Chapter Twenty-Nine
Camden
The aspens’ leaves danced shadows across the gravestones as I stood and faced my little brother for the first time in six years.
“It’s not like I need to fill you in,” I told him as I brushed fallen leaves from the top of the gray marble. “I’ve always felt like you hung around. Hell, I talk to you enough. Of course, I’m hoping you don’t hang around too often, given…” Given the fact that I had Willow in my bed every night. “But I hope you’d be happy for us, and even if you aren’t, I’m just going to pretend that you are, because even you being pissed at me couldn’t keep me away from her.”
“Nikki told me you were out here.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Dad coming up the slight incline, his nurse staying back a few dozen feet to give us some privacy.
“You look good,” I told him as he came to stand next to me, directly in front of Mom’s stone.
“It’s my mind that’s going, son, not my face.” He smirked before stepping forward to brush his hand over Mom’s name. “I’m glad she wasn’t here for this part, though. No one should have to watch the person they love disappear right in front of them.”
I looked him over, doing a quick assessment. He wore the new Rose Rowan shirt I’d dropped off for him last week, his hair was combed, and he looked, well, like him.
“Nikki also said that the last few times you’ve stopped over, I haven’t recognized you.” Dad crouched and brushed the leaves from Mom’s stone.
“But you do today?” I asked slowly.
He sighed and stood, wiping his hands off on his jeans and glancing toward Uncle Cal’s stone a little past Mom’s. “I’m enough of myself to recognize that I’m not always myself.”
“And everything that happened a couple weeks ago?” I probed.
“I know your brother is out on bail, if that’s what you’re asking,” he grumbled. “He really left Willow in the mine when you were kids?”
“Yeah.” I beat back the anger that welled up every time I thought about it.
“And he set fire to the bunkhouse?”
“He did.”
Dad turned to face me. “And you took the blame.”
“My reasons seemed sound back then.” I looked away. We’d come a long way since I’d returned home, but this was still awkward as hell.
“I swear, you always cared too little about what other people thought, and Xander cared too much.” He shook his head. “There was a girl in the mine…”
“Rose,” I supplied.
“Right. She okay?”
“She is. Grounded, I believe, but physically fine. You saved her. We never could have found her without you.”
He grunted a reply that I couldn’t interpret.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you,” I said softly, spitting it out before I lost whatever time I had with him.
His gaze jerked toward mine. “More what?”
Shit.
“The DNR,” I reminded him. “The judge denied us. Do you remember?”
His brow furrowed. “I remember Walt telling me the judge’s decision. But I know you did what you could. You opened the mine, for Christ’s sake. Took on Judge Bradley and won him over, from what I remember.”
“It wasn’t enough.” I shifted my weight and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Cam, you can’t control the choices other people make. You do the best you can, and then it’s out of your hands.”
My gaze drifted to Sullivan’s stone.
“And what happens when you make the wrong choice?” I arched my neck slightly to ease the tightening sensation in my throat. “What happens when you’re standing in the mine and you have to choose left or right in a split second with no way to justify your choice?”
“You went left and found the girl. Why are you beating yourself up? It worked out in the end.”
Willow chose left. I followed her.
“I made a decision just like that. Two men stepped forward, I pointed to the guy on the left, and Sullivan died.”
Dad sucked in a breath. “Camden…”
“I want you to know what happened that day, but not for the reasons you think. I’m starting to realize you can’t give me absolution, if that’s what you’re worried about. What I need you to know is that while I’m responsible for Sully’s death, I didn’t know it was his squad leader I chose.” I closed my eyes against the barrage of imagery in my head. Sullivan’s smile, his laugh, his eyes going vacant as he bled out. “I didn’t know.” My voice dropped to a whisper.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the rustling leaves above us and the faint whirl of the wind.
“We made a deal when you came back.”
My eyes flew open at Dad’s comment, and my stomach clenched. “We did, but I’m not holding you to it. I want you to listen, but I won’t force you.” As much as I knew I deserved to be heard, my father deserved to make his own choice in the matter. Sullivan was his son.
“Tell me what happened.”
With Sullivan only a few feet away, I did.
“We got the call that an outpost was in serious danger of being overrun, and we went. We landed under heavy fire, and it was a shit show on the ground. A new company had just rotated in the month before, and from what we’d seen from the air, they were vastly outnumbered. Our team split to accomplish different objectives. Once my commander relayed what we’d seen to that company’s commander, I was ordered to take a squad with another operator—they couldn’t spare a whole platoon—to reinforce the section of the perimeter we’d seen was about to fall. I’m talking minutes, not hours.”
The smell of gunfire filled my nose, and even though I told myself it was all in my head, my heart rate picked up.
