It Had To Be You (5 page)

“
One of the firefighters was in
Afghanistan.”

Nick’s head snapped up. “They let him work as
a firefighter?”

“
Yes. It’s part of the Hire Our Heroes
national push.”

He glanced away. He was no hero. None of them
really were.

“
Ironically, I met him at a support
group for PTSD sufferers and their families.”

“
You said you were gonna go to that.
How was it?”

She met his gaze and wrinkled her nose.
“Really hard.”

Nick liked that she didn’t bullshit him.
“Yeah, I bet. I’m sorry you got an ex with this thing.”

“
I know. That means a lot to
me.”

Cocking his head, he took a seat on the
stool. “Why, Lela?”

Her brown eyes widened. “Because you can see
my side. I’m wondering why you can’t see Amy’s.”

Again, he looked away, regretting he’d
confided in this woman so much. “Oh, I see her side as much as
yours. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about her living
with this,” he pointed to his face, “And this.” He motioned to his
foot.

“
She wants you in her life.”

He shook his head. “Tell me more about the
firefighter guy. I like success stories.”

Which was true. Nick enjoyed hearing about
men who’d come back from war who weren’t so broken like
him—physically and emotionally—that even all the King’s men
couldn’t put them together again.

“
Can we talk about our kids?” a
firefighter asked at the third PTSD support group meeting. The guy
had gone down to work at the pile after 9/11 and afterward, had
horrendous flashbacks.

Jack Harrison surveyed the members, most of
whom nodded. “Go ahead, Paul.”

“
I had an attack at home when Shelia
was using the hair dryer and the smell was like burning flesh. We’d
had a charred body the week before in a bad fire. I was making my
kid breakfast. She freaked.” He went on to explain how his daughter
had been remote since then and wouldn’t let him hug her.

“
Anyone else deal with issues like this
with their kids?”

Pretty Lela Allen, dressed in a
blue-and-brown skirt, which flowed around her calves, and a brown
blouse, spoke first. “I have a boy. Josh. He’s seven. He’s, um, one
of the reasons I’m divorcing Len. In the midst of a rage, my
husband knocked me across the room. Josh saw it. I made Len move
out the next day.”

“
How’s Josh now?” Harrison asked.
“You’ve been separated more than a year, right?”

She nodded, visibly shaken by the memory.
“He’s remote with everybody but me. Mostly with adult men.” She
rolled her eyes. “Not that there’s been any in my life since my
separation. But he had a male teacher and we had to switch him to a
woman.” Her lovely, brown eyes clouded. Beck could see her reaction
from across the room. “The school recommended he have a few
sessions with the school counselor, but he wouldn’t open up. I
tried taking him to a professional therapist, but he hid under a
desk the whole time.” She nodded to Paul. “It breaks my heart.”

Though his own heart started to beat at a
clip, Beck forced himself to speak. The least he could do was match
the others’ honesty. “I, um, have a boy who’s ten. He’s got
behavioral problems and is remote, too.” Beck’s head began to spin.
“I’m not sure I can get the reason out.”

Discomfort trilled around the
semicircles.

Finally, someone spoke up. Lela. “What’s his
name?” she asked.

“
Tommy.”

“
Maybe you can do it for
Tommy.”

He drew in a heavy breath. “It’ll make
everybody here who’s got family cringe.”

Another man, a father of a soldier, said, “I
don’t care. Insight into people who have PTSD and those who don’t
is one of the reasons this group is combined with sufferers and
survivors. I wanna know what’s going on in your head.”

When more members encouraged him, Beck found
the courage to open up. Hands fisted in his lap, he said, “I had a
flashback two years ago. In the foyer of my house. I’m not sure
what triggered it. Suddenly I was running into an enemy camp and
got tackled from behind. My arms began to flail to buck him off. I
was kicking. Shouting.”

