Jason's truck proceeded on the highway at a constant speed. Clay had not emitted a single sound since he told Jason his mother's address. He just sat at Jason's left, staring at the road ahead with hands gripping at his thighs. Jason peered at him continually, matching at times Sonny's look in the rearview mirror.
The atmosphere weighted on them. Sonny, for the first time in years, didn't know what to say; adventuring in some touchy feeling conversation was not for him, but cracking a joke would not have the usual effect right now. He shifted in his seat. The best he could do for his young brother in a situation like that was leaving him the front seat without complaining.
While taking a provincial road, Jason broke the silence. "You wanna stop by your place on the way back?"
"At what point?" Clay said, eyes fixed out the truck's windshield. "I need to go back ASAP, and my place is too far."
One eye on the street, Jason turned briefly at him, "Clay—"
"It's here" —Clay pointed at a small semi-detached house— "You can park over there."
The sound of the truck's doors closing resounded, drawing some curious eyes on the three SEALs. Clay headed straight to the door and inserted the key in the lock. With a hesitating grasp on the handle, he turned to his teammates. "Wait here. It will take just a minute if I know where to put my hands."
Jason drew his attention at the neighbors peeking from behind their windows. "You sure?"
"No way I'm standing out here," Sonny said. "No one searches a building alone if his brothers are around."
Clay nodded. His eyes were full of a mix of gratitude and weariness; he didn't want to face what was inside alone but was afraid of what he and his teammates may see.
Jason opened the blinds and a window; breathing that air felt like sharing the bunk with Brock and Cerberus for a week without ever getting out. Before the sunlight showed them the truth of how Clay's mother was living lately, the sound of glass hitting glass echoed as Sonny almost tripped over some empty bottles scattered on the ground.
Clay couldn't wipe the shock from his face fast enough, but Sonny and Jason pretended they saw nothing, going on with a silent and discreet inspection of the apartment. Clay picked up a blanket from the floor, and with shaking hands, he put it on the couch, then started collecting the trash like if he was responsible for it and was ashamed to show his lack of tidiness to his friends. Sonny and Jason's looks met; they were frozen, but without thinking further, they started helping Clay.
"You— you don't have to—" Clay cleared his throat, putting down a half-empty vodka bottle.
"We got you." Jason nodded sternly. "Go get what you came here to get."
Alone in the kitchen after Clay disappeared into the bedroom, Jason and Sonny peeked into Clay's childhood. They already know what type of father Ash was, but they had hoped that at least Clay's mother had been a more positive figure in their brother's life. While the noises Clay made rummaging through drawers and dropping papers reached their ears, the smell of something rotten soon reached their noses. There were dirty plates all over the sink, leftovers of something unidentifiable in them, and glass and bottles everywhere.
The sight of white powder that clearly wasn't flour nor sugar on the kitchen counter made Jason's blood run cold. He moved quickly, cleaning it all out before Clay could see it; that would have been too much.
Sonny, all intent in snooping around, barely noticed what his boss had found. He picked up a picture from the floor, trying to not cut his fingers with broken glass. On it, a smiling woman with a baby in her arms. On the wall, there was a photo of this blond toddler with curios blue eyes, and beside it, teenager Clay on the beach. There were no other photos with them together, nor photo from elementary school.
"What's that?" Jason reached Sonny at the other end of the room.
"Baby Clay, not so different from now." Sonny put the picture he collected from the ground on the table, asking himself why there wasn't a single sign of Clay's affiliation to the navy. He would never say it out loud, but a mother should be proud of a son like Clay.
A note pinned to the fridge attracted the two SEALs' attention. It only said, Clay, but they immediately understood what it was.
Sonny approached, tucking the note down. He couldn't resist and glanced at its content. "Damn it…" he looked over at Jason. The note began:
—Clay, dear son, I'm so sorry—
Sonny grew pale. His eyes met Jason's again, this time waiting for orders. They needed to show their brother what they had found, but how easy would have been to trash the thing and protect him from this sorrow?
"Clay," Jason called, "you need to see this." He motioned Sonny to hand the note to him, and they both held their breath until Clay grabbed it.
They watched as the realization of what that paper was crossed Clay's red eyes. His hands gripped the paper tight; his jaw contracted; his shoulders tensed. Clay opened the note and started reading. First, his hands started shaking, and his eyes filled with anger. Then a tear formed at the corner of his eye, and when he utterly exhaled, it marked his cheek.
