taking in the breadth of the space and the height of the trees, cocking his ear toward the rush of the waterfall nearby. Sometimes I was certain he had Cade’s mind—analyzing everything he saw, planning his moves one by one, yet not immune to temper tantrums and petulance. I wished I could feel the pride of an ordinary mother who sees the best of her child’s father reflected in his spirit, but a bittersweet ambivalence was the best I could do.
From the direction of the trail came the sound of a bounding dog. I scooped up TJ, and a moment later Tess appeared, tail wagging and tongue lolling, with Dave following close behind with a walking stick in hand. “What are you
“I have yet to see a bear. In ten years I have never once seen a bear.”
“That just means they’re good at hiding.”
I grinned. “Well, we’re fine. I’m trying to help TJ get over his new fear of trees.”
Dave nodded and looked out at the mountains. “He’s had a lot of change lately. Can’t blame the kid for wanting everything to just stand still for five minutes.”
TJ squirmed in my arms, and I set him down on the ground once again. As he toddled forward to pet the dog, I remembered the day Dave and I had hiked here—that Christmas afternoon two years or an eon ago—when I first knew of his little life. That day Dave had spoken of his doubts about Cade, and I had ignored him. But even now, after all my son and I had traveled through to return to this place, I wasn’t sorry for that. Cade had only been human, with a savage side and a pure-hearted one, the same as everybody else. The same as me, or Leela, or Elias. As good a man as Dave was, even the help he offered me had not been purely selfless. He welcomed the excuse to bring me back, and not just because I was a hard worker, either. I think I had known that, in the packed-away part of my heart, for a long time.
And I could find a way to make room for it. Because grief always gives way eventually and cracks open into something new, the way my mother had once stood beside a highway with me, looking out over a thunderstorm, knowing it was time to usher in a change that would make things better. It was my turn now, and I could do the same—for the sake of my child’s life, yes, but also for mine.
It’s not too much to ask of a person. It’s love, that’s all.
Author’s Note
The first stirrings of this story entered my mind over a late-night dinner with a friend at IHOP. The friend and her former husband had both been in the army—she was still on active duty—and had each served in Iraq. Sitting across from me with her hands wrapped around a cup of hot cocoa, she began a slow and heartbreaking reflection on the end of her marriage. As she described her then-husband’s transformation from a loving partner to a man who struggled to put his harrowing experiences behind him, and the toll that it all had taken on his psyche and their marriage, the war finally came home for me. I know many people in the military, but very few who are on the ground in a war zone. I’d heard about post-traumatic stress disorder, but overall I had been very insulated from soldiers’ experiences and those of their families. Yet as I listened to my friend that day, I started to put together how far-reaching are the effects of PTSD, how devastating and how permanent. There was no optimistic hook to this story, where the soldier ends up running a marathon and becoming a motivational speaker, nor the defining end point of a suicide or line-of-duty death. There was only a quiet and ordinary loss that went on and on and on.
Over 212,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have been treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs for PTSD, but because half of vets seek health care elsewhere, the number affected is likely far higher. Soldiers affected by PTSD may experience flashbacks, feel tremendous anxiety and hyper-alertness, and suffer from intense feelings of guilt, all of which make it extremely difficult to function in society the way they did before the war. Recently, greater awareness and greater focus has improved some services for soldiers with PTSD, but many soldiers and their families continue to find the treatments offered to be inadequate or superficial. The suicide rate among combat vets is already alarming, and it is rising. As the drawdown continues and more and more soldiers come home, the United States and its allies will be faced with societies that include more than two million veterans of those wars—and by VA estimates, more than one-quarter of those men and women experience PTSD.
I don’t have any illusions that
I encourage anyone who is moved with compassion for our veterans and their families to support organizations such as Disabled American Veterans, which offers the Veterans Crisis Line in addition to its plethora of other services to wounded soldiers. And in the difficult economic climate that exists at the time of this writing, I hope that our legislators will be mindful of the fact that cuts to community mental health services disproportionately affect veterans and their families.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks, first and foremost, to my agent Stephany Evans, whose hard work allows me the privilege of writing a set of acknowledgments at all. And I am deeply grateful to Susan Swinwood, my editor at Harlequin MIRA, for her wonderful skill and extreme patience.
To a few extraordinary people in the writing community: Ann Hite, Eleanor Brown, Keith Donohue, Carolyn Parkhurst, Alma Katsu, Gary Presley and Rick Bylina, who courteously allowed the use of his surname in this book.
To my friends, en masse, for their extraordinary support. Laura Wilcott, Hillary Myers, Stephanie Cebula, Jalin Sopkowicz, Sarah Thompson, Amanda Miller, Christine Barakat and Elizabeth Gardner; Kathy Gaertner, Erika Schreiber, Laurine Kandare, Laura Carns, Mollie Weiner and Kay. And of course, Vern Roseman, Sara Spivey Roseman and Miranda Poff, for the inspiration (as well as the fuel).
And finally, to my husband, Mike, and to my kids—James, Catherine, Breckan and Luke—thank you ever so much for your patience and your love.
Questions for Discussion
1. Jill’s relationship with her mother was a close one, which leads to her sense of anxiety and guilt at not having intuitively known when her mom died. Do you think Jill’s feelings about that are irrational or natural?
2. Cade is ambitious and outgoing, and early on he and Jill have a strong relationship. Did you see signs even then that a ruthless element existed in his personality? Did his behavior set off any red flags for you, or did you feel that the change in him was entirely brought on by his grief and circumstances?
3. Jill’s mother was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Jill is well versed in their philosophy, which becomes a kind of spirituality that she draws from during difficult times. Have you known anyone in a recovery program, or participated in one? Have you learned anything from such a program that applies to your life, regardless of whether you are in recovery?
4. At the beginning of the story Cade seems uninterested in his old girlfriend, Piper, but as things deteriorate in his own life he grows obsessed with her. What do you think is behind this change of heart?
5. How do you think Elias’s upbringing affects the way he feels about his experiences of war? What do you think is the biggest contributing factor to his suicide—is it his PTSD, or something else?