He could feel the weight of an insurgent on
top of him, and the taste of sand, gritty in his teeth. “Turns out
it was Patty, my ex, trying to confine me. When I came to and
looked around, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I’d flung my wife
against the wall and sprained her shoulder. The foyer was trashed.
Mirror broken, a table upturned. I’d used a coat rack to pound a
hole the size of Wyoming in the wall. Worse, Tommy had been hit by
debris and he’d crept into a closet to get away from it. His face
was bleeding. Our relationship went downhill from there. Stopped,
really, after I moved out.”

When he dared look at the others, he saw
revulsion on a few faces but mostly there was…familiarity. It hit
him then—other people had either done these things or seen similar
actions in those they loved. It seemed stupid, but that made him
feel better.

Harrison spoke. “I’m sorry, Beck. It must
have been a horrendous scenario. It would help if you remembered
the trigger.”

He shook his head.

“
I wonder if we could go around and
discuss what triggers our own, or our family members’,
attacks.”

“
Before we leave the subject of kids,
can I ask a question to the group?” This from Lela, who’d moved to
the edge of the chair.

Harrison nodded.

“
How many other people have children
who’ve been adversely affected by PTSD?”

About ten group members raised their hands.
She transferred her gaze to Harrison. “Since not everyone here has
kids, any chance of getting you to hold a couple of separate
sessions for us that do? I know I could use some help reaching my
child.”

Harrison agreed readily. Would Beck have to
go to these, too? He left hurriedly after the meeting, vaguely
distressed.

o0o

The next afternoon at three, dressed in his
navy pants and light blue shirt for the night shift, Beck went to
visit his son. He found him in the backyard tossing a ball up and
down.

“
Hey, Tommy. Want to play
catch?”

His son turned. At first, a hint of joy
sparked in the boy’s eyes. Then as if he physically quelled it, the
expression was gone. “Whatever.”

Retrieving a mitt from a tub they kept
outside, Beck jogged about twenty feet away. Tommy hurled the ball
at him. It flew through the air, fast for a ten-year-old, and Beck
jumped up to snag it. “Great throw, Tom.”

The boy shrugged. Often his responses these
days were gestures, grunts and occasional mumbles under his breath,
which he refused to repeat. The spitting image of Beck himself, his
son represented one of Beck’s greatest failures.

They tossed more pitches, and Beck felt
almost normal in the warm April sunlight that trickled through the
trees. But after ten minutes, Tommy dropped his glove in his
mother’s backyard—which used to be Beck’s too—and headed
inside.

Beck called out, “I thought we might go for
ice cream. I got another hour before work.” The boy halted, then
shook his head without even turning around.

Damn it! He just didn’t know how to reach his
son. Since the incident in the foyer, which had caused Beck to move
out, the kid wouldn’t relate to him or anybody, really, and had
begun acting out. Maybe he’d go to this new group with Harrison and
get help finding a way back to his son.

After picking up Tommy’s mitt, Beck sat down
on a picnic bench, closed his eyes and let the spring weather
soothe him. A few minutes later, the door slammed and Patty entered
the yard. She was a pretty woman with light brown hair and hazel
eyes. Beck knew she had a boyfriend. He just hoped this guy
deserved her.

“
Didn’t go so well?” she asked, setting
down coffee in front of him. Gratefully, he picked it up and sipped
the almost-bitter brew. They got along a lot better now that they
were divorced.

“
Same as last time. He’ll do stuff with
me but then stomps off.”

“
I’m sorry. He’s warming up to Mick,
though.” The beau.

Another paradox. Beck was glad his son liked
Patty’s boyfriend, but that Tommy turned to another man knifed Beck
in the gut. These days, it often felt the knife stayed lodged there
and twisted at will. He said only, “Well, good.”

Patty snorted. “You don’t have to pretend it
doesn’t hurt. I hated when you did that when we were married.”

Briefly, he squeezed her hand. Before the
divorce, they hadn’t touched for six months. “I know. I’m
sorry.”

“
Did you talk to him about his incident
at school the other day?” Tommy had refused to do an assignment,
somebody picked on him about it and he punched the perpetrator.
Just the week before, he’d stood up for a boy littler than him to
these same kids, so his actions were contradictory but involved
conflict, just the same.

