Heaven Is For Heroes Read online

  CHAPTER 5

  I cried all the way to Vic’s Gym, the only place I could think to go where I could kick and scream without drawing attention. I passed Somerville High, cursing the stupid building that had started all the trouble. Levi and Alex had been caught setting fire to the new high school while it was being built. It was pretty clear Levi was the instigator, and Alex, as usual, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Brig and Mrs. Cooper had worked out the deal with the courts that the boys, both seniors at the time, could either go to Juvenile Detention for a year, or finish school and join the Marines upon graduation. Like Levi said, Juvie would probably have been easier.

  The Rabbit sputtered along past the skating rink, the post office and a row of small buildings. Carver’s Plumbing and Supply, Diana’s Bakery, and Phil’s Diner were all open for business late for a Sunday afternoon. This time of year every business in town stayed open as much as possible with all of the summer residents flocking back to the surrounding lakes and hills. Cars lined the main street and people shuffled from one establishment to the next, their friendly smiles an insult to the desolation I felt in my soul.

  I skidded into the parking lot and sat for a long minute, trying to get my emotions under control. Alex’s attitude had shaken me up. I should have expected it. I couldn’t blame him for being angry, confused, frustrated. Whatever he was feeling, I was pretty sure it was normal. It didn’t mean his rejection of my help and refusal to answer my questions didn’t both hurt and piss me off. I let out a long sigh and slammed the car door, my gym bag slung over my shoulder as I steadied myself to face the stares, whispers, and displays of sympathy I would undoubtedly have to deal with upon entering the gym.

  I stopped by the unattended front desk and checked the schedule. Vic would soon be finishing a power yoga class in the main exercise room. I would have joined the next class, but I needed more than a good sweat. I needed to hit something. I darted into the locker room, avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone, focused on the black rubber floor mats under my feet. I changed into my Gi, the white pants baggy and soft from wear, grabbed my hand and foot gear from my locker, and made a dash for the open gym.

  I exchanged solemn nods with well-meaning members who knew me well enough to know I wasn’t up for a conversation about the death of my brother. I was sick of hearing people say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” The idea that I’d ‘lost’ my brother seemed ridiculous to me. It insinuated that I’d misplaced him somehow and that he could be found, as if he was only away on some secret mission and would soon return—a possibility I considered every morning when I woke up—until the reality hit me and sank in a notch deeper. Soon, I would have no choice

  but to believe he was truly gone forever.

  I propelled myself past the weight room, a spinning class in progress, and a group of people waiting for the racquetball courts to empty. I’d made it all the way to the arena when I heard a familiar voice call out behind me.

  “Hey, kid. Wait up.” Vic caught up and met my long stride. “I won’t bother asking how you are. I can only imagine how tough it’s been for you and your family. I’m really sorry about Levi.”

  I slowed down and glanced at Vic, who was pulling on a pair of leather gloves as she followed me to the heavy bag in the far corner of the arena past the boxing ring. “Thanks. I’m doing okay. I don’t want to talk about it though.”

  “I get it,” she said. I sighed in relief that she wasn’t going to press me to talk. Victoria Peterson is a woman in her fifties who stands a few inches shorter than I do but outweighs me by thirty pounds of curves and muscle. Her hair is cut short and bleached blonde, spiky tufts sticking up in all directions. I slipped on my padded hand gear and threw a half-hearted round of punches at the heavy bag. Dark eyes stared expectantly at me from the other side of my target. “Is that all you got?”

  I continued to pummel the bag, each strike increasing in force. I found a perverse sense of peace when my glove smacked against the bag and I felt a recoil of energy run through my body, an effect far more powerful than spilling my guts over feelings I couldn’t control or events I couldn’t change. The deep emotional pain that left cracks in my heart hovered around me, reverberating off the black leather as I tried to beat it back down. I swiped at the sweat sliding down my cheek and realized it was tears. I stopped to catch my breath and bent over, gasping. “I can’t talk about this yet,” I said, not sure if I was talking to her or myself. I walked around in circles, hands on hips, and shook out my legs, and then came back for another round. Kickboxing had to be better than seeing a psychiatrist—which is where I would be if I didn’t get my head under control.

