Page 21 of Damned
Chapter Eleven
“Mommy!” Robin smacked the red balloon left from her Monday morning cookie party to make it go higher into the sky, “It’s flying! Look! I made it fly.” The shiny, black curls around her plump, rosy cheeks shone in the early afternoon sun. But every time Bree looked into that adorable child’s pretty green eyes, she saw Kruze looking back at her. Which didn’t do anything to ease her melancholy.
“I see it, honey. Good job. Hit it again. Let’s see how high it’ll go.”
Bree had been home three months. Today, she’d dressed in white shorts and a lime-green halter-top. Summer was already warm. She was sitting at the patio table in her parents' backyard, dressed for warm weather, but wearing a bulky, gray sweater. Since she’d come home, her internal thermostat had failed. She couldn’t get warm enough, not even sitting in bright sunshine. The dank chill of that hole in Turkey had followed her home. The sweater also made her look, well, bigger. Larger. At least, better fed. And that was another problem. She had no appetite.
Robin, on the other hand, was dressed for summer in an adorable, yellow-striped, one-piece sun-suit with white ruffles around her chubby legs. Bree had just slipped off her new flip-flops, cheapies she’d gotten from a local big-box store. Robin had a pair just like them, but wasn’t wearing anything on her feet this afternoon. She said shoes and flip-flops made her toes ‘itchy’.
Bree’s mother, Lark, sat with Bree, though she’d chosen the shady spot beneath the lovely sugar maple that would soon shade their entire backyard. Lark had dressed in light-tan clamdiggers and a comfy, oversized red t-shirt, sprinkled with black dots meant to look like watermelon seeds. She’d cut her blonde hair short, in anticipation of summer’s heat and humidity. Bree was tempted to do the same. But for now, she’d piled her long, mousy-blonde hair high on her head and held it in place with a cheap plastic claw.
Her priorities had changed. After living for so long with so little, she found the overabundance of everything in America appalling. So much food in the grocery stores. So much online shopping. So much stuff. And by default, so much waste. Americans truly had no idea how the rest of the world lived.
When she’d finally arrived stateside, she’d been emaciated, dehydrated, and ridden with parasites. After seeing several specialists and spending a week in bed, she’d felt better. Her cardiologist prescribed meds to control her irregular heartbeat. A-fib put her at a higher risk of stroke, but it could easily be controlled. Never in a million years had she expected she’d need a heart doctor, but there she was, so, so thankful for modern technology.
“You look tired, Bree honey,” her mother whispered. “Why don’t you go in and lay down? Take another nap. It’s okay. I’ll stay out here while Robin plays with that crazy balloon.”
Lark volunteered at the nearby pre-school, while Brandon, Bree’s father, managed the grounds at a local private golf course, in exchange for free golfing. For a retired insurance agent of fifty-five, Brandon didn’t look his age. Maybe because he thoroughly enjoyed mowing the greens and fairways, managing the extensive sprinkler systems, as well as retrieving a ball or two from roughs on quiet days. It kept him busy, tan, and the picture of health.
“I’m okay. Besides, I’m going into the city first thing next week. I’ve been off too long. It’s time I get back to the grind, and I’d rather not look like a ghost when I go in.”
“I still don’t think you’re well enough. Surely that boss of yours can give you another week or two off.”
“What then, Mom? Another week after that? And another after that? No. I’m going back. I need to.”I have to.Bree ran a hand up the back of her neck, combing the loose tangles that had escaped her clip away and trying not to snap at her mom. There was no way to get back to the carefree, upwardly mobile woman she’d been before she’d taken the assignment to sneak into the Eastern Anatolia Region. She wasn’t that person anymore, and she was tired of explaining it to her parents.
They didn’t understand what she’d lived through or how that disaster had changed her. They tried, and Bree loved them for everything they did for her and Robin, but there was no way they could relate. The only person who knew how she’d felt was nowhere in sight, and she wouldn’t seek him out anyway. Kruze was the last person she needed in her life. Even if she wanted to find him, she didn’t know where to start, or who he worked for. He had her number. The proverbial ball was in his court, not that she expected he’d know what to do with it. Keeping in touch wasn’t one of the things he was good at. Heaven forbid he step outside of his very narrow skillset.
Bree had come outside with Robin to get a little sun, not advice. Her mom and dad thought she still looked sickly. Well, guess what? They were right. Even she couldn’t argue that. Shewaspale and the dark shadows around her eyesweremore prominent than when she’d first come home. But she didn’t know how to fix that—or herself. Some mornings, she hated getting out of bed. Just opening her eyes took more effort than it should. Robin was the only one that kept her going. Her mom’s continual reminders weren’t helping.
