“Come on, sweetheart.” I grabbed her hand, and we jogged back to her house.
“You—you have to c-call the others,” she sobbed.
I swallowed my emotions and nodded once.
A black SUV with government plates was parked outside the Quinns’ house.
Pipsqueak whimpered and covered her mouth with her free hand, and I pulled her closer to me as we slowed down to a walk. Darius was the first Quinn brother in my contact list, and I called him first.
“You can go inside, Pipsqueak. I’ll call your brothers.”
She shook her head and wiped at her face. “I don’t wanna be in there.”
My stomach tightened at the sound of Darius’s yawned, “Damn, I overslept. Hey.”
“Get over to your parents’ house, buddy.”
I was met with a stretch of silence, and maybe he’d heard something in my voice. It wouldn’t surprise me. Whether he was in the private sector or not, he knew the military as well as Ryan and Jake and their father. This was their life.
“Darius, you have to come home,” Pipsqueak croaked.
Darius released a breath and cleared his throat. “I’ll be right there. Does Lias know?”
“Not yet, I’m—”
“I’ll call him.” With that, Darius hung up the phone.
“You don’t have to call Ryan,” Pipsqueak sniffled. “The officer said they’d notify Ry at his base.”
I swallowed. Ryan was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, but I assumed he’d be allowed to come home for a while.
Next, I called Ethan.
Jake had been killed in action during an ambush in a mountain village in southern Afghanistan. Rebels had been using young children as shields, which had caused Jake’s superior to call off the close-air-support by the Air Force unit that’d been in the area to assist them. During the squad’s brief hesitation to fire back, the rebels had gotten the upper hand and killed Jake and eight others.
Jake was awarded the US Army Distinguished Service Medal for having barricaded an underground shelter before he’d been killed, thus ensuring the survival of twelve rebel hostages that they’d freed, as well as the only surviving service member of Jake’s unit.
I’d seen Jake’s father annoyed, I’d seen him worried, and I’d seen him shout furiously at politicians on the news. But watching him accept the medals and ribbons that summed up Jake’s career and life in the Army… It unleashed a rage within him that would scare most people half to death.
I did what I could. I took a week off from work to accompany the family to Virginia where the funeral would be held, and I did my best to shove aside my own grief and be there for Pipsqueak and her mother. Willow had long since shut down and gone nonverbal, and she alternated by plastering herself to Ethan and Darius. She didn’t speak; she didn’t cry. When left alone, she sat on the couch, her bed, or on the floor, and just rocked back and forth.
After we’d arrived at our hotel outside of DC, we were served a light buffet in a closed-off area of the breakfast hall, where a team from the Army guided the family through the funeral arrangements. Given the number of soldiers who’d fallen, they were organizing a bigger memorial for the squad.
I listened with one ear, but I put most of my focus on Pipsqueak. Right now, she and Ryan were grabbing some food from the buffet, and she was in a decent mood for the time being. Unlike her sister, Elise didn’t shut down as easily or frequently. Instead, she went through different stages of grief every day, forward one step, backward two steps, and vice versa. She was difficult to predict.
“Avery.” Mary scooted closer to me and put her hand over mine. “I want to say thank you.”
I furrowed my brow. “For what?”
She chuckled softly and patted my hand. “For being an amazing brother to my children, of course. I don’t know what Elise and Darius would do without you.”
Oh. I shifted in my seat, instantly uncomfortable. Every fiber of my being was ready to object to her kind words. They didn’t feel right, whatsoever.
“You also knew a side of Jake that the rest of us were never lucky enough to see much,” she murmured. “You met him in a place where his dreams didn’t guide him to a damn desert.” She swallowed hard and became misty-eyed. “I was so happy when he told me he wanted to become a teacher.”
I managed a pathetic little smile. “He would’ve made an excellent teacher, but I’m not sure it would have been enough for him in the long run.”
It was certainly true that Jake had once dreamed about a life far away from uniforms and combat, though 9/11 had changed it all.
“He and I got drunk after finishing an exam once,” I admitted. “He told me he wanted what everyone called average—house, minivan, wife, dog, a bunch of kids… In between shots, he even named his kids JJ, Grace, and Todd.”
Mary chuckled thickly and wiped her eyes.
“But he was afraid too,” I continued quietly. “He said he wasn’t sure he’d fit in his own dream, because part of him wanted something bigger, and he’d immediately move on to talk about James’s past in the Army.”
When the towers came down, the decision was made in a heartbeat.
After years of studies, falling behind when he’d changed his mind and pursued something else, he’d found his path. And it led him directly into war.
“Jake stopped questioning his choices once he was in the Army,” I explained. “I may not understand his decision, but we’re lucky that he, and men and women like him, made them—and continue to do so. He was at peace with his choice, Mary. He was happy in the service, and he was a proud soldier.”
I left my personal opinion out of it, because it was biased and selfish, but it went without saying that I thought it was a waste of life, a waste of a wonderful friend. One of the best men I’d ever known.
I’d expected the main service to be the most emotionally exhausting, but I was wrong.
Everything was fucking difficult, and the impressions of the day were already causing my head to swim. There’d been crying family members, too many American flags delivered to spouses and parents, prayers, salutes, and more crying.
Yet, it was nothing compared to when we arrived at Jake’s final resting place.
Among the thousands and thousands of white headstones gracing the green hills of Arlington National Cemetery, Jake’s immediate family—and I—gathered at the one bearing his name.
Sgt Jacob J Quinn
It went on to list his date of birth, the date he’d died, his military branch, and his most distinguished medals, among them the Purple Heart that’d made James turn to Ryan with a pointed look and a sharply delivered, “If you ever become a medal, son…”
The other families who were here today to lay their loved ones to rest were fairly close by, and two bugle players performed “Taps” in the background, which brought us to the moment where it felt like my whole chest cracked open.
Since the Air Force had been part of the assignment in Afghanistan, and due to the circumstances, they offered their own tribute.
Pipsqueak snuck closer to me and hugged my middle.