1990 – 1992
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Audrey stared at the ceiling, wide awake. Two hours had passed since their call had ended, but his words still echoed in her mind, each detail vivid, making it impossible for her to fall asleep. The conversation made it difficult for her to find peace, even though she knew that she had only listened to the stories. She hadn't been there, not like him.
The images he had described lingered, raw and haunting. They were pictures of stories her mind replayed again and again. One of them was about Chechnya. His voice had gone tight, though he tried to keep it steady, when he told her about a comrade—Jack didn't mention his name he—disappeared.
Jack had described the moment with brutal clarity. His comrade had been just two yards ahead. They had been patrolling a small village, cautious, their senses alert to the danger all around them. And then it had happened. A booby trap, hidden beneath debris in the street. Jack had felt the shockwave of the explosion, close enough to be knocked back, close enough to see the aftermath, to see his comrade... disappear.
That was the word Jack had used—disappear. He hadn't needed to describe the gruesome details. Audrey could hear the pain behind his words, the grief that lingered after all these years. And she couldn't even bring herself to picture how it would be to witness a body being ripped apart, a friend, just a few feet ahead. And though he hadn't said it outright, his voice had carried that unspoken question: Why him and not me? It was the unshakable burden of having survived when someone so close to him hadn't.
But Jack had told her something else, something that had struck her in a different way. Seeing such deaths didn't make anyone want to give up, to turn around, or run back home. There was an unspoken rule among the ranks, a code that none of them ever wanted to break. No one wanted to be seen as a coward. And none of them were.
With each man that died, the rest of the team grew more determined, more resolute. They didn't just mourn their lost comrades—they fueled themselves with it. Every death made them fight harder, made them want to avenge the fallen. It became a tribute, in a way, to the men who had given their lives. They couldn't walk away now. Not after someone had paid the ultimate price. They had to keep going, to finish what the others had started.
Jack had explained it to her with the same quiet intensity he used when talking about the missions he had completed, the battles he had fought. No matter how the officers above them decided to proceed, the men on his level were always ready to go back for more. Ready to head out again. They craved it, as if it were the only way to give meaning to the deaths they had witnessed. It wasn't about orders or strategies anymore—it was about honoring their fallen brothers. It was about carrying that fight forward, because it was the only thing that gave sense to their ultimate sacrifice.
And that's why they never hesitated. That's why they would always keep going back, again and again. It wasn't just duty—it was survival of a different kind. Jack had said that after each death, something inside them hardened, made them willing to take even greater risks. As if fighting harder was the only thing that would make the loss bearable.
Audrey had listened in silence as he explained this, trying to grasp what it must have been like. The loss, the pain, fueling a drive to fight harder, to keep pushing forward. It was a mindset she could barely comprehend, but at least she tried to understand what had been going on inside him—why he had kept going, even after seeing so much death. It wasn't just about survival or duty. It was about making sure none of their deaths had been in vain. Dying for nothing. That was the most horrible thing for him, it seemed.
The image of that moment stuck with Audrey, making it impossible to find rest. She had always known Jack was strong, resilient. But now she understood, more deeply than before, how much of that strength came from enduring loss after loss, pain after pain, without ever acknowledging the grief. But that pain had shaped him, made him the man he was—a man who had learned to turn grief into just keeping to move forward.
As if the memories of the battlefields hadn't been enough, Jack had gone on to tell her something even more personal, something that seemed to haunt him even more deeply. The first time he had killed someone who later turned out to be innocent. Jack hadn't spoken of it lightly—his voice had carried the details of the memory as though it had just happened yesterday.
He was still able to remember that town's name, the model of sniper rifle he had used, the caliber of the bullets (.338 lapua magnum). He had been sent on a mission, given coordinates and a target—someone who was supposed to be a threat. He had lined up the shot, watched through his rifle scope as the figure came into focus. Had followed his head, through the windows of that house. The steady pressure on the trigger, waiting for the go.
But it had been a mistake.
Later, they had found out the man wasn't who they thought he was. He hadn't been a combatant, hadn't posed any threat. He was just a local, caught up in a war he had nothing to do with.
Audrey could still feel the way her heart had clenched when Jack said those words. The weight of that moment had clearly stayed with him for years, haunting him like a shadow that refused to disappear. And then, he had told her about Carl. Carl, a comrade from his Special Forces team, who had almost broken after his first innocent kill. Hearing him recount the 'innocent' kills she had to assume that these were only the two he consciously mentioned. There must have been others.
Carl, who had questioned whether he could live with himself after that. Jack had been the one to tell him it wasn't his fault, that it was just "collateral damage," that things like that happened in war. Bad intel. That it wasn't their fault. But he didn't fully believe that himself.
But now, as she lay awake in the dark, Audrey knew Jack had never believed those words—not when he'd said them to Carl, and not for himself.
