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“I have to go. It’s where I belong, Daddy. With Max. He’s meant for me—and I’m meant for him. I’ve… known it for a while now. I don’t know how, but I have. I was stupid to leave, to run away. I see it now.”
Mitchell’s face was pinched, his eyes suddenly almost haggard, the toll of all this finally beginning to show. “What happened, my anger—it’s between Max and me. Not you. I… I love you, sweetie. I just… I don’t want you hurt.”
“But you’ve got to see. Max isn’t hurting me. He never, ever has.” She took a breath. “And he never will. Please, you’ve got to see that. He was always there—for both of us. No matter what it was. Doesn’t that count for something with you?”
Mitchell turned away, and she could tell he was near tears now. “I… don’t, Kelsey. Please… don’t.”
“Max is where I belong. And it’s where I’m going to stay.” She grasped his chin, forcing him to look upon her. “I’m not your little girl anymore, but she’s still inside me. And she needs the two most important men in her life now, more than ever. Please…” She began to weep again, and she forced herself to say the last of it, her voice breaking. “Max needs me now, just as I needed him, when Mom had to leave us. Please… please, let me go to him. I need to be there, to help him. Please, Daddy.” She wiped her tears, trying not to sob as his eyes filled with tears, too. “We’re all we have anymore, without Mom. It’s just you, and me… and Max. I don’t want to lose either one of you. Not ever.”
“Oh, Jesus, Kel, come here.” He drew her into his arms, and she could tell he was crying now, too. “I’m so sorry. I just… when Mom died, I just… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She whispered the words against his soft hair, as his arms—her Daddy’s arms—wrapped around her even tighter, showing her that his love for her was strong, everlasting. “Oh, Daddy, you’re never going to lose me. Because it’s not just you who’s protecting me, keeping me safe. Max has me, too—like he always has. Can’t you see that? He’ll never let me be hurt. And you won’t either. I’m not going away. I’m going to where I’ve always belonged.”
Mitchell’s back hitched as he buried his face against her neck, his anguish muffled against her.
“I love you, Daddy, and I always will. But it’s time to let your little girl go.”
Chapter 27
Max hadn’t really known Kelsey that well, he’d been overseas for so long, that when he’d finally come back stateside, he wasn’t sure he knew anyone well anymore. Mitchell had sometimes mentioned her, of course, often glowingly, occasionally ruefully. But his love for her had never been in doubt. Mitchell was a father clearly proud of his daughter, even if he couldn’t always be there to tell her that.
It was three years ago that Max had taken his discharge. Gone home, finally. Five consecutive tours in the Af/Pac theater, and he knew he’d had enough. It was time to come home, time to actually live his life, rather than keeping it on hold.
But what he thought he was going to have back in the USA didn’t quite work out the way he’d planned. He’d gotten the call from Mitchell less than a week after he’d arrived back in Tennessee. It was about Rebecca, it was serious, and what he heard in Mitchell’s voice that day chilled his blood.
It was fear—and the dead certain knowledge of a man who knew the woman who meant everything to him was about to be taken from him.
Of course, he was going to be there for his best friend, his best friend’s wife, and his best friend’s daughter. The news, when Mitchell and Rebecca had gotten it, had been like a bolt from the blue, the first call from Rebecca’s doctor coming a little over a month after Kelsey’s eighteenth birthday. When he’d learned the sobering news, Max had been in a stifling, bug-infested supply depot at Bagram airbase, the connection so bad on Skype that Mitchell kept dropping in and out. His friend, as was his way, minimized the gravity of it, emphasizing that they didn’t know for sure it was cancer, that even if it was, it was likely not malignant. That it had been caught early.
But Max knew. Mitchell was spooked.
Each successive test revealed worse results than the last. Each scan leaving the prognosis poorer and poorer.
Max had come back to the States, cashiering himself for good for the final time… just before the worst news of all was confirmed.
At first, Rebecca had been able to stay at home, but the cancer was in her lungs, it was aggressive, and they weren’t going to be able to stop it. They’d officially labeled her terminal a couple of months before Kelsey was to graduate high school.
Which meant it was even odds whether or not Rebecca would even be alive to see it.
Kelsey was a bright young woman full of the same piss and vinegar her father had passed on to her, and the beauty and sweetness her mother had gifted her. But he never forgot her face, Kelsey’s face, when he and Mitchell sat down to give her the grim truth. To tell Kelsey that the time her mother had left was a couple of months, three at the most. She’d taken it amazingly well, certainly far better than Max would ever have if he’d been in her place.
Mitchell hadn’t fared so well, however. Max had never known his best friend to show any sort of weakness, but in the crucible of Rebecca’s impending death, he saw the strain upon Mitchell, and Max could not help but step in and help him bear that awful burden.
Whether that meant helping Kelsey with grocery runs, doing the dishes, getting the mail, or walking the dog, Max was always there to do it. In those last few weeks, Rebecca was too sick to stay home. Max had never felt more helpless—useless—as he’d stood there, watching, Rebecca weeping as Mitchell loaded her into the car for what everyone knew would be the final time that she would see her home.
And still all Max could do was to help, to be there, if for nothing else than to be available so that it was one less thing Mitchell or Kelsey had to think about. Saying goodbye to someone you love, to someone who means everything to you… there’s no way to prepare for it. It’s impossible to be ready. He’d known that, felt it—on more than one occasion—in Afghanistan. He’d been lucky enough not to lose any of his close friends. He’d seen more than a few brothers-in-arms though who hadn’t been so lucky.
But the pain of watching his best friend lose his wife, and his best friend’s daughter lose her mother… it was far worse than anything he saw in war. He’d always felt guilty over that, that seeing Rebecca slip away affected him more than seeing a GI blown apart in some godforsaken mountain pass with a name few knew how to pronounce, and fewer still would remember.
Yet, it was.
Because it was his best friend’s wife. A good man and a good woman who’d been blessed with a wonderful daughter. A family who should have had everything to look forward to… and who were now facing the end.
Rebecca kept saying that she wanted to see her daughter graduate, that if she could just hold on long enough for that, she’d be happy. The doctors were hopeful, but Max knew that shadow in their gaze, that doubtful, pinched look the doctor had when they knew the patient they were talking about wasn’t going to make it.
Yet Rebecca did make it. And it was Max who drove Kelsey to her graduation, and it was Max and Mitchell sitting in those stands cheering her on as she crossed that stage.
Best of all, for one moment, that haunted look in Mitchell’s sunken eyes had gone away. In that one second of time he could think about something else other than the fact the love of his life was about to be gone. Forever.
