Lengths (23 page)

I snap the box shut, hiding that perfect ring that twists my guts and stare at the red velvet box. When I blink, I’m furious over the sting of tears that threaten to smudge my eye-makeup. I just wanted things to be normal. Not rushed, not heart-crushing. Normal. He can’t even give me a few days to breathe, a few weeks to get back into our groove, a few months to feel out where this is going. My fist locks hard around the velvet.

I can’t believe Deo thinks this is a good idea. I can’t believe he thinks we’re
there
without even talking to me, after everything we just went through. I thought he’d respect the boundaries we clearly need to establish to keep this relationship from taking over our lives, but he obviously thinks he can barge through every closed door, no matter how much I value my privacy.

I set the box down with a thud on the small table and back away with my limbs stiff,  like it’s a ticking bomb, ready to explode and ruin everything. Just like the one that took Wakefield away.

I manage the tears and lock my heart against his voice, singing those romantic words through the wall of the apartment we just started sharing again. I want to march into the bathroom and demand answers. I want to order him the hell out so I can think without his smell and laugh and crazy sexy self screwing with my judgment. I want to throw him on the bed and have my way with him, because he still turns me on so completely it’s scary, even when I’m furious at him.               All I know right now is that I can’t be here when Deo gets out of the shower. I grab my purse and keys and bolt out the door.

              Rocko’s tattoo gun is already buzzing away when I push through the door of the shop.
              “Morning, kiddo!” he yells cheerfully.
              “You’re here already.” I stop, confused, wondering if Deo threw my world off so completely, he’d even made me lose my handle on the most basic of things. Like time. “Why?”
              “Well, I missed you, too, darling. Had a special appointment.” He nods at the guy whose arm he is tattooing.
              “Okay.” I’m trying really hard not to be annoyed. I wanted a few more minutes of quiet. A few more chances to collect my thoughts and push the rising panic away. But I’m pissed at Deo, not Rocko. I have to remind myself of that. “How’s Marigold?”
              Rocko stops tattooing for a minute and smiles a dazed, proud smile.
              “Marigold.”  He pauses and shakes his head like he can’t come up with the words to describe exactly what he’s feeling. “That woman is amazing.”
              And that sentiment and the look on his face, that pure happiness,  makes me want to run home and crawl back into bed with Deo.
              “Good.” I nod. “I’m gonna go to the bank, then. Get some change. Or something.”
              “Whit, come see this before you go.” Rocko waves me over to see what he’s working on. I set my purse down and sigh.
              The man who’s being tattooed looks a little older than me, or maybe just a little more tired and worn. His skin is deeply tanned and small lines fan out from the creases of his eyes. Still, he’s smiling and talking with Rocko like he’s completely at ease, and, you know, not being stabbed repeatedly by the tiny needle of the tattoo gun. Rocko pauses for a second so I can see what’s being inked on the guy’s arm.
              “What’s up?” I smile at Rocko’s client to prove I’m not a total ogre. “Whit.” I extend my hand to introduce myself, and he shakes with his left, since he’s trying to hold his freshly inked right arm steady.
              “Eric. Eric Brown. Pleasure to meet you.” His eyes are a nice, clear green and his smile makes him look so much younger, I make up my mind that the lines around his eyes are definitely more about stress than age.
              “Take a look at this.” Rocko’s voice is soft, not like he’s proud of the precise font or color contrast or design in general. This isn’t Rocko sharing his skills, but I’m not quite sure what it is instead.
              I look over at the fresh ink on this man’s arm.
              It’s intricate lettering, wrapping around his forearm that reads,
“Here I am. Send me.”
              “Nice.” I wonder if Rocko is thinking about the tattoo I designed for Deo. Well, the tattoo I designed that Deo wound up getting, anyway. I decide to put all of my mental powers towards going more than fifteen minutes without thinking about Deo if that’s possible. I direct my next question at Eric, whose smile puts me at ease. “What’s the significance?”
              Rocko knows I’m a sucker for this part of the job. It’s like my own version of US Weekly. I love hearing the stories behind the ink.
              “It’s Isaiah, 6:8.” His eyes are clear and open, letting me know it’s okay to ask. So I do.
              “Isaiah 6:8?” I don’t bother to wrack my brain, because I wouldn’t be able to use all the fingers on one hand to count the number of Bible verses I can even recognize. “I’m not familiar.”               I haven’t been to church or cracked a Bible open in years. My parents still go twice a week, but after I hit double-digits in age, they couldn’t drag me with them.
              “
Isaiah 6:8, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”’” Eric recites in a voice that’s ringed with conviction and just the shadow of a hint of sadness.
              “Oh, okay.” Call me dense, but I don’t get it. “I’m not super religious, but it’s nice.”
Eric chuckles and eyes the ink fondly. “Honestly? Neither am I, but it’s fitting.”
              “Nice job.” It’s a clean tattoo, and the language is direct and powerful. I get the feeling there’s something more they expect me to notice about it, but if there is, I don’t get it. It reminds me of Deo and the words tattooed on his ribs. And I sigh when I realize, with that one thought, I’ve proven beyond a doubt I am a miserable failure at keeping that boy out of my brain for even a tiny sliver of time. “Especially for coming in so early.”
              “It was worth it to come in early for. Explain it to her.” Rocko and Eric exchange a Look, and I feel the slow sludge of panic creep through my veins. Explain
what
?

