“Shut up,” I grumble.
“Oh,” he breathes. He nods his head and punches my shoulder as he walks by me. I growl at him and he laughs.
“How’s Nan?” I ask. “Still upset?”
“Only that you were worked up over it,” he says. He ruffles my hair with his big bear paw. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says quietly. “Could have happened to anyone.”
I nod, biting my lower lip to keep from sobbing. Nan has gone downhill so fast. She keeps having these mini-strokes that make her weaker and weaker. There’s not much else we can do for her, except wait and make sure she’s comfortable.
“She was talking about some old clock,” Pete says. He picks up a bag of chips I was eating earlier and helps himself.
I smile. Granddad bought her a funny little clock made in Germany when they first got married. But they sold it when times were lean, about thirty years ago. Granddad has been scouring the internet to find another one. “He’ll never find another clock like that, not one that he can afford. They make crappy knock offs, but he doesn’t want crap. He wants the real thing for her. Or nothing.”
“What kind of clock?” Daniel asks.
“It was a German clock, made with a Black Forest design, and when the hour chimed, dancers came out of the clock and slid back and forth along the front.” I shrug my shoulders. “That’s all I remember about it.”
“Is it rare?” Pete asks.
I nod. “And too expensive for Granddad to buy another.” I would buy one today, if I could find one and had enough money. “Nan used to make up love stories about what the people did when they went into the house.” I lift my brows at the men. “Apparently, there was a lot of kissing that went on inside that Black Forest house.”
Nan and Granddad have always had this crazy kind of passion and I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever have that again. Maybe I’m waiting for a love like theirs. I don’t know. I don’t need to elaborate, because Pete’s already grinning.
“Henry was a horn dog,” he sings playfully.
I shake my head, but I secretly don’t want to scold him. “She started to mention it again a few weeks ago. I know he wants to give her one, but it’s just not going to happen.”
Pete’s phone chirps from his pocket and he grins and types something really quickly. He looks up. “Reagan’s going to lock me out if I don’t get home soon.”
I laugh. “You better hurry.”
“She loves me,” he says. And he gets this happy look in his eye. Pete’s settled and happy, and I couldn’t be happier for him. He looks at me. “How much are we talking about with this clock?” he asks.
“Like more than a car,” I say. “Even for a broken one.”
He grimaces.
“Yeah, I know. I thought about buying one too.”
Daniel sticks out his hand. “Thanks for the help finding the shop,” he says to Pete.
“Hey, do you want to come over tomorrow night? You could go to the fireworks with us.”
Daniel shakes his head. “I have somewhere to be at midnight,” he says. “But thank you.”
Pete claps him on the shoulder, and then he hugs me way too tightly and leaves. I can hear him whistling as he goes up the sidewalk.
I snap the back onto Daniel’s watch and look up at him. “It still doesn’t work.”
His mouth flattens into a straight line. “I hoped someone could fix it before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” I ask.
“For me,” he says.
“It’s never too late for you, silly,” I tell him.
Daniel
A kernel of hope blooms within my chest. I haven’t felt hopeful in a really long time. I rub absently at the ache, because my heartbeat quickens. I’ve been dead inside for a really long time, ever since I woke up in the hospital without my leg, without my friends, and without a future. But suddenly, I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“Are you all right?” Faith asks. She gets up and comes toward me, and she reaches out one tentative hand to touch the side of my face. She looks into my eyes, and I want to fall into her and tell her all my problems.
“I’m fine,” I murmur, but I’m not. I’m not at all. “I have PTSD,” I say. “Really bad PTSD.”
“From the accident?” she asks. Her voice is soft, and I press my face into the palm of her hand. I nuzzle it like a kitten, and she smiles and lets me.
“From patrols. From killing people. From seeing dead people. From what my life turned into.”
She motions toward a sofa on the other side of the room, and I sit down on one end. She sits on the other, lifting her legs so that her feet are in the middle, and she pulls an afghan from the back of the couch to cover herself up. She tosses it over my lap too. My chest aches again, and I rub at the pain.
“What hurts?” she asks.
“Everything,” I say quietly. I never ever talk about this shit. Ever. But she’s asking me questions, and she’s not my commanding officer or that f**king shrink who wanted to medicate me until I didn’t feel anything. Until I forgot the things I saw. But I don’t want to forget them. I need to remember, because if I don’t remember their lives, who will? “Time stopped for me on that day,” I say. I drop my head into my hands and concentrate on breathing.
“Do you need a paper bag to breathe into?” she asks.