Page 53 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

“Did Amos ever hurt her?” I forced out the question even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

“Surprisingly, no,” he concluded. “He gave her everything she needed, and we need to unravel that father figure approach he was using. There is some residual damage—she had a toy that Amos called Daddy-James, and he made her learn that the toy was bad and needed to be hidden away or punished.”

“That fucking asshole.”

“If that is the worst of it, then it’s something we can work with. This is a gradual process, and each child responds differently, but I promise you that with time and the right therapeutic interventions, we are trying our hardest to get her back to you.”

“Not me. I was just a temporary blip in her life. But a family? One I can know about first maybe, make sure it’s a good one?”

He frowned. “The ultimate aim would be to help Annie reclaim her true identity and connect her to James. Hopefully, through memories of you?”

“I’m fucked up.”

“We have therapies in place to help with your PTSD, as well.”

I reared back. “I don’t have freaking PTSD,” I snarled.

Dr. Simmonds flinched but returned my gaze steadily. I didn’t regret what I’d done. I was keeping this country safe, and then taking out the bad guys on home soil, so there was no freaking way I was scarred by any of it.

Sure, I had nightmares, but they were all about me messing up Annie’s life, not about the faces of the people I’d killed. Soldiers in war, the bad guys, the black and white of it all, I had a handle on it. I was good with what I’d done, reconciled it in the moral balance sheet I had inside me.

But then, why was I pushing Annie to one side? Why wasn’t I telling her who I was, and hugging her and telling her about things we’d done with her daddy? Making chocolate cookies? The trampoline in the garden. Watching kid’s movies? Why wasn’t I promising her nothing would hurt her again?

Because I’m ashamed that someone got to James.

Because I regret I was too late.

Because I haven’t come to terms with anything at all.

Because all I remember is fire and twisted metal and James dead, and imagining Annie in the car, trapped, and calling for her daddy.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“PTSD isn’t always obvious, it’s insidious and it colors outside the lines. It messes with your head, and so far, you’ve had it in a box, chained up, but bits of it, tiny tendrils, are creeping out and twisting your thoughts.”

I shuddered. What he explained was hard to hear because I was me, and I was okay being me. Wasn’t I? What was I doing? Closing down my heart to protect Annie from me, or to protect myself from the decisions I’d made?

He stared at me, kind of thoughtful, as the epiphany rolled through me.

“Kids are tougher than we give them credit for,” he said. “As she grows up, you can explain, you can be honest, show her the kind of man her dad was in the time you knew her. Then, when she’s old enough, you can tell her what drove you to find her, and why you want revenge, and you can get her to understand your thought process and the decisions you made and let her decide what she thinks.”

“She could hate me.”

“Or she could love what you tell her and hug you so hard that it makes you cry.”

That image was too much, a flare of hope in my heart, the guilt, and so much sadness it choked me, and I swallowed emotion. SEALs didn’t freaking sob their hearts out to brain doctors, they were strong, and fearless, and nothing stopped them.

“Does she remember me at all?” I asked.

“Bits,” he said, and there was hope again, stealing my breath. “She remembers her ‘Gust,’ but it’s random bits and pieces. We’re working on making those memories come forward.” He glanced at his notes. “She associates you with a toy called Buzzy-Bear. Does that mean something to you?”

Guilt and pain flooded me, and I couldn’t speak. I still had Buzzy-Bear, in a lockbox back home.

I could ask someone to send it to me. To send everything to me.

I wanted to give Buzzy-Bear to her myself.

“Do you think… can I ask you…?” I stopped and huffed at the fact I couldn’t even get my words out. “Do I even have a right to be in her life?”

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