“Did you have a flashback?”
The quiet question didn’t match the deep concern he could see in Judy Campton’s still-sharp eyes.
Jeremiah took another drink of the water Bettye had brought him after Mrs. Campton had ushered him into the living room. He stared at the crystal goblet full of crushed ice and with a slice of lemon and strawberry. Mrs. Campton always believed in making her guests feel special.
“Jeremiah?”
Glancing up, he shook his head, his heart rate decreasing now, the cold sweat chilling him in the drafty old house. “No, ma’am. But I could feel that rage of battle overtaking me. I had to blink...and get a grip on things.” Or he would have gone too far.
Thinking of Ava Jane’s gentle hand on his arm, he finally faced the woman sitting across from him. “Ava Jane was there.”
Looking confused, Judy put a pink-polished nail to her cheek, her diamond solitaire glistening in the soft light. “Oh, the girl you were to marry all those years ago. I see her sometimes in town. She’s a marvelous cook. Bettye brings home her cakes and muffins all the time.”
Standing, he took his water goblet with him to stare out at the bulging colors and fluffy blossoms of the formal garden in the sprawling backyard. “Yes, she makes extra income from her baking.” He explained how he’d seen them with the young Englisch kids. “One of the young men insulted her sister and then almost knocked Ava Jane down. She dropped her basket of baked goods.”
Judy tapped her fingernails against the brocade of her chair, her shrewd gaze moving over Jeremiah’s face.
“So you wanted to defend her honor, of course.” She waited a beat and then added, “Because you still love her.”
“Yes.” He turned back to her again, the relief of that confession lifting his shoulders and allowing him to breathe again. “But she saw my rage in my actions and she does not tolerate that. Ava Jane always was a gentle soul so it’s hard for her to imagine me being a SEAL. I’m not sure she even knows what that means, but she knows enough to realize I have fought against others and...killed men in the line of duty. And she certainly remembers that I chose that over staying here to make a life with her.”
He explained how Ava Jane had married his best friend and now was a widow with two children. “She resents me but things were getting better between us. We shared some pleasant time last week when I went to her house to repair some bad spots on the back porch. Now, after today, she doesn’t want me around.” Holding his straw hat in his hand, he added, “Today, she saw the real me.”
Judy stared up at him with understanding. “She doesn’t know what you’ve been through and she doesn’t understand your reasons for doing what you did. Have you tried talking to her about it? About what your duties entailed?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t want to frighten her even more and it’s hard to talk about what I saw. What I had to do. Things I’m not ever supposed to repeat.”
“Edward wouldn’t talk much about what he’d done either. It’s the SEAL code, of course, for reasons of national security and for protection of themselves and their families—never talk about the mission.” She leaned forward. “However, I know Edward shared more with you than he ever did anyone else. Maybe because he trusted your dedication to your faith.”
Jeremiah heard the irony in that statement. “A faith I left.”
“Did he push you to join up?” she asked, the question rushing out in a way that made Jeremiah wonder how long she’d wanted to ask that question.
“No, he never revealed anything specific when he talked to me. He always stressed how tough it was to become a SEAL. So much so that I knew it all by heart. He gave me books to read and showed me the history of the Navy, but he was brutally honest about the hardness of it all. He never once suggested anything to me about joining. Edward thought he was safe with me and so he told me things he could never tell anyone else. And yet, the day he died I knew I had to go and fight in his honor. But I can’t explain that to Ava Jane. I don’t even understand it myself. And that might keep us apart forever.”
Judy Campton shifted, her blue skirt crinkling. “But that rule of not talking makes it hard on everyone. We need to open our sorrows and our memories and be purged, so we can heal, so we can forgive, so others can forgive us.”
Jeremiah sat down again. “Who do you talk to?”
“God,” she said with a serene smile. “Ed would talk to me but only about his love for his work. But then, he never went through what you and Edward did. I think sometimes he wishes he had, so he’d have that bond with Edward. He so wanted our son to become a naval officer, but he respected Edward’s choice to join the SEALs.”
Jeremiah stared up at the portraits and medals lining the wall, wondering again about how much this precious woman held tightly inside her heart. “Your husband is a hero in his own right.”
“Yes, but he’s tired now and he wants to be with our son.” She lowered her gaze, and Jeremiah saw a slight crack in her control. “Let’s get back to you.”
“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he said, glancing at the clock. “I need to go back to work.”
“You are never a bother,” she said, waving him back down when he tried to stand. “Ed is sleeping but you are welcome to go up and say hello.”
“I...I need to finish helping with the tents for the festival,” he said, another kind of panic crashing around him. “I sit with my father almost every day and I don’t think I have the strength to watch both of them die. I’m not ready to face that with the Admiral, too.”
“You have more strength than you realize,” Judy replied, her teacup rattling in her shaking hands. “We both do. Ed is ready to go. We’ve had a good full life, with both happiness and heartache. But that’s what life is all about. It’s also about second chances. You have the strength to stay the course, Jeremiah. Or you wouldn’t have come back here.”
Jeremiah hurried to help her set her empty cup back on the side table. “I thought I did. Thought I could do this. But today I realized I’ve got a long way to go. It takes more strength to walk away at times than it does to fight.”
Judy puffed a weary breath. “Are you going to walk away, leave again?”
“No. I’m here to stay,” he said, calmer now. Resolved. “But I might have to walk away from having Ava Jane back. I won’t force things with her. If she doesn’t want me then I have to find a way to accept that. But I’m not leaving again.”
