Waiting on the Rain by Claudia Connor
24
Gary leaned back in his ergonomically correct chair as Luke walked in. “Don’t you look slightly less morose,” Gary said, sliding his mug amongst piles of papers.
“Good morning to you, too.” After three sessions, he had to admit the guy was growing on him.
“Want coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had my quota of coffee for the day. Moved on to Diet Coke.” He raised his hand to show the plastic bottle of liquid caffeine.
“So what are we talking about today?” Gary asked as Luke took his seat.
“You tell me, Doc.”
“Okay. Well… why don’t you tell me everything that’s happened since the last time I saw you?”
“Okay.” Luke drew out the word as a million things passed through his mind. Ava’s lips. Ava’s eyes. The confidence and pride as she’d hit the center of the dart board. The men he wished he could bloody all over again. Her squeal of laughter, sitting in his lap, driving his truck.
“Wow,” Gary said. “Based on your face I’d say you had a hell of past two weeks. Some good, some bad. I’d say it ended on a good note if I had to guess.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Okay. Then why don’t you do more than think about it and say some of it out loud.”
“Okay. I went on a family outing you could say.”
“Voluntarily?
“As a matter of fact. But don’t call me a success story yet. It would have caused me way more grief if I’d refused. But still, I should get points for that. Go ahead, write it in my file.” He pointed to Gary’s desk. “But then I beat the shit out of some people, so I guess I lose points. Maybe I come out even for the week.”
The concern on Gray’s face was so grave, Luke almost laughed.
“Did this happen on the outing?”
“No. I made it through that fine. It was… later. A few days.” His hands balled into fists. “They deserved it.”
Now Gary did find some paper to write on.
“I’m going to have to make a note of this. You know that.”
“Sure, go ahead. The cops came and everything, it was quite the scene. Oh!” Luke snapped his fingers and pointed at Gary. “And my brother Nick showed up from the FBI. You don’t want to miss that part.”
Gary stared at him for a full minute. “I have to wonder why you’re telling me this, Luke? Or is there some reason I was going to find out?”
“I don’t know about that.” Luke sat back, shrugged, smiled. “You asked me about my week. That came to mind.”
“Okay, why don’t you back up and tell me the circumstances.”
“Some assholes that don’t deserve to live were hassling someone. A woman.”
“And you just happened along? A good Samaritan?”
“I didn’t just happen. She called me.”
Gary laid his pen down. “Then you knew the woman?”
“Yes.”
“Was she hurt?”
“No.”
“And the… assholes?”
“I didn’t kill them, so they weren’t hurt as badly as they should have been.”
“So you’re clear with the police?”
“Yep. Clear as glass.”
“You could have started with that.” Gary sighed. “How did you feel after? Or during?”
“Mad.”
“Out of control?”
Luke thought about that. “No. I knew was I was doing. Where I was and who I was doing it to.”
“Could you have stopped?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t want to. She’s blind, this woman. They had their hands on her, they—” He stopped, closed his eyes. When he opened them Gary was watching him over the rim of his mug.
“So…” Gary said after another minute. “The police came, the perpetrators were arrested?”
“Yes.”
“And your brother?”
“One of the perps was wanted in some FBI case. Or they wanted to talk to him.”
“Wow. You saved the girl and helped the FBI at the same time.”
Luke didn’t know what he’d expected from Gary, but it wasn’t that. “This doesn’t… concern you?”
“Does it concern you?”
Luke laughed. “How did I not know that would be your answer?” He shook his head.
“No, it doesn’t concern me,” Gary said. “That’s my answer.”
Luke looked down at his mostly healed knuckles and nodded slowly.
“How about the woman? Did she have anything to do with the rest of your weekly reflections?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else you want to say about her?”
“No.”
“Okay. Fine. Keep the good stuff to yourself. Selfish, but fine.” Gary got up with his mug, took the silver thermos from the top of this file cabinet and poured himself a refill. “You sure you don’t want some?”
“I’m sure.”
Gary waited to speak again until he’d doctored his cup of Joe with sugar and sat back in his chair.
It took so long Luke started thinking his next question was going to be a big one. He wasn’t disappointed.
“You still think you made a mistake? Leaving the military?”
“I never said it was a mistake.”
“You said you weren’t sure or you didn’t know.”
“Exactly. I don’t know. What do you think?” Luke asked, picking at a splinter in his thumb.
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Oh, give it a rest Gary. Of course you want to tell me what you think. That maybe I should have thought it through, shouldn’t have left a life when I had no plan for another one.”
“Is that what you think?”
Luke closed his eyes against the headache pulsing over his left eye.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what I think,” Gary finally said.
“About damn time.”
“I think you knew that you couldn’t know what kind of life you might have unless you left the life you were in. It’s difficult to see the clearing when you’re in the forest.”
“So the Rangers was a forest and now I’m in a clearing? I gotta tell you, that not only sounds like a crock, but it sounds wrong. Being an operator, a Ranger, was the clearest fucking thing I’ve ever done. It’s now that I’m in the forest. It’s now that I don’t know what I am.”
“I think you do know, but it wouldn’t do any good for me to tell you. Have you thought any about the jobs we went over?”
“Not too much. I’ve been pretty busy helping my sister. What about money?”
“What about it?”
“Do I have to make it?”
“Well, most people do. Have you won the lottery? If so, I could start being a lot nicer.”
“I have some money. I could invest it, move it around. I’ve got a brother-in-law who’s pretty good at that stuff. Anyway, what if I did something that didn’t make any money?”
“You mean like volunteer work?”
“God, no. Like building.”
“Builders can make quite a bit of money.”
“I mean building for my sister. She needs the help. I can do it or most of it. I’m good at it.”
“You like it.”
Luke shrugged.
“It’s okay to admit you like it. It’s okay, even preferable to be happy in your work, in life.”
And Gary knew that was perhaps the greatest hurdle. To accept and allow one’s self to be happy. “Satisfying work doesn’t always have to earn a lot of money, or any. Your sister runs a non–profit, right? And she’s productive, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah.” And he thought of Ava. Her job. What she wanted to do, her goals. Her need to be in New York or Italy or wherever the hell she’d be a couple months from now.
“Uh, oh,” Gary said. “Care to share your thoughts?”
“No. Not really. And times up.”
“No, it’s not. Not even close.”
“I say it is. I’m picking up lunch for myself and my sister. Write that down.” With that, waved a goodbye to Gary and left.