Christmas at Twilight

This book is dedicated to my sister-in-law, Melanie Derrick Blalock. You've been through so much darkness, but you've managed to come out of it as a bright and shining light. You are an inspiration.

A
personal crisis led me to the writing of this book. Like many of us, I have lived with, and loved, family members afflicted with mental illness. Psychological disorders take a terrible toll on the sufferers, their families, friends, neighbors, coworkers and society at large. The emotional pain is often unbearable, and the sufferers feel helpless, alone or discarded and don't know how to reach out for help. The effects of untreated mental health issues ripple throughout families for generations. There's such a stigma attached to mental illness that people are often reluctant to talk about it, or admit that they, or someone they love, needs help.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness one in four Americans suffer symptoms of mental illness in a given year and one in seventeen lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the US, more common than homicide, and it's the third leading cause of death for those aged 15-24. More than 90% of people who commit suicide had one or more mental disorders. Alarmingly, although military members comprise less than 1% of the US population, veterans represent 20% of suicides nationally. Each day about twenty-two veterans die from suicide.

But there is hope. Treatments have improved drastically, resources exist, and early intervention is key. If you or someone you love is struggling with mental or emotional issues, start with visiting the National Alliance on Mental Illness @ https://www.nami.org/.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Brandi Buckner PhD LPCS, who showed me that I needed to heal myself first before I could help others. She guided me in understanding bipolar and borderline personality disorders, gave me books to read, and enlightened me about emotional self-care.

And to Sandra Vanatko, owner of the yoga studio Indra's Grace, who is teaching me how to live mindfully in the moment, let go of attachment with love, and find peace and balance in a chaotic world.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland

November 22

D
elta Force Operator Captain Brian “Hutch” Hutchinson hated group therapy almost as much as he hated the mind-warping meds.

He slumped in the hard wooden folding chair that was part of a circle of ragtag military burnouts, watched the clock over the door, and counted off the seconds until this charade was over. His legs, encased in desert camo fatigues, were sprawled out in front of him. Muscular arms, crisscrossed with scars, lay clamped across his chest, a don't-fucking-look-at-me scowl digging a trench between his eyebrows. All the damn benzos they pumped into him left the inside of his head feeling as jagged as glass shards, and conversely as foggy as a hot breath on an icy winter morning.

You sure it's the benzos and not brain damage?

To keep from thinking about that too much, Hutch studied the olive drab wall behind a legless GI in a wheelchair who was detailing his fantasies of eating a bullet.

Someone had taken a pathetic stab at decorating for the holiday. A cardboard rendition of a live turkey had been taped to the wall along with a cherubic boy in a Pilgrim costume carrying a big black musket. Brightly colored leaves, gathered from the hospital grounds had been stuck underneath the cartoon boy's feet, strung out like a path, leading him right to his target. The opposite wall depicted a Thanksgiving feast, complete with a golden roasted bird, foretelling what was in store for the hapless turkey.

The room fell silent. The legless GI had stopped talking, his eyes filled with so much damn pain that Hutch felt it in his own gut.

“We all understand what you're going through,” said the group leader, Major Jenner, a skinny-assed psychologist with a bad comb-over.

Hutch tightened his arms and snorted. Jenner had never been within sniffing distance of a battlefield. He knew shit about life. Or death.

The major pivoted to face him.

Aw, hell. Why had he snorted? So far, he'd managed to stay off the shrink's radar.

“Captain Hutchinson, you've been here for three weeks and you've yet to share in group. It's time.”

What the hell? Hutch glowered and slapped the raw scar at the base of his throat.

Jenner dipped his head, and shot Hutch a this-is-for-your-own-good glance over the top of his glasses. “Yes, yes, you suffered an injury to your throat, but have you even tried to speak?”

What did the son of a bitch think he did all day when he wasn't stuck in this claustrophobic room with five other guys just as screwed up as he was?

Anger flashed through him, hot and quick. He bolted upright in the chair, and clenched his hands into fists against his thighs. Once upon a time he'd been the easiest going operator on his team. Always ready with a smile. A cracker of jokes. More friends than he could count. He'd been the one to break up fights, calm hotheads, smooth choppy waters. The skill had earned him the moniker Igloo in a group that was already known for their cool heads, because he was so unflappable.

But those days were gone.

Just like everything else.