“
No. I’m sorry I was working when you
had to go get him. For what it’s worth, my captain said if that
happens again, I should leave and he’ll find coverage.”

“
The fire department seems pretty
amenable.” She sipped from her own mug. She’d gotten a few lines
around her eyes that weren’t there before the divorce. Constantly
handling Tommy’s issues wasn’t easy. “Is the support group
helping?”

“
Yeah, we’re having a few extra
sessions on dealing with kids.”

Facing him, he saw acceptance in her
eyes—something he
really
didn’t deserve. “That’s great,
Beck. Really.”

Beck slid off the table. “I have be at work
in an hour. I’ll go find him to say good-bye.” He studied the woman
he’d fallen for all those years ago. “I don’t know if I ever said
this, Patty, but thanks for being so nice to me.”

“
I’ll always have a place in my heart
for you.”

“
Same here.”

Heading into the house, he felt an
overwhelming sense of loss. It increased when he found Tommy at the
computer in a den Beck himself had built off the family room. There
had been hope then, for them as a family. “Hey, son.”

Tommy stiffened and clicked out of a site.
Beck saw that he was on FacePage, a social media venue.

“
Your mom let you go on that site?”
Beck had heard some stories about things happening online to kids.
And Tommy was only ten—and impressionable.

He swiveled around. “Fifteen minutes a
day.”

“
Hmm. You got a page?”

“
She says no. I’m too
young.”

At least the boy was talking. “The fire
department has a page.” And the women had a blog, but Tommy was too
young for that. “Want me to call it up?”

“
No, I can do it if I want
to.”

“
Try it. I post sometimes.”

The boy went back to mumbling. Familiar
frustration coursed through Beck. “Before I go, your mom wanted me
to talk to you about the trouble you had at school last week.”

“
Some kid said some stuff. I didn’t
like it.”

“
What?”

Again, Tommy turned his back. “I don’t wanna
talk about it.”

Beck decided to wait until he met with
Harrison again before he pushed Tommy. A longing so powerful—to hug
the kid—surged through him, so he crossed to the computer. But when
he tried to put his arm around the boy, Tommy squirmed away from
him. Instead, Beck settled his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. The smell
of sweat, but also of the shampoo he remembered using when he
bathed the boy, wafted up to him. “See you Thursday, son.”

“
Whatever.”

As Beck headed out of the house and to his
SUV, the heavy feeling of failure engulfed him.
Please don’t let
this be forever,
he prayed to a God he didn’t believe in.
Please
.

o0o

Nine of the ten people with kids from the
original group showed up at the first of three sessions on the
effects of PTSD on children. Lela entered right as the session
began, and the only seat open was next to Beck. She’d purposely sat
away from him at the regular meetings because his proximity
disturbed her for reasons she chose not to examine. He gave her a
weak smile when she dropped down into the chair. Today he was
dressed in khaki shorts and a green-gold shirt that made his eyes
look like cat’s eye marbles.

“
Sorry, I’m late,” she said to the
group. Josh had clung to her, quietly, like he did everything these
days, and begged her not to go. Mrs. Campoli had had to pry him
away.

Harrison smiled. “You’re not late. We were
just about to start. Hi, everybody.”

Nods, hellos. The members attending looked
more anxious than usual. No surprise there. Lela’s stomach was on
rinse cycle at the thought of analyzing what happened to their kids
because of PTSD.

“
I’d like to begin by having you
describe what’s going on with your kids; what caused you to sign up
for this group. Lela, you said Josh’s remote. Beck, you described
Tommy’s behavior issues.” His gaze transferred to the next person
in the semicircle. “Want to go next, Mark?”

“
I got a teenage girl,” the burly vet
said. “She’s into
causes.
” His lips thinned with irritation.
“
She told me we had no right to be in Afghanistan. That
America’s a bully, pushing its views on a nation that wanted to be
left alone.”

“
That must be tough to hear after your
service.” Jack’s voice was sympathetic.