  If I could talk to anyone, it would be Vic. It wasn’t like I considered her a second mother to me, but she’d certainly been a good friend, taking me under her wing when Brig first took me to her gym when I was twelve. He’d caught me and Levi smoking pot and had given me the choice of being shipped to a girls’ boarding school or joining the gym and learning martial arts. He said all I needed was some focus and discipline. I spent most of the past five years studying Tae Kwon Do, yoga, Eastern philosophy and all around survival skills from Vic. She could be tough, but fair, and I had learned to appreciate her ‘never-give-up’ attitude.

  “I can understand you not wanting to talk about it, but you never know—it might help.” She caught the heavy bag and stopped it from spinning, waiting for me to hit it again. I landed a solid blow that felt as good as I’d hoped it would. I blasted several shots in a row and started my footwork, a dance that had me hopping forward and back on my toes, my right front jab gaining momentum as I planted my weight into the front foot and swung my back leg into an arcing crescent kick. I thought back to the point where Lee and I began growing apart, wondering what there was to say.

  Brig had sent me off with Vic, but he’d had other plans for Levi. That summer they had spent nearly every day together fishing, hunting, and camping, Brig’s attempt to tame the wild side of my brother. He said the Native Americans would send off their adolescent sons and tell them, “Do not come back until you have killed a bear.” Brig’s equivalent was survival training and constant supervision.

  Mom went along with Brig’s tough love approach, like she usually did. Her fragile state of parental stability was especially challenged in those days when Levi caused her no end of grief at every turn and my hormones had kicked into whiny overdrive. Lying and sneaking around to see what we could get away with quickly became our favorite pastime. Mom was easy to fool then, when she worked long hours and slept a lot, always exhausted and seldom paying close enough attention to me and my brother to keep us in line.

  Her main focus seemed to be earning a paycheck, keeping a clean house, and pretending she was Martha Stewart, so the world wouldn’t see that her life as a widow and single parent was in far less than perfect control. She and Levi were at constant odds with her hovering and nagging when she was around and with him snapping at her and picking fights to push her away.

  Lee and I were old enough to fend for ourselves and took advantage of her emotional absence when Brig was traveling. But once Brig was home, getting away with anything was nearly impossible. It was tough sneaking past a man who had fought in four wars and had led special ops teams in a dozen countries in as many years. Brig and Vic were old friends and she had done him a favor by taking me on. Honestly, I didn’t know what would have become of me if she hadn’t. I’m sure following in Lee’s footsteps would have led me to certain destruction. My heart pounded in my chest. My ears rang. Then I heard Vic’s voice.

  “How’s your mom dealing with everything?” She leaned her shoulder into the punching bag, keeping it steady as her deep brown eyes met mine, forcing me to focus.

  “Like always. She’s hiding and not talking about it.” I threw a kick, landing a hard roundhouse high up on the bag and knocking it out of Vic’s grasp. She grabbed the leather and recovered.

  “So that leaves you taking care of her again. It h
ardly seems fair.”

  I pummeled the bag with a combination of kicks and strikes that had my heart racing and my face hot. “Brig helps. I don’t have to do much.” My breath came in gasps as I slammed the bag with another assault—wheel kick—back fist—hook—knee. I jumped in and out, jabbing, kicking, stepping back as if evading an invisible opponent.

  “So what else is eating you?” She gave me the I see right through you look.

  “I went to see Coop.” I stopped dancing and punched the bag six or eight times in quick succession, my strikes hard, fast, and tight.

  “I heard about his leg. That’s a tough break.” Vic stood in close to me, leaning past the heavy bag. She held it steady with her body weight and crouched into a deep stance that normally made her immovable.