“I wouldn’t give up completely on winning her back,” Judy said, taking his hand before he could make it to his seat. “You might have scared her today, but you also came to her rescue. I know the real you and today was just a part of the goodness inside your heart. You meant well. She’ll realize that after she’s had time to absorb what happened. If she still cares, she won’t be able to deny that you had the best of intentions even if you did lose control.”
“Yes, but she might also realize that she doesn’t want anything to do with me because she saw a side of me I’ve tried so hard to hide. She’ll forgive me, Mrs. Campton. But she will never forget what I’ve done.”
“No, but you can’t give up on showing her what you can become, Jeremiah. God. Remember to talk to God. He brought you home and He’ll see you through. God is never quite finished with us, you know.”
Jeremiah didn’t understand how she could be so sure of that when her own son hadn’t come home in one piece. His remains were buried in the cemetery up the road but he was in heaven now.
How did she do it? How did she maintain such a solid, sure faith?
“Thank you,” he said, instead of asking her that question.
“You can come to me anytime you need me,” Judy said, lifting off her chair with wobbly dignity.
Jeremiah took her arm and allowed her to walk him to the door. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
She stopped at the open door where Bettye stood smiling at both of them. The loyal housekeeper and all-around helper took good care of the Camptons. Mrs. Campton nodded to Bettye and then walked out on the long, wide porch with Jeremiah. “I wish you’d consider going to counseling, Jeremiah. If you truly want to get through this and find some peace, it might help to talk to someone who is trained in dealing with PTSD.”
Jeremiah wasn’t ready for that again. He’d gone through some counseling after he’d recovered from his injuries, but he’d never been able to open up to anyone. It didn’t sit right with him to bare his soul to a stranger. But wouldn’t that be better than losing control the way he had today?
“I’ll think about it, I promise. Right now, I have to get back and finish my tasks.”
“Come back to see us,” Judy Campton said. “And, Jeremiah, you’ll be in my prayers.”
“And you in mine,” he responded, meaning it.
He’d finish his work and then he’d try to find Ava Jane and see if she’d calmed down. Maybe she’d listen to him now.
Or maybe he’d already lost her forever.
* * *
“Are you feeling better now?”
Ava Jane woke up to find her mother standing just inside the bedroom door. “Mamm, what are you doing here? What time is it?”
Martha came and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s almost four in the afternoon. I came because your sister was worried about you. You never take to your bed in the middle of the day, not when you have so much baking to do.”
“I’ll get to it. I’ll stay up late.” She tried to sit up, but her body felt weighed down. “I...I had a headache.”
The dull ache pulsed throughout her system and hit her right in the heart, while the scene there on the street played out like a bad dream. “I need to take care of the kinder. I slept right through them coming home from school.”
“Deborah is playing stickball with them,” her mother said, pushing her gently back down. “You’ve been working too hard. No wonder you got a headache. Always happens when you overdo it.” Martha touched a hand to Ava Jane’s forehead. “Or when you’re fretting about something.”
“I need to see—”
“Ava Jane, stop.”
Recognizing that mother’s voice, Ava Jane sat up and slid back against the wooden headboard. “I’m sorry. I’m okay. I drank some chamomile tea and my head is better now.”
“Your sister told me what happened. She ran to the phone booth and got word to me to come soon.”
“I was okay. I am okay,” Ava Jane said, the sound of her children laughing outside the open window bringing her both joy and pain. “I just felt a bit dizzy after...after that man bothered us and...”
“After you witnessed Jeremiah attack the man.”
Ava Jane blinked and stared into her mother’s eyes, then burst into tears. Bobbing her head, she said, “Yes. Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it. He looked so angry. Such rage. And it scared me much more than what that Englisch did. It’s like I never really knew him at all. Why, Mamm? Why does this hurt so much?”
Her mother gathered her into her arms and rocked her, patting her head and whispering into her ear. “You are in shock. You lost your husband and the man you tried to forget has come back. It’s enough, daughter. More than enough to give you a headache. But I think your heart is hurting, too.”
Ava Jane cried into her mother’s apron, remembering how Deborah had hurried her to their buggy. Seeing Mr. Hartford standing there with worry on his face, hearing him ask if he could do anything to help. She’d seen the Englisch group moving on down the street, that one man turning around to glance over his shoulder. Scared. He’d been scared.
And he should have been. Jeremiah looked ready to tear his head off. She couldn’t think past that image because her mind went to places she didn’t want to take it. Places of war and pain and death and destruction.
Jeremiah had seen those places, had done that very thing to other men. Had probably killed other men.
She didn’t know how she could feel this much hurt for someone she didn’t want in her life. How she could pray so hard to get another person out of her system.
Today, she’d seen what he’d become. How could he ever return to what he’d left behind here when he still had such rage inside his heart?
But she’s also seen something else after he’d let the man go. She’d seen the genuine anguish and regret in his tormented eyes. Yet, she couldn’t forget the darkness of his anger.
Finally, her mother held her up and stared at her, her gentle expression full of compassion and concern. “You hurt because you love, daughter. I think you never stopped loving him.”
“No, I loved Jacob. Only Jacob.” Ava Jane shook her head but, inside, her heart screamed the truth.
She did love Jacob. Would always love him.
But she loved Jeremiah, too. And that scared her more than anything. No one could ever know that. And Jeremiah would never see that. Because she wouldn’t show her feelings again.