabbed his hand and said Hail Marys out loud, over and over.

“Then I saw the other man and I did the same thing,” he recalled. “If that brings you any comfort.”

“Oh, thank you,” we told him. “Would you say it with us now?”

“Oh, I don't know if I could do it now. I was so in the moment.”

I went home confused, and not just because of the different stories. I'd thought going to the scene would solve something, but it didn't provide real peace. Nothing could. And the questions it answered were replaced by new ones even harder to satisfy.

Why, God? Why?

PEACE WITH GOD

Friends ask if I was mad at God for taking Chris from us so early.

No. Not with God. Not to this day.

I'm angry with the murderer—beyond angry.

But Chris's death brings the question: If God is all-powerful, why didn't He stop it? Why did He let someone kill Chris?