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Epilogue – Tank
Eighteen months later…
The forty-five-minute drive to the Walter Forest Boys’ Home feels like a lifetime, and I keep having to remind myself not to white-knuckle the steering wheel so I don’t give away how nervous I am. Jess and I have been working on our feelings. It isn’t easy for me. Some days I wonder if waterboarding wouldn’t be easier, but I know it’s what we need to make our relationship work, and with hard work and effort, we’ll get there. And we have.
A big early step was meeting Carys’s family. I needed to face them so I could find some closure about the raid. I wasn’t sure they’d want to see me, but they welcomed my offer, and I got permission to return their daughter’s diary to them as well. It was a real test of me opening up because at first, I still wanted to resist letting Jess in on all that, but she insisted on coming with me, and I realized she was right. And thank fuck I did. Carys’s family was so understanding, and that hit me harder than I could’ve imagined. I don’t know how I would’ve made it through that meeting without Jess at my side.
But it was utterly worth it. It proved to me, once and for all, that I could do this with Jess. I was able to close that chapter of my life and start a new one where I dedicated myself to letting her in completely, especially when it's tough. Jess will never feel on the outside again. Today is a testament to that.
Jess speaks, and I can hear the tremor in her voice. “Why am I so nervous?”
“Because this matters.”
She reaches for my hand. “What if he says no?”
I was thinking the same thing the entire flight, but I needed to be the one that kept us both together. “He loves you. How could he possibly say no?”
Today is the day we ask Israel to be our forever kid, and it can’t happen soon enough.
We’d both fallen in love with Israel a year and a half ago, but we needed to be sure our relationship was on the right track before we took this step. Neither of us wanted to bring a kid like Israel—who’d been let down more in his short life than any of us ever had in a lifetime—into our lives when we weren’t 110 percent sure we were going to make it.
I knew without a doubt that Jess was the one for me. And I know she felt unequivocally the same. But sometimes, love just isn’t enough. And without a solid foundation, we knew that our relationship would crumble. I learned that the hard way. I think we both did.
So, we pushed when things got uncomfortable, and we spoke the words that needed to be said. We offered space and support and learned that no matter how painful, communication and brutal honesty were key. I tried not to be such a closed-off asshole, and the two times I came back from an assignment, the first thing I did before I buried myself deep inside her was tell her how I felt about everything that went down. It wasn’t an easy job, far from it. There were nights I didn’t get much sleep or had to work hard to keep a meal down, but seeing the faces of the kids we rescued was worth every minute of insomnia or indigestion.
It was different from the military. I could tell her what was going down. Sometimes it took me a while to share the specifics, and she understood that. She gave me my space, and she gave me the strength to open up to her and express my feelings of frustration. To tell her the fear I felt that I wouldn’t succeed and that I’d disappoint the kids and her. And every single time, under the pain she shared with me, I saw the light go brighter in her eyes, and that was worth all the fucking pain of owning what I felt instead of burying it deep.
I take a right and press a code into the keypad at the gate. As the green gate opens, I feel an onslaught of emotions. “What if I fail him, Jess?”
“What? That’s impossible. Pull over.”
I do, and she takes my hand in hers. “Why do you think you’ll fail him?”
“What if I make mistakes?”
“Oh, you’re gonna make mistakes. I’m gonna make mistakes. Are you going to love him with all your heart?”
“I already do.”
“Then everything else will fall into place. Chris, no one has ever loved me the way you do. No one has ever trusted me the way you do. If you give Israel all of you, he will know that no matter what, you’ve got him. And that’s all a kid needs, love and security.”
I blow out a breath.
“Let’s go get our kid.”
“Wipe your eyes first.”
I hadn’t even realized tears had tracked down my face.
I wipe my tears, then swipe a thumb under Jess’s eye. “Let’s go get him.”
The car doors are hardly shut when Israel comes barreling out of the house and throws himself at us. Jess kneels down, and I follow suit, our knees digging into the grass, wet from the sprinkler system.
I laugh. “It’s 9:15, buddy.”
Brandon grins as he comes out of the house. “He’s been up since four.”
“He has, has he?” Jess smirks. “Were you looking forward to seeing us?”