“I’m in the military, and after each tour that I make it home safely for, I get another tat.” Eric glances at the words on his arm, and, suddenly, they don’t look sharp and clear. I feel the burn of rage that always comes when tears threaten. I’m not fucking crying for the second time today.               What the hell is with me lately? Eric’s voice helps me pull my shit together and focus on anything other than the tears that are clawing at my ducts. “This is number three.”

“Three?” I try not to choke on the word. Three tours he’s made it back from. Three times he’d escaped. I full-on glare at Rocko for doing this to me. For dragging me over here and into this. Especially after the morning I had. If I cry now, it will be from pure, scathing pissed-off anger.

“Yep, I guess you could call it war paint.” Eric’s smile is defiant. He sounds proud, like he’s spitting in the face of what has to be one of the scariest situations any person could ever have to face.

My head spins, my legs feel like rubber, and I have to sit down, or I’ll crumple in a heap on the floor. I pretty much fall into the swivel chair next to Rocko and Eric and rub my temples, which are tightening like I’m about to suffer from the clamp of a serious migraine.

“You okay, kid?” Rocko’s voice is low and worried, but it’s like barbs pressing against my already aching skull. Like he didn’t know what this was going to do to me. Like this wasn’t part of a plan. I don’t even have the strength to glare or scowl, because I’m worn the hell out.
“Yeah. Just...” But I’m not okay. I grip the seat of the chair until my fingernails bore into the cloth and my knuckles turn white and I lock my feet back around the base to keep from tilting off the seat. Because even though my chair is completely still, the room is spinning.

The world is spinning.

And it has been since the day Wakefield died.

Because of me.

And just when I thought things were slowing down, that I wasn’t so miserably dizzy and could maybe stand on my own and start picking up the pieces, Deo buys a fucking perfect, stupid, fuck-up-my-world ring.

“My brother was in the service,” I blurt out. My words hang harsh and blunt in the air for a few breaths.
              “That’s what I heard.” Eric doesn’t sound impressed or unimpressed, reverent or flippant, excited or bored. He sounds like he just heard a fact that he understands. I manage to lift my pounding head and make eye contact with him, locking on those clear green eyes that have lost the crinkle from his smile, because his mouth is fixed in a straight, tight line. I expect him to look away, but he doesn’t. He stares right into me. I want to break his stare and shoot daggers at Rocko with my eyes, but I can’t. Because there’s something in Eric’s eyes that tells me he knows heartache and loss. Maybe even more than I do. And, as painful as it is to see that, I can’t look away. Because for the first time in months, I feel like someone gets it.
              “He didn’t make it,” I finally say. The relief that unfurls in me at being able to say those words without having to deal with someone’s misguided pity or discomfort is so freeing, I feel the iron clamps of my migraine loosening. I lose my death-grip on the chair and drop my feet back to the floor, taking slow, deep breaths, before I say the words I still can’t quite believe are true, forever now. “He never came home.”
              Rocko stands up and pretends to be busy across the shop. This
was
a set up. But the fire of my rage has long since died out. I focus on Eric, calmed by his even, quiet presence.
              My fingers hover over the still-raw design on his arm, and I swallow hard before I make myself ask, so I can know the truth. So I can stop ignoring any grief other than my own. “So what’s the tattoo mean?”
              “It sort of has a double meaning. The first is that, in the military, we do a lot of things that civilians may think are impossible. And we just say, ‘send me.’ Because that’s the job.” Eric’s shrug is an unconcerned tip of his shoulders, a modest, honest statement about what he and people like him do, like it’s nothing particularly heinous or horrifying or amazing.
              I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around ‘the job,’ as Eric describes the terrifying, life-on-the-line thing he does as his day-to-day. How can one word describe what he does overseas, in the line of fire, but also describe what I do when I’m here, organizing Rocko’s portfolios or paying his vendors? I want to know more. I want him to tell me, because Wakefield can’t, and I need someone to explain it to me from the inside. “And what’s the second?”
              He inhales sharply, and his hands fist for a few beats. “I’ve lost brothers, too. Not biological ones, like you, but brothers still. There isn’t a single guy in my squad that wouldn’t lay down his life for one of the others. We’d all say, ‘send me,’ if we had the choice. I’d sink for anyone of those guys.” The clear green of his eyes is sharp and fierce with his determined words. He means every single thing he says, and his conviction shakes me to my core.
              I. Can’t. Breathe.
              Eric is the kind of man you would wish you had by your side in a war. Eric is the guy who survives, the guy who gets it all on a level some people will never comprehend. I wish he’d been in Wakefield’s unit, because maybe he could have protected my brother or taught him. There was never a guy less cut out for service than my little brother. I try to explain the truth about him that crashes through me, weighted with stinging regret.

