Page 60 of Protecting the Flame

Mattie picked at a thumbnail. “You sound like our therapist.”

Yup, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“That’s what Grampa says. The only good thing about moving is I get to live on a farm, and Grampa said there are lots of chores to do, and I’ll get to ride a horse and learn to shoot.”

Oh no. It suddenly hit her. Mattie doesn’t know about Earl. Emma had waited until she knew Will was on the trail down to the cockpit before telling him about Earl precisely because she hadn’t wanted Mattie to overhear. Why Will had decided not to tell Mattie how badly injured Earl was remained a mystery, but… Damn.

Mattie’s jaw set. “You know what? Maybe I’ll become a cop or a Mountie or something. Then I’ll get those guys who killed my dad. I’ll put everybody in jail where they can’t hurt people—”

She interrupted. “Mattie, what did Will say about your grandfather?”

“What?” Mattie’s eyebrows crinkled in confusion at the sudden shift. “That he was hurt and couldn’t walk and that you were going to stay with him and Hunter. I asked Scott when Will went outside for something if maybe we should go see Grampa, but he told me to be quiet. Actually, he told me to shut my mouth or he’d give me something to be upset about. Why? I was so excited about the drone I forgot to ask. Is Grampa coming back tomorrow? Was he better this morning?”

“No, Mattie.” She swallowed. “He wasn’t.”

“Oh.” The girl’s face stilled into the watchful expression of someone who knows there’s more bad news “How hurt was he?” As if hearing herself, she said, “Is he?”

There was no right way to say this, and Mattie was a smart kid who deserved the truth. “Bad. Will was pretty sure his back was broken.”

“Wait. You said was. Why?”

“Because he…he went to sleep in the middle of the night, only he didn’t wake up.”

Mattie went utterly still. “You mean…” She stopped as if afraid saying the words made them true. “Did he…is my…he died?”

She remembered the moment she found Ben.She had read about military families who refused to answer the door when they saw men in uniform walking up their drive because so long as no one spoke the words, their son or daughter or father or wife was still alive. She’d felt that as soon as she walked into her bathroom, while she still believed they had years ahead, and she was thinking of lamb chops with rosemary the way Ben liked them and asparagus with lemon and a baked potato for their supper when she opened the lid of the metaphorical box that was their bathroom and Ben, who’d been alive in her thoughts only seconds before, wasn’t.

“Yes,” she said. “Your Grampa Earl died really early this morning.”

“Oh.” A slab of granite held more expression than Mattie’s face. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t Will? Is it because he thinks I’m stupid? That I’ll cry? That I don’t already know what this is like?” All at once, her composure shattered. Every muscle shivered, her body quaked, and then Mattie was screaming, “That I haven’t ever had anyone I love die and get shot and all because someone else messed up?”

“Will didn’t know for sure until he was already on the trail. Don’t blame him.” Emma’s eyes filled. Mattie’s grief was horrible to watch and even worse to bear, but there was no one else who could do this with her. “If you want to be angry with someone, be angry with me. I could’ve called last night, but I didn’t.”

Mattie’s face purpled. “Then why didn’t you tell me right away?” She slammed a fist on her thigh. “Why did you let me talk about pizza and cheeseburgers and sound so dumb?” Mattie hit herself again and then again and again, caught up in a tornado of fury and grief. “You grown-ups are always doing this to me, you’re always doing this, you’re always…”

“Stop.” Her hands shot forward and snagged Mattie’s wrists. “Stop beating yourself up because you’re mad at me—"

With something like a roar, Mattie wrenched free. “Stop telling me what to do!” she howled. “Stop telling me how to feel—”

Mattie’s fist rocketed for her face in a blur. The impact was like a bomb going off under her left eye. Pain detonated in a blinding white starburst, and she reeled, nearly falling onto her back.

“Oh.” Mattie froze. She clapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Emma, Emma, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m—”

“It’s okay.” Her cheek stung where her teeth had torn the soft flesh. She swallowed back a ball of blood. “You didn’t mean it.”

“I always mess up.” Mattie’s voice hitched against a sob, and her eyes welled. “If I were older, if I knew how to make my mom happy, if I hadn’t told Dad to go away…it’s all my fault!”

“What are you talking about?”

“He called the night before he…” Tears streamed down the girl’s cheeks. “We were supposed to go to a movie. He’d been away for ten days, and he promised. Only he said he had to work, and I said, fine. Fine, go work because you’re never home anyway, and he…and he...” Mattie wailed and dove into Emma’s chest. “He went because of me! He went to work and died because I told him to!”

He died because he was doing his job. She pressed the weeping girl close. He died trying to save a friend. Or Mattie’s father, like Earl, had died for no reason at all because he was in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time and the universe was random, nothing made sense, and a person could pray until the words blurred and became meaningless because there was no purpose and no design, and a good man followed a lead his wife fed him, and horrible things happened to really good people.

Oh, Ben. She pressed her face into the top of Mattie’s head. I’m so sorry I got you killed.

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