Jack had said it like it was a mantra, something he had repeated over and over to justify what he had done. He had told Carl, and maybe even tried to convince himself, that it was all part of the job. That collateral damage was inevitable. That in war, mistakes were made. But deep down, Jack had never been satisfied with that explanation. Audrey could hear it in his voice.
The part that had unsettled her the most, the part she couldn't stop replaying, was when Jack had admitted how much more collateral damage he had inflicted over the past twenty years. How many lives had he taken, lives that may have been innocent, all because of orders he had followed? Because of a command someone far away from the battlefield had given him? He hadn't needed to say it outright, but she could sense the bitterness in his tone, the growing disillusionment with the idea that such losses could be easily explained away.
Audrey stared at the photograph on her nightstand, the one of her and her father. It was a picture she had always treasured—her father, the Secretary of Defense, standing tall and proud, at the day of inauguration, she was standing right beside him. But tonight, the photo felt different, as if a layer of innocence had been peeled away. She had always admired her father, admired the way he dedicated his life to strategy and defense, to protecting the country. But now, after hearing Jack's stories, she couldn't help but see the cost of it all from a new perspective.
For men like her father, and even for herself at times, people like Jack were chess pieces on a much larger board. Pieces that could be moved, sacrificed if necessary, to achieve a greater objective. But for Jack, those moves weren't just strategies on a map. They were lives. They were friends. They were innocents who had gotten caught in the crossfire.
And now, lying in her bed, Audrey realized that it wouldn't just be evenings, but years for her to learn how much he had been carrying all these years. He was carrying the weight that should be carried by the ones higher up in the ranks, the ones who made the decisions. But in the end, the weight always seemed to stay with the person who finally pulled the trigger.
The burden of being the one who followed orders, who carried out the missions, but also the one who had to live with the consequences. Each decision, each shot fired, had left a mark on him that no one else could see.
Audrey shifted beneath the covers, the room feeling cold and empty despite the warmth of the blankets. She wondered if it was the first time for him to talk about this all.
She lay still, her thoughts circling around everything Jack had revealed. She was certain now—there had been no one else. She was the only person he had ever shared these thoughts with. Every mission he had talked about was classified. The loneliness of that realization sank in, as if she were finally seeing how isolated he had been for all these years.
He'd described nights of binge drinking, though he hadn't ever been an alcoholic. It was a ritual—a way of coping, of numbing the pain when it became too much to bear.
Jack had told her how he'd run into old comrades from time to time, sometimes in distant parts of the world, sometimes back home by chance. They hadn't needed to say much to each other. Just a single word—"Do you remember Kuwait?" or "That town near Al Jarah?"—and that was enough. Enough to crack open the flood of memories, the horrors they had seen and survived. But they wouldn't speak more than that. There was no need to. Instead, they would find a bar, order drinks, and lose themselves in the fog of alcohol, talking about something completely else. They'd drink because it was a ritual. And then, when the bottles were empty and their brains too numb to remember, they'd part ways, silently carrying the weight of their unspoken pain back home.
And that was what struck Audrey most of all—how silent it all was. Jack and his comrades never shared the details, never allowed the darkness to fully surface. Instead, they just drank it down, trying to bury it deep enough so they could face the world again. When the night of drinking was done, it was back to pretending. Back to the roles they had to play. Back to being fathers, husbands, soldiers, without ever acknowledging the bloodshed that clung to them.
Audrey could remember, too vividly now, how Jack had talked about coming home to Teri. He had wanted to leave it all behind—wanted to walk through that door and forget the battles, forget the death. But he never could. The moment he crossed the threshold, he had felt like an intruder in his own home. The love, the peace that radiated from Teri, only made him feel more out of place. It wasn't that she openly criticized him anymore—she had stopped voicing her disapproval of his career long ago. But Jack could still feel it. He could still sense how she disapproved of what he did, of the fact that his hands had taken lives.
They had never talked about it, not once. He couldn't tell her about the missions, and Teri had stopped asking. But Jack had known—he had always known—that she didn't approve. That she saw the invisible blood on his hands, even if she never said a word. He had become convinced that she thought him unworthy. Unworthy of the peaceful world she lived in. Unworthy of touching their daughter, of holding Kim in the same hands that had pulled the trigger.
And now, lying in the dark, Audrey understood why Jack had never spoken about this to anyone before. His comrades didn't talk—they drank. And at home, he was bound by confidentiality, silenced by the secrets he had to keep. He had never had anyone. Not in the field, not at home.
The more Audrey thought about it, the more she realized how trapped he had been. The harder it got for him to switch between these two worlds—the battlefield and the home—the less he had switched. He had started to distance himself, to stay in the mindset of the soldier, even when he was supposed to be a husband and father. The few weeks each year that he was home must have felt like a mission in themselves. Jack had said it before, and Audrey hadn't fully understood it at the time, but now she did. Being home felt like playing a role, like he was infiltrating a house on enemy terrain. He had learned how to play the part, how to smile and be present, but deep down, he had felt like he didn't belong there.
