Chapter 23

The next morning Edward woke up confused about where he was.

Iraq? Yeah. He'd slept…deep.

Iraq. He was what—twenty, twenty-one?

It wasn't all kicking in doors and running special operations. Sometimes, they were ambassadors to a region, working goodwill and all kinds of services for the locals. And it wasn't all active duty. There was downtime. Stretches of it. Video games and competitions, some bogus and ridiculous, some real. Then it got busy again. Really busy. High tempo. His body leeched salt and stained his gear, and he stank strongly enough he smelled his animal self all day long. And if you didn't get shot up or blown up, you started another letter you might not send. Drank another beer. Said another prayer.

He still tasted the dust. Sand. He'd trained, relentlessly, in the Arizona desert. Yuma. Then Kuwait. But nothing prepared him for any of it-for the way that battlefield smelled. Dirt and gun oil, sure. But more than that. It was ancient, the top layer of dust so fine it went through his fingers like water. It stayed in the air, too light to settle. It plugged his nose, his tear ducts, pores.

He knew that desert wasn't his. No history pulled at him, only the strangeness of it, the oldness of it. Wasteland. A condemned garden under his boots, filling the pattern, spilling out of each step leaving a marked trail, a map that erased itself. Erased him.

And as much as he built an intellectual argument against the memory of his time there, as much as he accepted the turmoil and loss, didn't take it as a personal failure, he'd realized years ago he'd been wrong. It would always be in him, in his membranes. Even as other smells and another life layered over it. He was weighted this way. Iraq left a scar that traced a gulley down the back of his throat to his guts. And some nights his stomach roiled with it. It was his history after all.

Someone knocked on his door. The rapping knuckles were halfway down. Shanni or Alice?

"What?" he said pushing to his feet, crossing the worn boards.

He pulled the door open. The Armani cologne hit him first, like a slap in the face. Not that it was in anyway offensive, but the giver…that was the slap. It was always her favorite.

The two thousand dollar wool and silk suit. Thousand dollar Bench Leather shoes.

Four years his senior. Son of his mother. Clean shaven. Big features that went together with a handsome audacity fueled by those eyes that latched on and never let you go. It was a lot for one morning. Iraq.

And Emmett.

Edward stepped away, rubbing his face. "I asked you not to do this."

"You said you'd call, man. Or answer your phone," Emmett said following him in. "Holy shit! Austere in the real world looks like hobo town, right bro? You see that, right? This penance or something?"

"Why are you here?" Edward said going into the kitchen sink where he proceeded to put his head under the faucet.

"You getting my money?"

"Why?"

"I don't know," Emmett said leaning his expensive suit against the door frame. "You're not sinking it into the aesthetics."

"It's not your money," Edward said.

"Well…it kind of is but…whatever."

"Yeah. Whatever." It was a big topic. A sore one.

"You know, I've asked myself a hundred times, why do I bother? Rose asks me. My therapist." Emmett grinned because the likelihood he had a therapist was none. "I never have an answer. Not one that makes sense. Guess I'm just crazy about you."

Edward let the cold water saturate his thick hair. He stood and flung water everywhere, smoothing it back.

Emmett laughed, and Edward wiped his hand over the errant streams that ran down his chest. "Wakes me up," he said.

"Yeah, I had a bed like yours I'd be sleeping deep, too."

"Mom okay?"

"Wow. Two minutes to remember you didn't drop out of the sky. Dutiful son."

"She okay?"

"Mom's, mom."

"Then what's it about?"

"It's about worry." Emmett pointed to his temple. "Something's loose in there. I get it you're beyond all earthly need for comfort or normality. You and Wolverine. I get it. But Mom still doesn't get it. Mom cares very much how your need to be…special is packaged, and tenement living isn't cutting it for her."

Edward leaned against the sink, folded his arms. "I'm all right."

"Ah…by who's standards?" Emmett said, mirroring Edward's posture. "Easter Bunny's? He lives in a hole in the ground. Too."

Edward shook his head.

"You're running skinny, bro. Got that 'fasting' look you love. Oaths and vows, I've watched you take both. But it comes down to this? This look…like a refugee?"

Edward put a hand on his flat stomach. He'd always run thin. And lately, he'd eaten better than…other times. He curled his bi-cep. "I can take you on," he said to Emmett because he'd always run strong. It was their schtick. Sometimes it happened. They plowed into each other and went for it. But that had been years ago. Now it rang hollow, the words. Not even stirring sentiment.

"I ah…I'll call when I'm ready," he said to Emmett. It was the truth.

"For what, Edward? Ready for what?" Emmett said.

"For this. You. Mom. Any of it."

"You know that's shit, right? You know what you're trying to do. Again. Only this time, there's no institution behind it, bro. No orders. No general…no Pope. Nothing but you, standing there in this shithole telling me to fuck off."

"It's not like that," Edward said.

"No? It's not like that? Oh. Yeah. You like it fine. Shiny. Duty. To country and God. You like it like that. But I tell you what…this dump with the cardboard Serta? This is more real than any of that other bullshit. It's just you now, bro, and look at you. Look the fuck at you." Emmett dug into his pocket and pulled out a slender silver case. He clicked it open and took out a black card with all the necessary information on it. He laid it on the sad Formica with a click. "There it is Fuckface. I'll tell her we talked. When you can find your balls, give her a call."

He left then, turned and came back, laid a stack of bills next to the card. "Buy a damn bed."

Then he left for real, slamming the door.

Edward stayed in position at the sink, but curiosity about the money won out. He counted it and stacked it against the counter. And he wondered how long he had before his mother showed. But mostly, he wondered what Bella was doing. Because he could still smell the cologne. And it rankled him that after all of this time…it was still there, as strong as Iraq and Afghanistan and all that came after…thoughts and feelings…for the giver.