"I can't—" Clay put the paper down, not knowing where to look.
Dog barks came through the open window, breaking the deadly silence. Sonny rested a hand on Clay's shoulder, but he retracted and wiped his face with his sleeve.
"Let's go, Sonny," Jason ordered and moved to the door. "We'll be right outside the door, kid," he said, trying to look Clay in the eyes. "Take your time."
Another sniff resounded. Clay stood immovable without even looking at them until the sound of the front door closing reached his ears.
Jason and Sonny settled on the porch while the already familiar curious faces peered at them from a distance. A dreadful silence echoed for a few minutes, and then came the crying, the yelling, and the crash sounds.
Sonny got up and headed back inside, but Jason stopped him.
"He doesn't have to be alone, Jace."
"Yes, he does. He was keeping it all to himself when he needed to blow it off. He won't do it with an audience."
Grunting, Sonny sat down again.
"He'll come to us when he's ready," Jason said.
After a while, a deadly silence came from inside the house. Jason and Sonny walked up and down the porch. Their hearts beat for their brother inside, but they were unable to do anything to ease his sufferings.
Sonny stretched his hand to the knob, but Jason motioned him not to.
"Come on, Jason. He needs us."
"Give him space," Jason ordered, facing him. "He knows we—"
The door creaked open, making Jason and Sonny turn. In front of them was a ghost; he had papers in his hands, and his knuckles were reddened and scratched.
Clay's bloodshot eyes shifted away from his brothers' looks while he cleared his throat. "We can go now," he said flatly while aiming straight at Jason's truck.
There was a moment of hesitation before Jason's finger hit the clicker; as the sound faded, it could almost be heard the sound of Sonny's heart breaking at the sight of Clay getting in the back seat.
Sorrow and anger could be breath in the truck, and the ride back to the hospital seemed as long as one of their flight back home from a mission. Only it was definitely less noisy, reminding them of the dreadful times they came back counting one less heartbeat than the first take off.
When Jason stopped the engine in the hospital parking lot, no one dared to move.
"Team is the only family you need…" Clay whispered, grabbing the handle.
"Sorry, what?" Jason said as he and Sonny turned in unison to look back at Clay.
"That's what Adam said to me once: Team is the only family you need." Clay slightly opened the car door.
Confusion and concern crossed Jason and Sonny's looks.
"Thanks for the ride." Clay stepped out of the truck, but his teammates reached him before he could enter the hospital.
"Wait." Jason put himself between Clay and the door. "We respected your silence, but you can't expect us to leave you like this."
Sonny backed Jason's words. "You just said it, Team is your family."
"I feel you, guys, I really do..." Clay sniffed, hiding and wiping tears from his cheeks. "You are always there for me, and I am always there for you."
"That's what brothers are for," Sonny patted him on the shoulder.
Clay made a step back. "What happens when the people you leave here are the ones who need you, but you're out there with another family?"
The twilight, with its profound quiet, took hold of the parking lot. Pain crossed Jason's look as he struggled to admit to himself that had always been his secret fear.
Clay scrunched his mother's letter in his hand. "I'm sorry, I— I appreciate what you're doing, but can you please go now? I need to be alone with her."
Sonny and Jason looked straight at him, then at each other and nodded.
"We're a phone call away," Jason said before watching Clay silently crossing the hospital doors.
. . .
The breathtaking quiet of the intensive care unit underlined the turmoil of emotion in Clay's heart. All the training and hard work he endured in the years didn't prepare him to face this battle. The situation was out of his control; he could do nothing but bear the weight of the responsibility toward his mother. It was a lonely position, but Clay didn't know how else to face his pain rather than alone.
Once the insurance papers were not a worry anymore, Clay managed to kick his father out again. Now, he was alone with his mom like it had always been.
All evening, Clay's phone kept buzzing until he couldn't bear the sound anymore. Trying to ignore it, he put it on silent, but it wasn't enough. It kept lighting for calls and texts. The only ones Clay returned, though, were Stella's. She would have been there like she had been the previous night, but apparently, that had been an exception. Hospital policy stated that only one visitor per patient was allowed at late hours. Stella suffered from it, but for Clay, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing now.
He felt the need to be alone with his mother, and yet, he could barely look at her.
The beeping of the heart monitor in the background had become a comforting sound; it signaled Clay that his mother was still there with him even when his eyes couldn't make sure of it.