“Wakefield, my brother, he wasn’t like that. Around me, because he was comfortable, he was so funny. I’m talking hilarious. But if he didn’t know you? People were always shocked when he finally loosened up. Because until he trusted you, he was so quiet. Shy. He didn’t like to take risks. My brother always made all these graphs and lists before he decided to do anything, ever. And he didn’t even want to be there.” The honest words slice like razors out of my mouth. They shake and whisper, because I’m too ashamed to give them any more volume.  “He only enlisted because he wanted the cash for school. Because he wanted me to not have to worry and be able to use our parents’ saving. He was really nervous to go at all.”

Eric puts one big, tanned hand over mine and pats my hand slowly. He tries to smile, but stops when I give him a look that lets him know he doesn’t have to go easy on me or sugarcoat a single damn thing.

“Maybe. Maybe it started that way. But I promise you, by the time he finished basic and was shipped overseas, he wasn’t the same kid brother you knew. He’d changed, even if you never got to see that side of him. Lots of people are quiet going in. That doesn’t mean they aren’t brave. There’s a saying that ‘courage doesn’t always roar.’ He was there, doing a job for a bigger cause. And I bet when he went down, he was doing something he was proud of. Something that meant something.” His eyes are locked on mine, and I know he believes what he’s saying with his whole being. I just don’t know if I believe what he’s saying.
              “Something worth dying for?” It’s blunt, and awful, but I can’t help it. I need to know. The truth. All of it.
              His laugh is short and resigned. He’s not laughing at me, and he’s not laughing because he thinks any of this is funny. I think he’s laughing because I’m asking questions that don’t really have the kind of mystery-solving answers I’m looking for.

The answer to the question I asked is something I’ve always known, because I was lucky enough to know every beautiful, strong, courageous part of my brother. Even the parts that were just waiting to be tapped into. Just waiting for an opportunity to go from potential to absolute.

Eric’s words confirm what my heart and brain realize all at once, and, deep down, have always known.

“We all die, sweetheart. You’ve just got to live your life with enough meaning while you’re still here to make it all worthwhile. I bet your brother knew that, even if he wasn’t ready to go.”

Rocko comes back over, slathers Eric’s arm in the new organic tattoo butter Marigold has concocted and insists we use in the shop now, and winks at me. I breath in the tangy, almost-minty smell of the balm that will heal those brave words on this smart-as-hell man’s arm, and feel a deep sense of something strange.
              Something I last felt with Wakefield, just before he left. We were lying in the backyard, catching fireflies on our fingers.
              “Remember doing this as kids? At Nana’s?” he asked, smiling at me through the overlong blades of summer grass growing high and fast behind our house.
              “Yep.” I watched as the little bug roamed up and down my finger, tickling my skin with its legs, its bright back flashing with a pure gold light. “I used to wish we could keep them forever. You remember?”
              “I remember jars of dead fireflies, if that’s what you’re asking.” His brown eyes, the same shape and color as mine, focused on the bug on my finger. “You’re shit at letting go, you know that?”
              I gave his hand a quick squeeze with my free hand. “I’m getting better.” I flicked my fingers and we watched the bug blink away. “See. I let go.”