Bree shook her head to clear the panic rising inside like another damned tsunami. Already trembling, she worked up enough spit to swallow, hoping her mom didn’t turn around and see the beads of sweat popping up on her forehead. Anxiety stalked her as relentlessly as the nightmare of that hole. She was a ping-pong ball, caught between the blood-chilling ghosts of yesterday and anxiety’s wicked hot flashes of today.
God, she was tired. She’d seen her family doctor for depression, and she was supposed to attend the group therapy session he managed tomorrow night. Dr. Packard actually listened, not that she’d told him much. But Bree trusted him. He was young, and had once been an Air Force medic like the ones at Incirlik Air Base, who’d been so good with her. He’d given her a prescription for anxiety, because—hello, PTSD. Shewasnervous and edgy. Bree was downright bitchy, and she knew it.
Worse, claustrophobia had settled into her mind like an invisible snake. She never knew when it would strike, clamp its jaws on her brain, and turn her into an out-of-control, screaming maniac. To avoid making an utter fool of herself, she avoided her parents’ garage, setting her butt inside her mother’s tiny Smart Car, walking alone, pretty much walking anywhere. She couldn’t do those things anymore, didn’t force herself to, either. Not after the panic attack she’d had on the flight over the Atlantic after her rescue.
Weirdly, the wide-open space of that Black Hawk hadn’t affected her one bit, but sitting in a crowded commercial jetliner with all those people, a veritable wall of seat backs around her, and the endless rows of overhead storage compartments hanging off the ceilings, had proven too much. Even thinking about it now dumped a load of acid into her stomach. She’d spent most of that trip standing in the aisle on her feet, until a kindly flight attendant, another vet, a woman soldier, recognized the signs and offered Bree conversation and a margarita in a plastic solo cup.
After downing four more margaritas while chatting with the attendant in the rear galley, Bree had finally returned to her assigned aisle seat. After one last margarita, she’d put the seat back and had fallen asleep. She’d probably snored the rest of the trip. Who cared that her friendly flight attendant had to wake her up once the jetliner landed at JFK? She’d survived the damned flight! That was what counted. The other passengers could like it or lump it. She didn’t care!
“No dear, but it’s easy to see you’re still depressed, and you’re so nervous these days,” her mother murmured. “Your dad and I worry more about you than Robin.”
“I’ll be fine,” Bree lied to get her mom off her back. “Honest. The quicker I get into the office, the faster I’ll be back to normal.”Whatever that is.“I just need to work and keep busy.”Because I’m going out of my mind sitting around here all day and night, and every time I hold still, all I do is think of Kruze! Damn him for always being so… so… handsome and sweet. And damn his green eyes! Why couldn’t Robin look like me? Why’d she have to look just like him?
“I heard you last night.”
“Mom…” Bree bowed her head and stared at her feet. She didn’t know what to say to that quiet revelation.So, yeah, I scream in the middle of the night now, and I’m prone to cry at the drop of a hat. So I keep all my windows open. So that doesn’t always do a damned thing to help. So what?!
Bree closed her eyes, biting back the mouthy demon that lived under her skin these days. Until her nightmare in Turkey, Bree and her mom had been best friends and shopping buddies. They’d finished each other’s sentences, and sometimes, their noisy chatter had driven her dad crazy. Bree just didn’t know how to talk to either of them anymore. The only ones who understood what she’d lived through, were both veterans with combat experience. Well, make that three. Kruze had certainly pegged her during their short time together. Not like that helped. Her life had become a vicious circle, and she was sick of hurting the people she loved. She needed help—or a margarita.
“You know, you’re right. I do need a nap,” she told her mom quietly, then called brightly to Robin, “Hey, baby girl, I’m going inside for a while. You stay with Nana.”
With a squeal, Robin slapped her pesky balloon, then skipped over to Bree with a cheerful, “How come, Mommy? Are you tired again?”
Aren’t I always?Bree pulled her chunky daughter onto her lap and circled her arms around the little girl’s tummy. “I’m tired a lot, huh?”
Robin’s cute lips puckered into an adorable pout. “Did you eat all your breakfast this morning, like a good girl? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and it’s supposed to give you lots and lots of energy to do anything you want!” She packed those last words with so much innocence and joy, as if eating the right foods could solve Bree’s problems.
“I did, sweetheart. I ate before you woke up.”
