A bumpy mix of relief and wariness went through me. “Like what?”
“I’m going to be honest. The problem for a lot of vets is that prolonged exposure therapy flat-out doesn’t work. The VA adopted it because it’s the gold standard for people who’ve been raped or assaulted. But we’re starting to realize that the trauma suffered in war is profoundly different from what a civilian might experience. And sometimes prolonged exposure is exactly the wrong approach to take. It can make bad memories more potent, not less.”
As if someone had just unsnapped the handcuffs, I rose half out of my chair. “I’m out.”
“Hold on, Corporal.” Hayes rested his forearms on his thighs. “We’ll pull you out of the study, if you decide that’s what you want. But you can’t walk away from therapy. We’re just going to try a different approach. Not only because PE hasn’t been working for you, but because after reading your file, I suspect PTSD isn’t the worst thing on your plate. Have you heard of something called moral injury?”
I sank back down. I could almost hear the handcuffs click into place. “So now I’m a sinner?”
Hayes’s laugh was easy. “No more than the rest of us. Here’s the deal. What we know about post-traumatic stress is that it’s an involuntary, biological response to a threat or a perceived threat. Clinically, it’s described as fear-circuitry dysregulation. A person sees something that threatens them, experiences extreme fear and helplessness, and undergoes an automatic response to that fear. You with me?”
I folded my arms so that I could see my watch. “I’ve read the manuals.”
“But moral injury is something different. It’s a result of what the poet Peter Marin calls the terrible and demanding wisdom of war.”
My gaze darted from the door to the window and back again. I’d read Marin’s work—his theory that innocence wasn’t so much lost in war as transformed into a heightened moral sensibility.
But my guilt went too deep. I leaned over the arm of my chair and kneaded my fingers into Clyde’s fur, wanting his warmth. “Okay.”
“The symptoms are similar to post-traumatic stress,” Hayes went on. “Insomnia, flashbacks, memory issues. A startle reflex. But the root cause is different. And so is the treatment.”
I pulled out my cigarettes, remembered where I was, put them back.
Hayes ran a thumb under his eye. A faint scar puckered the skin there.
“Moral injury is less about fear and more about grief and guilt,” he said. “Maybe you feel bitter about your time in Iraq, fighting a war that no one at home seems to care about anymore. You might feel remorse for something you did or saw. Could even be simply the fact that you got to come home to the land of plenty while others stayed behind. So whereas PTS is about danger—‘I almost lost my life’—moral injury is, well, a lot of times it’s about seemingly immoral acts. Especially killing.”
Killing. “Uh-huh.” I kept my face light. Pleasant to the point of blankness.
Hayes leaned his elbows into his thighs and brought his hands together. “It’s a pretty new concept. I’m no ivory-tower theorist, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I served two tours in Iraq, Sydney. I’m a chaplain and I earned a Bronze Star with the grunts over there. I have my own moral injuries.”
We stared at each other. Hayes had an agreeable, open face. A ready smile, the easy laugh. He didn’t look like a man who wrestled demons, even if he was a chaplain. But now, looking closer, I saw a flickering sadness in his eyes. And the scar under his eye had a twin at his temple.
My last counselor had been earnest and compassionate. But she’d never seen war. Never shot and killed anyone. Never watched a child die or handled a body blown apart by a bomb.
“I read in your file that you killed six men last February,” Hayes said. “I looked up the newspaper accounts. Everyone called you a hero. How did that make you feel?”
I looked away and shook my head, unable to speak.
“Uncomfortable, I’m guessing,” Hayes went on. “Sydney—can you look at me?”
Reluctantly, I meet his gaze.
“As a chaplain, I was prohibited from engaging in combat. I couldn’t even carry a weapon. So killing was out of the question for me. I didn’t have to deal with that moral quandary. But I had a lot of reason to think about it. Because everyone around me was fighting and killing. And after each skirmish, each battle, a lot of them came to me, to ask how they were supposed to feel about it.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I believe war and killing are sins. But I also believe that, sometimes, they are necessary. These men and women did what most people can’t or won’t, and we owe them our gratitude. Maybe our lives. So I listened to them, blessed them, then sent them on their way. But each time, I was left with the miserable feeling that most of what I offered didn’t make any difference.”
I looked up at the wall of masks. Row after row of mute pain.
“So given that,” Hayes said, “will you talk about those six men?”
“I appreciate what you’re saying. But—” I shook my head. “I’m not ready.”
“Okay. Fair enough. What about today? What happened after the bomb went off? I know you lost two friends to an IED in Iraq.”
I brought my palms together. “Don’t link today with what happened in Iraq. It’s not the same.”
“I heard that the detective who was with you is in critical condition.”
I threaded my fingers together. “Frank Wilson. He didn’t get to shelter in time.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“What do you think? I’m angry.”
“At what?”
“The situation. The person who set the bomb.” I sucked in air—it came as if through a straw. “At Wilson for being with me, even though I know that’s not fair.”
“Are you mad at yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because I failed to protect him.”
“Could you have protected him?”
I looked at my ragged fingernails, the faint sunburn on my arms. “I should have told him to stay back. He wanted to stay back. Said the situation didn’t feel right to him. Said he was getting too old for this sort of thing. I should have listened.”
“He made his own decision.”
“I might have encouraged him.”
“What about in Iraq?”
“What about what in Iraq? I told you. It’s not the same.”
“Did you also feel guilty about your friends?”
I wanted to crawl under Hayes’s desk and curl into a ball so small that no one could find me. “No.”
“Because a lot of Marines and soldiers in your situation do. Survivor’s guilt.”
I glared. “I’m not them.”
Hayes and I regarded each other like boxers in their respective corners. Clyde sat up and rested his chin on my thigh.