Clay's muscle tingled, and his legs were restless, but whenever he got up, his head started spinning. He couldn't even remember when he ate last, and for how his stomach ached, he couldn't slightly think about food. His attention was caught by the cup of coffee his father had brought him earlier. Clay had refused it, but Ash had left it there anyway. Now, Clay sipped the stale, cold liquid like it was the tastiest thing in the world.
The cell phone screen lighted again, but Clay didn't bother to look who it was. He simply turned it off. He had not done that gesture in years; a SEAL must always be on call, and he had already been a SEAL for seven years before joining Bravo.
Adam's words keep echoing in his head. Team is the only family you need. Reassuring thought when in the field he could only count on his brothers; a dreadful omen now that he was watching his mother throwing her life away because he wasn't with her.
The first lights of the morning filtered through the closed blinds, signing the end of a restless night.
Clay approached his mother's bed and sat on its edge. "Come on, mom, you can't mean these craps," he whispered, scrunching the letter in his hands. His sore eyes laid on his mother's handwriting; it was shaky and confused, and even more than the words, it transmitted all her sorrow.
—Dear son, I'm sorry— Clay started reading. I'm sorry… I'm very sorry… I'm so sorry… those words kept repeating throughout the whole piece of paper. But for Clay, those words meant nothing. He felt anger mounting in him, but when he glanced at his mother's pale face, it was all clear. She was not the object of his rage. He was furious with himself.
—I'm writing this because it's the only way I have to tell you what I have to say—
Clay kept reading; the memory of his phone buzzing during the night while he was deployed and his decision to not answer it weighed on his heart.
—This life you chose, the military, is keeping you away from me, just like it did with your father, and I can't stand that anymore. Because I need you, Clay. I need you—
Clay's throat closed while his chest felt heavy. He hated himself for what he put his mother through, but the thought he could hate his mother, too, for what she was putting him through now was the most painful of the realizations.
—And while I was here worrying you could lose your soul out there in the field, I lost mine. I got lost, Clay, and I feel alone. I'm sorry, but I can't bear that anymore—
While he read those words, tears started clouding Clay's eyes.
—The day your father left us, I found myself alone and felt all the weight of the world on my shoulders. Oh, you were so young, my baby, you needed everything from me, and sometimes I couldn't give you that. I could not hold it together alone. And that was when alcohol came, and drugs along. I tried to protect you from all my craps, but you were so smart… too smart, baby, and I wish I could measure up—
Clay sniffed. His mother was offering him a culprit on a gold plate, and Clay wanted to keep blaming and hating his father, but now there was a bigger enemy in his sights.
—I tried, I really tried, I hope you get that, dear son. But I was not strong enough, and I was hurting you. I am sorry I had to abandon you. Is that why you are quitting on me right now?—
Clay felt like his mom stabbed him right in the heart. His head was spinning; he had never been so confused. It would have been so easy to put the responsibility on his father, and maybe even more natural to put it on his mother. But they were not to be blamed. There was someone else that could have done something but didn't.
—I was weak. I fell into the abyss again. The first time, it was you that made me pull through. The thought of getting you back from your grandparents kept me fighting. And I did it for you. But this time I am too weak, and you're not here—
"I'm here now, mom." Clay's soft voice shook as he tried to control the tears. "I'm here now, please. I'm here."
—Baby, I don't want you to see what I have become when you finally come back to me. I can't let you see that. I'm sorry—
Clay's hands were shaking, and breathing got hard as if he just took a round in his chest.
—I love you, Clay, with every fiber of my heart. I have always loved you more than anything, but I don't' know if you will still love me after you see what I became. It's time for me to go. I'm sorry. I'm too tired—
"I'm the one who should be sorry," Clay whispered while taking his mother's hand. "I'm sorry, mom. Can you hear me? I'm here now. I'm here." He sniffed; the silence in the room underlined the weak beeping of the heart monitor. "I will leave the military if you come back to me," he whispered to her. "I will do whatever it takes to bring you back to me, but please, please, open your eyes."
While Clay wiped his cheek with his sleeve, the unsettling sensation someone was watching him made his arm hair standing up. He turned in time to see a shadow crossing the corridor, but no one came, and the silence sounded deep again.
Author's note: Thanks to all who found the time to read to this point and leave a review, I appreciate the encouragement.
Halfway to this chapter I've reached the point where I finished rewriting and started writing new scenes. I'm now working on what should probably be the conclusive chapter of the story, and I already changed my mind on the ending half a dozen of times... But don't worry, I'll get there.