“Two squad leaders answered their captain’s request. They stepped forward, and I pointed to the guy on the left and told him we needed to move.” I’d gone over the memory so many times in my head, and yet I still found myself searching for any sign that I’d missed Sullivan at that point. “He pulled his guys off the line, and we ran.”
I glanced Dad’s way to see that he was focused on Sullivan’s stone but appeared to be listening, so I forged ahead.
“I go over it in my head a lot,” I admitted. “More than the psych guys would want, at least. That moment, had I picked the sergeant on the right, Sullivan wouldn’t have been shot.”
Dad flinched.
“The next opportunity I had was when we ran. I let their sergeant lead the way because he knew the outpost better, of course, but I kept up with him step for step as his men followed and Vasquez brought up the rear. If we’d traded places, maybe I would have recognized the way he ran.” I cleared my throat as it tightened again. “We spread out along the wall and began returning fire.” I skipped over the details. “A few minutes later, I heard Vasquez call for a medic. I can still hear him calling, to be completely honest. I don’t even know why I looked, but I did.”
I turned my head and waited until my dad’s eyes met mine.
“It was Sullivan. He was standing there with those wide eyes of his, holding on to his neck while blood…” I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “I screamed his name and ran as fast as I could, but I barely made it there in time to catch him as he fell. Ten feet. That’s all that had separated us. Ten fucking feet.”
“Was it quick?” Dad asked, his voice thick.
“Just a couple minutes.”
“And he wasn’t alone?” The last word broke.
“I was with him the entire time. He knew it was me. There was nothing I could do.” I made the realization as the words slipped free. “I’ve spent six years reliving those moments, and once he’d been shot, there really was nothing I could do but stay with him. And I did. I stayed with him through transport and through Dover and didn’t leave his side until we laid him next to Mom.”
Tears blurred my vision, but I saw Dad swipe at his face.
“I loved Sullivan, Dad. I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. God knows I did my best to join him in the years that followed. I never would have chosen his squad if I’d known. Hell, I would have sat on his stubborn ass in the middle of that outpost, far from the wall. I made the choices that killed him, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
I couldn’t say how long we stood there, but the afternoon sun had shifted by the time Dad spoke.
“You might not want my absolution, Camden, but you have it.”
My knees weakened, and I swayed.
“Were you a part of his death? Yes, but only in the way a cog moves the hands of the clock.” His jaw ticked as his gaze met mine briefly. “The truth is that while it was easier to levy the blame on you, we all made choices that led to his death. I let him enlist—not that I could have stopped him. I think about that every day. That boy worshipped the ground you walked on. He wanted to be just like you. Even fell for the same girl.”
“He would have been better for her,” I admitted.
“Maybe,” Dad admitted with a nod. “But maybe not. And you’ll be better to her. You tend to safeguard something once you realize how precious it is.”
“I will.” Losing Willow wasn’t an option, and maybe I didn’t deserve her, but I was sure as hell going to earn her every day.
“Your mother told me once, ‘You’re free to make your own choices, but you’re not free from the consequences of that choice.’” His lips curved slightly before falling again. “Sullivan made his choice. Xander did, too. We all do. Every day. You’re no different. You have to love your choices, Camden, no matter what they are, because you have the freedom to choose.” He looked me in the eye. “Don’t waste them, either, because you never know when it’s the last one you’ll get to make. It goes faster than you think.”
He turned and headed down the hill.
“Dad!” I called out. “One thing has been bugging me.”
“What is that?” He paused but didn’t turn.
“The door in the mine. What was it there for?”
He shrugged. “Who knows. Your great-grandfather wasn’t exactly all there in the head.”
I huffed a small laugh and watched him walk away. We might not be a sitcom family, but at least he wasn’t shooting at me anymore.
My phone buzzed as I headed toward my Jeep, and I checked it with a grin.
I grinned. That right there was what my choices—the good and the bad—had earned me.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and climbed into the Jeep. There was one more choice to be made today, and it was Xander’s.
Ten minutes later, I rang the doorbell at my brother’s house. It was one of the newest buildings in Alba, go figure, all sparkling new, and the setting sun bounced off the gleaming windows, picture-perfect.
“Cam.” He answered the door, looking like nothing had changed. Like he wasn’t out on bail or facing ten years in prison if he didn’t plead it down. “Come here to gloat? I just saw the follow-up on Rose’s rescue on CNN if you want to revel in your glory.”
“You still don’t get it.” The manila envelope crinkled in my hands, and I was glad I’d only brought copies.
“What do you want?”
“About Dad—” I shifted my weight, at a loss on how to broach the topic.
“I’m still his guardian unless you want to take me to court again. Then again, now that this has happened to me, maybe you’ll get guardianship this time.”
I didn’t state the obvious—that he’d done it to himself.
