Page 11 of Troubled Water
I know we’re about to get into some questions that may make the people on the other side of the glass antsy, even though the events took place almost twelve years ago. “After. Long after.”
“Are they the reason you left black ops?”
“Yes.”
“They died in a car crash?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They were leaving my home. A semi-truck driver fell asleep at the wheel.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Fox’s voice is almost a rote platitude.
“I’m sorry for our nation’s loss,” I snap, irritated that this agent didn’t do her damn homework before coming in to interrogate me.
Deere murmurs, “Fox. Vitals.”
Fox notes my chest rising and falling, my fury palpable. Her heels snapping against the concrete floor, she makes her way over to Pamola’s desk before flipping to the front dossier in my massive file.
It’s then, and only then she whispers, “Yes, sir. It was a great loss for our country.”
10
TWELVE YEARS AGO—AGE 31
The rigamarole of the pomp and ceremony I’ve had to endure, from permitting my father’s desk to be dropped in black crepe to delegations of corrupt cocksuckers coming to pay their respects, is about to do me in. The only thing that caught me in the gut was seeing the flag flown at half-mast and knowing it was meant for him, them.
That’s when the insidious pain started crawling through every pore of my body. I was unable to escape it as I wandered through my childhood home in Virginia Beach as I stared at meticulously framed photos of the three of us from when I was a baby through my growing years. Tears streamed down my face at the pride evident on theirs when I graduated from the Academy and then the image of me they took when mycommander pinned on my trident after I earned my Navy Special Warfare Operator rating.
Moving down the row of photos, I touched one my mother had framed of us after I returned from my mission down in Mexico, where I was trying to recruit college students in border schools to work for the Agency to help stop drug cartels.
When I mether.
Shoving Bethany McCallister to the back of my mind, I took the picture off the wall and stared at the smirk on my father’s face—a twist of the lips I inherited. My mother’s silver eyes twinkle up at me from the two-dimensional image capturing the love and laughter I had until just a few short weeks ago.
Is this what you felt after you lost your mother on the Sea Force, Bethany McCallister?The rogue thought races through my head and I shove it back—way back—because right now, I can’t unpack what happened that night in Mexico. Why I started talking to her.
More importantly, why I stopped.
The only thing I can think about is my parents are gone, and I’ll never have another chance to tell them I love them.
Grief is a constant companion.If I had my way, I’d force every reporter trying to flash a camera in my face as I exit the back of the limousine carrying me to their gravesite to jump in the hole waiting to lower their caskets into the ground. I don’t care that my father was Senator Albert Thornton—senior senator on the Senate Appropriations Committee, or that my mother, Lorraine Parker Thornton, was a well-respected pediatrician. Right now, all I care about is they’re gone.
In my full dress uniform, with my trident pin gleaming on my front left breast, I make my way to the viewing area. I note that in addition to the paps, there are more people than just the leeches my father worked with. Some of my former team members have made it and—I’m so grateful—friends, including Cal and Libby.
Maybe, just maybe, I can make it through everything I have to do today as a son, a former SEAL, and as the face to the nation.
I stand at the edge of the gravesite, my fists clenched so tight that my nails dig into my palms, but I don’t care. I can’t feel anything except the gnawing emptiness in my chest and the weight of my broken heart.
The honor guard waiting to honor my father stands at rest in formation, rifles held at their sides, ready to send my father off—and my mother along with him. One flag-draped coffin, one draped in roses, both centered beneath the tent, looked surreal. There was no way they could hold the love, confidence, and memories my parents had bestowed upon me. My gloved fists clenched at my side. Especially when none of it made any sense.
As a SEAL, I had buried brothers, men I fought alongside. But this... burying my parents? The man who taught me to stand tall, to face the world head on? The mother who reminded me every time I came home from a mission I still have a heart? This was different. This was unbearable.
The priest’s voice echoes through the quiet crowd, reciting prayers, but I don’t hear a word. I stare at the coffins, my mind replaying every life lesson, every stupid teenage argument. My first tear falls.
Then I recall how my father would clasp me to him each and every time I strode through the front door after every mission, the way I’d scoop up my mother right after. Now, I know why those moments were so precious. It was because I wasn’t justfeeling their love more in those moments; I also felt their relief in my safe return.