  I slammed a side kick into the bag, knocking her back a few feet. The hundred pound black leather bag shook on the chain as she let go and followed me to the water cooler. I filled a paper cup and guzzled down the cold water, hoping I wasn’t replenishing my body for another round of tears that bubbled just below the surface. “He won’t talk to me. He won’t let me help him. And he can’t tell me what happened to Lee.” I filled another cup and sucked it down, wiping the spilled water off my chin with my tee shirt. My hands shook.

  “Will knowing what happened change anything?”

  “Now you sound like Brig.” I plunked onto a bench and wiped the sweat off my brow. “Is this a typical military approach to the death of a soldier? It doesn’t matter what happened as long as the official line is that my brother died a hero?”

  “Don’t lump me in with the brass. You don’t have to convince me that the military has its flaws.” Vic had been one of the first women to be a military helicopter pilot and had met Brig while running missions in South America in the early nineties. She’d mentioned more than once that Brig was one of the few guys who treated her like a fellow soldier and not some intruder into the boys club. I didn’t think it was a coincidence she had chosen Somerville, Connecticut to settle down and open a gym after my grandmother passed. I wondered if her friendship with Brig went beyond their military training and their fascination with covert operations, but I would never ask, and the two of them spent very little time together, so whatever relationship they had, it wasn’t steady.

  Vic nudged me in the ribs. “Brig’s usually right on target. But judging by the look on your face, you aren’t about to let this go.” She nodded to a couple of young guys stepping into the boxing ring. “Look, I get that the truth matters—especially when the facts are sketchy. What story did the military give you?”

  I ripped the Velcro straps open with my teeth, sliding my gloves off one at a time. “Supposedly, Lee and Alex were on a mission to enter the safe house of some Iraqi official. They were just there to hack into a computer and get information. The house was supposed to be empty, but at the last minute intelligence came through that there were people inside and they were told to stand down. Details get foggy after that, but the gist is, Alex went in anyway and Lee followed. Apparently they took out one guy but another got off some rounds before backup arrived. Lee was dead and Alex severely injured. They still don’t know why Alex went in. Like I said, he has no memory of the incident and there are no eyewitnesses.

  “And why don’t you think it’s the truth?”

  The two young guys in the ring pummeled each other, grunting and swearing as they went at it and then retreated. “I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to believe that my brother…it’s just that…when it came to Lee and Alex, Lee was always the leader. He had to be up front all the time—taking the risk.” My voice shook as I thought about my brother, the times he cut himself—or jumped off bridges—the hundred things he did that challenged his mortality over and over again. “He would never have let Alex go into a dangerous situation ahead of him, and Lee was the rule breaker. If Alex was told to stand down, he would have listened. I don’t know why, but the truth matters here. It just does.” I let my tears fall and I looked her square in the eye. “Can you help me find out what happened?”

  Vic turned her attention to the kids in the ring who were in a clutch beating the tar out of each other against the ropes. “Knock it off, you knuckleheads, or I’ll come up there and tear you apart.” Her voice boomed in a loud, monotone way that said she might be joking or serious and you didn’t want to find out which one. The kids responded by breaking hold and returning to their respective corners.

  Vic looked back at me and then wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I’ll look into it.” I straightened up, wiping my eyes and hugging her back. “But don’t get your hopes up,” she added. “You know the first place I need to go for answers is Brig. And if he isn’t behind us opening this can of worms, it’s not likely either of us will change his mind.”

  I gave her the most encouraging smile I could muster, suddenly feeling a little fragile and desperate for a spark of hope. “I have confidence in you,” I said. “If anyone can soften him up, it’s you.”

  Vic gave up a grin, something she didn’t do easily or often, and shrugged. “The average man always underestimates a woman’s powers of persuasion,” then her face went into mock seriousness mode, “though your grandfather is anything but an average man.”

  Chapter 6

  Mom was dressed in her scrubs and clogs, fixing coffee in a travel mug when I came down to the kitchen the next morning. Her face still looked pale and lifeless, a mask ready to crack with the least provocation. After nearly two weeks of hiding in her room and sleeping, returning to work had to be a step in the right direction. She was lucky Dr. Stevens was willing to give her as much time off as she said she needed.