It wasn't just the horrors of war that haunted Jack—it was the impossibility of leaving that world behind.
Audrey closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. She thought of everything Jack had told her, the loneliness of it, the way he had carried it all for so long without sharing it with anyone. Her mind swirled with conflicting emotions—pity, sorrow, and a touch of anger, though she wasn't sure if it was directed at him or at the cruel circumstances of his life. Jack had never been truly alone, always surrounded by comrades, officers, people. Yet, in so many ways, he had been utterly isolated. Loneliness, she realized, wasn't about being physically alone. It was about being trapped in a world no one else could understand.
She understood that feeling all too well.
Audrey had felt the same kind of isolation many times, surrounded by colleagues at the Department of Defense, meeting generals and high-ranking officials, constantly orbiting her father's sphere of influence. On paper, her life was filled with people—a loving father, a career of responsibility—but most of the time, she felt utterly disconnected. The one thing that had broken through the monotony, that had made her feel less alone, had been the phone calls with Jack.
A week ago, she had been ready to judge him. When Jack had told her about his unfaithfulness to Teri, Audrey had felt a rush of disgust, imagining how much pain that must have caused his wife – but now she knew that Teri had never learned about it. After hearing the details of his life, how his and Teri's worlds had grown so far apart, how hard it had been for him to hold everything together, growing to 'pretend' to being a family, it felt different. It didn't justify it, but she could at least begin to understand why he had done it.
The first time had been at a brothel, he'd told her, his voice distant as if he were reliving it. And at the same time she had to admit that she'd never met any guy who had openly confessed to having paid for sex.
Some of his comrades had found the place on the outskirts of a city in Iraq. It had been a risk to go there, but Jack hadn't cared back then. He hadn't seen Teri in months, and their last goodbye had been troubled, a painful reminder of how estranged they had become. Jack had known that the war would drag on, and even if he got lucky, he might get one or two days to visit home. But after the mission they were on, home had felt impossibly far away. He had felt unworthy of being there. After the things he'd done, he felt like he had forfeited every right to ever cross that doorstep again, to peace, to happiness.
Audrey's chest tightened as she remembered his words. One of the guys had somehow gotten his hands on two bottles of whiskey the day before, and they had shared them back at the camp. They had drunk to forget—to dull the edge of fear and exhaustion, knowing that in two days, they'd be moving out again on a mission so dangerous that none of them expected to come back the same. They all understood that this might be the last time they were together like this. For some, it might be the last time they returned at all. The most sober among them, if there had even been one, had been made the driver, and they had headed out into the night. Jack had been swept up in the moment, the alcohol blurring his sense of right and wrong. He hadn't cared then. He just wanted to escape the war, escape himself. Besides, these might be his last two days, and he knew there wouldn't be a chance to call Teri. Even if he had, what would he have said? He could imagine the conversation—telling her he was calling because he feared this mission might be his last, that he didn't know if he'd make it back. The thought of putting that fear in her heart had been unbearable. He couldn't do that to her. He'd have to carry this alone. Cope with it. Somehow.
Audrey didn't know what to feel. Should she despise him for it? Should she hate him for betraying his wife? Or should she pity him for the choices he had made, the loneliness that had pushed him into the arms of strangers? She had no answer.
And then there was Ramstein. He had spoken about it as if it were some kind of purgatory. It had been during one of his many recovery stints after a mission had gone bad, leaving him wounded and sent to the base hospital at Ramstein. Jack could have gone home then. He could have taken a flight back, limping with his arm in a sling from the bullet that had gone clean through his left arm. He could have spent two weeks with Teri and Kim – it would have been the only two weeks during the Gulf War, in which he could have travelled home.
But he hadn't. He'd chose to stay at Ramstein.
The thought of coming home to Teri had been unbearable. Jack had described to Audrey the last time he'd come home, bruised and battle-worn. He had wanted to pretend that what he did wasn't that bad. But the truth had been written all over him. And Teri had seen it. Her disapproval had been there, unspoken, lingering in the air between them. He hadn't been able to pretend that everything was okay.
So, Jack had chosen to stay. He had chosen Ramstein over his family, because he couldn't make himself go through that again, the moment of coming home and having her see his injuries.
Audrey felt her stomach knot at the thought. He had told her about that night at Ramstein when he and two of his Special Forces comrades had gone out again. They had found a bar, and Jack had woken up the next morning with a pounding hangover, had found a fresh tattoo around his left upper arm, covering the new scars, and the undeniable feeling that he had slept with someone. When he had opened his eyes, the woman wasn't there. He found himself alone in an unfamiliar flat, naked and disoriented.
