‘No. I figured I’d had it all along, that it had gotten mixed up with other stuff.’ He winced. ‘My place wasn’t so clean back then.’
‘But it is now,’ Clarke said. ‘It was military clean when I went with Deacon to get you some clothes,’ he added when Adam turned to him, surprised that the old man had gone out of his way. And touched. And feeling his damn eyes burn again. Goddammit.
‘Thank you,’ he managed. ‘That was nice of you.’
Clarke studied him. ‘I bet your father told you that men don’t cry.’
Adam huffed again, this time in frustration. He pivoted in his chair so that he could only see Meredith. Her face was blurry, but he refused to blink. The water in his eyes would drain back into his tear ducts or dry up or whatever it did when this had happened before.
Except he couldn’t remember the last time his eyes had blurred with real tears.
‘Did he?’ Clarke pressed.
Adam clenched his jaw. ‘Yes, he did,’ he replied with a cold finality that he hoped told the old man to leave it alone. No such luck.
‘Adam, he’s wrong.’ The old man’s voice had softened, rumbling between them. ‘When I was Shane’s age, I was dropped into combat. Korea. I saw my best friend die.’ He was quiet a moment. ‘He got his head blown off, just like Shane’s friend Andy. And your sponsor. Not something a man forgets too easily.’
Adam swallowed hard, not wanting to remember John’s head blowing apart all over him. And unable to erase the memory. ‘Were you injured?’ He meant to ask it confidently, with compassion. But the words came out gravelly and rough.
‘Yeah. Nothing permanent, but I needed surgery. I woke up to this beautiful girl. Thought I’d actually died and gone to heaven,’ he said fondly. ‘It was my Essie. She was an army nurse then. I thought nurses were soft creatures, but I was wrong. She ripped into my hide when I refused to talk about my buddy. When I refused to write home and tell them that I was okay. When I shut down.’
Adam understood. God, he understood. He coughed past the blockage in his throat, keeping his face turned away. Because those tears in his eyes had spilled over to his cheeks. But only two. One on each side. The wetness would dry.
The heavy hand returned to his back and Adam realized he’d hunched over and gripped the bed rails so tightly that his knuckles were white.
‘She did not let me get away with any shit. She made me talk about my friend. And when I cried, I tried not to let her see. I turned my face away, but she made me look at her. Made me talk to her. And told me that the tears were good things. I believed her. My pop had cried from time to time. I wasn’t personally averse to the notion, you understand. I just didn’t want to cry in front of her. Because I was nineteen.’
Adam said nothing, but it didn’t seem to matter. The back rub continued, soothing him. The words continued in that soft voice, tearing him apart inside.
‘So we got married, Essie and me. Had a good life. I won’t say it was perfect. I won’t say I was perfect. I still had nightmares, and I still had periods of depression. I’m not saying that letting it all out and crying like a whipped pup was the magical answer that kept me from having the PTSD that a lot of my buddies brought home with them.’
He paused long enough for the silence to become too heavy to bear.
‘Then what are you saying?’ Adam whispered.
‘That it gave me a valve. Gave me a way to deal with my grief. We tried to have a big family, but Essie was only able to carry Merry’s father to term. We lost four others. It was . . . very hard. Harder to watch her grieve. The first three times I cried on my own. Didn’t think she needed to see my grief. But you know? She did. She found me out in the garden one day after we lost the fourth. Weeding and crying. She said it helped, knowing I’d loved them too. So all those years later when my son and my daughter-in-law died? I cried without shame. Essie and I both cried. We held each other and grieved.’
He was quiet longer this time, but the back rub continued. Finally, he shuddered out another breath. ‘And when I lost my Essie, I thought my life was over. But I had Merry and Alex and Bailey – all my granddaughters, you see. So I kept going. I cried and didn’t care who saw me do it. Didn’t care if it made them uncomfortable. Didn’t care if they thought I was the biggest wuss on the planet. Because the tears were mine. The grief was mine. And Essie would have haunted me forever if I’d sucked it up and been stoic.’
Clarke cleared his throat loudly. ‘Merry is just like her gran. Fearless, even when she’s so scared inside that she’s about to crack. She deserves a man who’s just as fearless. Someone who’s not afraid to feel. Someone who’s not about to shatter into a million pieces. She’s picked you and I can see why. You are brave and you do work through your shit. You protected her with your own life and I am ten kinds of grateful. But I gotta say, son, right now you’re looking like you’re one breath away from shattering into a million pieces.’
Adam opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.
The old man kept rubbing his back, seemingly unperturbed by his silence. ‘I’ve watched you sit here, getting more and more tense, more contracted into yourself. That’s not so good. Because if you shatter into a million pieces, there won’t be anything left to take care of her when she wakes up. Which she will, but on her own time, because Merry always runs a little late,’ he said affectionately. ‘So what’s it gonna be, son? Are you going to sit here and shatter? Or are you gonna let some of that grief go?’
There was something about the cadence of the man’s voice and that hand on his back . . . Adam stared at Meredith’s face and wanted. He wanted so much to be who she needed. And he was so damn tired. His eyes filled again and this time . . . this time he didn’t clench his jaw. He didn’t tense his body. He blinked and felt the tears fall.
‘Four,’ he whispered. ‘I was four.’
The hand on his back faltered for a few beats, then resumed the slow circles on his back. ‘When you last cried?’
Adam blinked again and more tears fell, landing on his hands that still gripped the bed rail. ‘Yes.’
‘Then I’d say you were long overdue.’ The chair beside him squeaked as Clarke struggled to his feet. ‘I’ll let you let go in private. This time. But we cry in this family, Adam Kimble. So you better get used to having witnesses.’
It occurred to Adam as he heard the door open and close, that he’d just been called family. He’d think on that later, because he was alone with Meredith. Who he’d almost lost too many times to count. Who’d fought so fearlessly. And who’d cried in his arms when her heart couldn’t hold any more hurt. Cried for him when he hadn’t been able to do so himself.
But what he kept seeing was her face when she’d honestly thought she’d die. I love you. I’m sorry. Because she’d known what was going to happen would kill him too.
But she’s alive. ‘I didn’t fuck it up this time,’ he whispered.
This time. And somehow those two words pulled the plug on the dam. This time. Because all the other times? He hadn’t fucked those up either.
Goddammit. All those other times . . . His head was suddenly too heavy to hold upright and he lowered it to his hands, clutching the bed rail like it was his lifeline. The tears Clarke Fallon had urged him to shed came freely. Not as sobs, but as quiet weeping for all the people – the kids – he’d been too late to save. He saw them all. And he cried for them. Cried for himself. Cried for the man who’d spent months drunk and alone, for the man who’d worked feverishly to make amends in the almost-year that followed.
He wept until his head ached, until his eyes were sore and raw. Until no more tears came. And it was then that he realized that he no longer held the rail in a white-knuckled grip. His arms now draped over the rail, pillowing his pounding head.