  “Do you want coffee?” she asked as I rubbed sleep from my eyes and slumped into a kitchen chair, the sleeves of an extra-large flannel shirt hanging way past my hands and the tails covering my knees. I pulled my feet up onto the chair, my legs disappearing under the shirt entirely, only the toes of my socks poking out.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I watched her move around the kitchen in slow motion as if she was on autopilot, completely absent from her body and floating somewhere in the periphery.

  “Are you planning on opening the antique shop today?” She poured me a mug of steaming coffee and set the milk and sugar on the table.

  I stirred in a heaping spoonful of sugar and added a splash of milk, stirring and gazing down into my mug so I wouldn’t have to meet her eyes and the penetrating sadness that lay beneath her vacant stare. “I thought I’d go see Alex again. I think he’ll be coming home soon, but they won’t let him out of the hospital until he’s ready to deal with taking care of his leg.” I couldn’t even say the word amputation out loud. The thought of it and the way it looked, all red and raw, made me queasy. I closed my eyes and sipped my coffee trying to banish the image.

  Mom remained silent as she finished packing her usual turkey, avocado, and cheese on rye for lunch. She worked as a receptionist at Doctor Stevens’ office. He’s the family practitioner who had been our doctor since I could remember and who had given Mom a job when we first came to live on Thompson Lake.

  “I’ll be home around five-thirty,” she said, turning her back to me as she disappeared down the hallway. I chilled at her tone, the fragility of her emotional state. I heard the screen door slam and wondered how we would ever get past this. Past the sorrow, the grief, the anger—the loss—the sense that our family was shattered and broken and would never be the same again. My only hope was that down deep, she loved Alex and would find a way to forgive him for being alive while Levi was…

  I wrapped my hands around the hot mug, letting the sensation seep into my skin. Warm tears stung my cheeks, reminding me that I was still here and had to go on. I’d learned in martial arts classes that when all hell broke loose around me, I needed to stay in the moment, notice my senses, be in my body, and breathe in and out. Then my direction would be clear.

 
; I took in another deep breath, the sweet, nutty aroma of hazelnut coffee opening my airways. As I blew on the hot liquid and sipped carefully, I thought about how fractured our family was and wondered if Levi’s death would be the final straw in breaking us completely.

  “It’s good that your mother went back to work this morning. I wondered how long she would stay locked in her room.” Brig stood in the doorway, his bulky frame nearly filling the opening. He went straight for the coffee pot and poured himself a huge mug, leaving it black and sitting down across from me. “How are you holding up, Sunshine?”

  “I’m okay, I guess. Mom still seems really mad at Alex. I don’t understand how she can blame him.” My feet fell to the floor and I leaned over my coffee, letting the steam and sweet aroma fill my nostrils. Miraculously, it seemed that awareness of the simple sensations kept me grounded and sane, minute by minute. I clung to my cup, determined to contain the tears that clogged my throat waiting to erupt.

  “She’s just hurt and angry and sad, and looking for someplace to put it all. She’ll get beyond it eventually. Did I hear you say you were going back to the hospital to see him?”

  “I think he really needs me right now. He wasn’t doing very well with his therapy, and I’m afraid…I can’t let him give up.” I sighed low and long, suddenly feeling tired and angry again. Emotions ran through me from a million directions, flooding me in a tsunami that I was powerless to control. I held them all tight in my chest, the injustice of the whole situation making me feel sick.

  “If you really want to help him, you’ll leave the past alone and help him move forward. He needs to see that he still has a future. He’s a smart kid. Just because he can’t be a Marine, doesn’t mean he can’t live a full, productive life.” Brig peered over his cup at me as he drank his coffee. “If he was Army or Air force they’d find a place for him, but the Marines…well…just keep reminding him of who he is. He’ll be fine.”