“Dad doesn’t want to die. You know that, right? He just wants the choice. To him, that’s what makes life worth the living. Choice.”
Xander crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I choose that he lives. And if you think that’s selfish, then I don’t care. I don’t want to lose my dad. I’m not going to be the son who lets it happen.”
“What if it were you?” I asked quietly. His eyes narrowed, and I continued. “What if you were the one who couldn’t make your own choice?”
“I don’t have to think about that. I’m thirty-one years old.” He shrugged.
“But if you did,” I pushed. “What would you want?”
“Are you asking if I’d want a DNR?”
“I’m asking you to think about it,” I said slowly, clutching the envelope, “because one day you might not have the choice. The ironic thing about you fighting Dad for his right to his own body is that you never stopped to ask yourself about the genetics.”
Xander froze.
“I did.” I shrugged. “When I realized that Willow was it for me, that I wanted marriage and kids and the whole domestic package, I started reading. Guess what, Xander? Dad’s form of Alzheimer’s is genetic. It’s a presenilin-one mutation.”
The color drained from his face. “So that means we could have it.”
“Sullivan did,” I announced, handing him the envelope. He refused to take it. “I got the results for all three of us the day of the hearing.”
“How?” He looked at the envelope like it would grow teeth and bite him, which was the most logical reaction I’d seen him have in a while.
“Mom kept all our baby teeth in those little memory boxes in her closet. Gross but useful.”
“You did this without my permission.” He glared at me, but there was fear in his eyes, stark and sharp.
“I did. But the lab doesn’t know that. The results are in there. Patients S, C, and A. Totally anonymous.” I waved the results again. “Don’t you want to know?”
“I don’t know.” He stared at the envelope.
“I could tell you. I read it.”
His eyes jerked back to mine, wide and furious. “Don’t.”
“Why? Don’t like to have your choices taken?” I asked. “I can make you feel better. I don’t have it.”
His lips pursed. “How does that make me feel better?”
“Other than knowing your little brother won’t be taken by early-onset Alzheimer’s?” I chided. “It should comfort you because no matter what that envelope says, I won’t be you. I’ll listen to you. I’ll give you the choices you won’t give Dad, because I don’t give a shit what people say or how I look to the world. I know who I am. I’ve made peace with my choices.”
I thrust the envelope at his chest, and he slowly took it.
“Make peace with yours, Xander.” His body tensed as I nodded, then turned around and headed back to my Jeep.
“You’re not going to tell me as some kind of punishment?” he called after me.
“It’s not my job to punish you, Xander. Not in anger. Not in jealousy. Not…ever. Read it. Don’t read it. That’s your choice, not mine.”
I already knew what it said.
…
A week later, Dad’s guardianship documents arrived at the mine. Xander signed everything over to me, so we just needed an appointment with the judge to make it official.
At the bottom of the stack was a signed do-not-resuscitate order.
Thirty minutes after telling Dad, who thanked me and promptly hung up, I pulled into my driveway, smiling at the fact that the lights were on, which meant Willow was already here.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called out as I walked in.
“In the library!” she answered.
I left the pizza I’d brought for dinner on the kitchen table and walked in to see her sketching at the easel. Her hands moved gracefully over Rose’s face, adding details as she tilted her head this way and that.
“How was your day?” she asked, setting the pencil down and walking over to loop her arms around my neck.
“I don’t have the Alzheimer’s gene.”
“Okay?” Her brows lowered in confusion.
“I had the test run because Dad’s is genetic. I don’t have it.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, still surprised all these months later that I got to do it.
“Oh, good.” She leaned up and kissed me. “That’s a load off.”
“Wait, you’ve thought about it?” I pulled back just enough to look in her eyes.
“I figured if you wanted to get tested, you would, and if you didn’t, that was okay, too.” She shrugged.
“And if I had it?” My heart clenched at the thought of not recognizing her one day.
“Then, we’d make the best of the years we had.”
I lifted her in my arms and walked to the armchair, adjusting her so she straddled my lap. “But now you have me for a lot of years.”
“Seems like it,” she noted with a grin, throwing my very words back at me. “Did I mention that Walt called about you taking your dad’s seat on the Historical Society council?” she asked with a scrunched nose.
“No.” I shook my head.
“No, I didn’t tell you, or no, you don’t want it?”
I groaned, letting my head fall back against the couch. “Can no just be the universal answer?”
“Not if you want to do some good.” She kissed my nose.
“You’re my good.” I settled my hands on her hips and tugged her closer.
Life was built from our choices. Mine hadn’t always been good, but not all had been bad. And I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single one of them, especially not the one in my arms.
I kissed her deep and long, vowing to make every single one of those years worth everything that had happened to bring us here.
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