He had told Audrey how he'd sneaked out of bed, carefully putting on his clothes, hoping to escape before she noticed. The shower had been running, and he hadn't wanted to face her. Whoever she was. As he had moved silently down the hallway, he'd passed pictures on the wall, glimpses of photos with some female faces he didn't recognize. He hadn't known which one of them was her. He hadn't known anything. And then he had left. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, he had started running down the stairs, as if he were escaping a battlefield, his head pounding but his only thought had been to get away.
It wasn't the only time, Jack had said. Audrey remembered that part most clearly. This wasn't the one night he had lost himself. It had happened more than once. And after every time, it had gotten harder to go home.
Months later, when Jack had finally visited home again after a mission that hadn't left him with any new physical wounds, the guilt had overwhelmed him. Teri had known nothing. She hadn't suspected anything. When she opened the door, she had smiled, her face lighting up with relief and joy, and she had thrown her arms around him, pulling him close, welcoming him back like the husband she still believed in. But Jack had felt hollow, even more unworthy of stepping into their home, as if every step over the threshold was a betrayal in itself.
He still loved her. With all his heart. But it became harder and harder to bridge the gap between the life he lived in the field and the life he should have been living with her and Kim. He watched Kim grow from afar, always through fragments of their life together. Sometimes, Teri would send him a letter, with a photo tucked inside. If the letter reached him—sometimes weeks later, sometimes not at all—he would sit in some makeshift barracks halfway across the world, staring at the photo, realizing how much she had grown.
Those were the times he missed them the most. But missing them hurt so much that he was almost relieved when the next mission arrived. It gave him an escape—a way to avoid the pain of knowing he wasn't there, wasn't being the father or husband they deserved. The battlefield, in all its chaos, felt easier than facing the life he had left behind.
Audrey's heart clenched, the weight of his confession sinking into her. She didn't know what hurt more—the fact that Jack had been unfaithful or the fact that he had been in such a position.
As she lay in the darkness, Audrey knew that he had been carrying these secrets for years, locked inside him, never sharing them with anyone. The pain, the guilt, the loneliness. He had buried it all.
She imagined him at Point San Luis, at some quiet guesthouse, alone with his thoughts. It wasn't the kind of solitude that brought peace. It was the kind that forced you to confront the parts of yourself you'd spent years trying to bury.
He had been lost—caught between two worlds, neither of which felt like home.
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Jack lay in bed, staring into the dim room. It wasn't even nine yet, but he was already tired. Maybe it was because of the conversation, reliving memories he had spent years trying to bury. Or maybe it was just the rhythm of the last few days—Angela, Kim, and Chase had kept him on his feet, and they had all been going to bed early, adjusting to the rhythm of a toddler.
He had woken up at 5 a.m. this morning, quietly packing his few belongings before Kim and Chase would stir. By 7, they had said their goodbyes. Now, the dark room felt oppressive, even though he had wanted to be alone.
His eyes drifted to the faint light streaming in through the window, just enough to catch the glint of Teri's wedding ring. Jack twisted it between his fingers, memories flooding in. He thought back to July 28th, 1986, when Teri had slipped it onto his finger in Las Vegas. That moment, so full of hope, felt like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago.
He had kept it on for months after she died, unable to let go. But eventually, it became too much. He had taken it off, kept it in a safe place. Before Mexico, he had given it to Tony for safekeeping while he'd be gone. After Mexico, he had worn it on a ball chain around his neck. He recalled a night in Pacoima, in some run-down drug house. One of the junkies had seen the ring and, thinking Jack was too deep into a heroin haze, had tried to steal it. He hadn't been able to get up in his state, but he'd still broken the guy's arm. The frightening thing was that this was only four weeks ago.
Jack stared at the ring, twisting and turning it in the dim light. Today, on his first stop out of Los Angeles, he had taken it off the chain and slipped it back onto his finger. Maybe it was silly. Maybe it meant nothing. Who cared? No one knew the story behind it. Not the woman at the reception desk of the guesthouse or the waitress at the diner who had served him lunch. He was just one of the many men wearing a simple wedding ring.
He slipped the ring back onto his finger and settled into bed, trying to shut off his thoughts and sleep.
But they wouldn't leave him.
The room was still when suddenly, a soft glow lit up the darkness. Jack turned and saw his phone's display. A message from Audrey: Already asleep?
It was like she had heard his thoughts racing.
No. Couldn't sleep, he texted back.
Me neither.
A minute later, the phone rang. Jack picked it up, relieved to have something—anything—that could pull him away from his memories.
Audrey's voice was soft, and though she didn't say it outright, he knew she didn't have the answers either. She didn't know how to help him, or how to help herself pull them both out of the darkness. But she was there, listening. For now, that was enough.
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