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“Will you run one again?” she asked, wondering what was feeding his melancholy.
“Maybe.”
Okay. This was getting her nowhere. Time to do what she did best—push him.
“Your brothers didn’t know about the charity, did they?” After her visit to the kitchen, she’d left Eli with some explaining to do.
Eli met her gaze wordlessly.
“What did they say?”
“They said they’d feature Refurbs for Vets at future Crane events and help me raise money.” Then why did he look upset?
“That’s good, right?”
“Yes.” After a beat, he added, “I haven’t done much to deserve their help.”
He was so damn complex. What was he trying to live up to? Why was he in here studying his and his father’s medals?
“I don’t understand where this is coming from, Eli. I thought we were having a good night. Your family is so great and—”
“And they’re here for me. Because I’m here. Not everyone gets so lucky.” Eli lifted a stack of pictures, handed over the top photo, and closed the drawer. In it was what appeared to be a game of some sort. Eli and another man held men on their shoulders who were fighting with sticks. All of them were grinning. Eli, clean-shaven and head shaved, was almost unrecognizable, save for the grin on his face. She’d seen that expression on him lately. There was a circle of soldiers surrounding them, arms raised like they were cheering.
“You look happy.”
“I had my moments.”
Had.She didn’t like how past tense that sounded.
He sat on his bed like the weight of the entire world was on his back. She joined him. Eli’s blunt index finger tapped the man on his shoulders in the picture. “Benji doesn’t get to be here.”
Benji. One of his friends who died.
“The one who left a wife behind,” she said. “Sad.” What an understatement. Isa’s heart crushed under the weight of knowing the smiling, younger guy in the picture never returned home to the woman who loved him.
“They both left wives behind.” Eli’s nostrils flared, his voice hardening. “Benji’s wife won’t talk to me.”
Isa remembered him mentioning Benji’s wife in the journal entry, but what she didn’t understand was: “Why not?”
“Because she knows it’s my fault.” Eli tossed the photo on the nightstand. “She won’t return my calls and she’s no longer checking his e-mail. Or if she is, she’s not responding. Tonight, I was sitting there with my pain-in-the-ass family and got to thinking that Benji didn’t have any more moments with his family. No time with his wife or his brother or his parents. No one bringing him meals because his leg is gone. It’s unfair.”
This was the kind of grief she wasn’t sure how to deal with—that she wasn’t equipped to deal with. Isa had never suffered loss at his level. She’d never witnessed the tragedy Eli had lived through.
But she couldn’t help trying to comfort him. “Eli, you’re allowed to be happy even though he’s not here.”
“He’s not here because I didn’t save him,” he said, his voice vacant. “I should have saved both of them.”
That, she could argue. “I haven’t known you for long but I know for a fact if there was any way you could have saved them, you would have—or died trying.” She put her hand over his and offered a tender smile. “Am I wrong?”
“No.”
She thought she’d reached him until he jerked his arm away.
“But that doesn’t change the facts.”
“What facts?”
“I’m not good for anyone, Sable.”