He stared down at his left hand that was missing the index finger. A lost finger, a damaged trachea, a pinch of PTSD. He was lucky, damn lucky, and he knew it. All he had to do was look across at the legless GI for confirmation. He'd made it back, relatively in one piece. Not so the rest of his squad.

Lone survivor.

He'd never understood before how truly terrible those two words were. The names of his lost team members were indelibly etched into his brain—Joe Prince, Lincoln Johnson, Rick Gutierrez, Kwan Lee, and Michael Keller. Known affectionately in The Unit as Razor, Axe, Hurricane, Wolf, Killer. To think he would never see them again whittled his insides to shavings.

Deciding to take the high road, Hutch picked up the Magic Slate that his speech therapist had given him. It was a peel-back, dry-erase drawing board most commonly found in children's Christmas stockings back in the sixties and seventies. The speech therapist insisted he use it to strengthen hand-eye-brain coordination through old-fashioned handwriting as opposed to using modern technology to communicate in face-to-face conversations.

Feeling like a jackass using a kid's toy, he grasped the red plastic stylus attached to the drawing board with a string, wrote F-OFF, and held it up for Jenner to see.

“Ah, anger, the most vocal stage of grief. See, even without your voice you can still express yourself. You're making progress, Captain Hutchinson.”

Hutch added X'S 2 to the F-OFF.

“I realize you've been through great emotional trauma.” Jenner spoke slowly, deliberately, as if Hutch was stupid instead of simply incapable of speech. “But it's time. You need to speak.”

Hutch narrowed his eyes, shook his head.

“I know it's not easy, but you're Special Forces. This is nothing compared to what you've faced in training, and on the battlefield, not to mention the troubled past that drove you to the army in the first place.”

The blood in Hutch's body chilled, slowed. Why was the bastard talking about his childhood?

Jenner smiled as if he wasn't courting a fist to the face. “A mother with a personality disorder. She kept a revolving door of men coming and going through her life that threatened you and your little sister too. You've fought a lot. Fought hard. Fight this.”

Hutch's anger flared from vibrant red to gas-flame blue. His mother had been no saint, but she'd done the best she could, and she'd loved him the only way she knew how. He hadn't doubted her love for a second, not even when she'd screamed that she hated him. Where did this jerkwad get off badmouthing his mother?

“You want to tell me off, don't you?” Jenner taunted. “Do it then.”

The psychologist was baiting him, trying to provoke a reaction. Hutch wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Difficult as it was, he uncurled his fists and hauled in a deep breath all the way to the bottom of his lungs.

Held it.

“Bravery is feeling the fear and doing it anyway, right?” Jenner's tone softened.

Everyone in the room was watching them, bodies tuned for hair-trigger response, nerves tensed, waiting for an explosion.

Hutch exhaled, felt his muscles loosen, but his anger darkened, lingered, smelled of brimstone.

“Speak,” Jenner commanded, as if it were just that easy.

Hutch's throat spasmed the same way it did every time the speech therapists worked with him. He clenched his teeth to keep from wincing. No one seemed to get it. He
could not
speak. His trachea was too damaged.

Apparently, they'd all decided he wasn't talking because he didn't want to speak. More than anything in the world, he wanted to get his voice back so he could visit the families of the men who'd fought beside him. Face them. Tell them how brave their sons and fathers, brothers and uncles had been. How much heart, will, and iron control they possessed.

The pilgrimage would be filled with unthinkable pain both for him and for the families, but his pain did not matter. Hutch knew the families could never really begin the healing process until he made that journey. It was his sworn duty.

But right now, he wanted his voice back so he could yell, rant, curse God, tell everyone to go to hell. A soldier couldn't debrief without talking. Everything he'd experienced out there in that goddamn Afghan desert was still locked down deep inside him. Without a voice to shout, how did a man resolve his pain?

The five other members of the support group—the exact same number of soldiers who'd lost their lives because of Hutch—stared at him, waiting for him to speak. He could see it in their faces. They were aligned with Jenner.

He was as alone as when he staggered down the streets of Aliabad, unaware that he'd even been hit, but vaguely realizing his helmet was gone because the relentless sun burned his scalp. The bodies of his team were strewn around him—dead, dying, screaming in agony, calling his name, begging for his help.

Talking.

He'd been talking when they were ambushed. Trying to lighten the dark mood after the top Al-Qaida operative they'd been sent to extract from Abas Ghar turned out to be long gone. He'd been running his mouth about something stupid. Who was hotter, Olivia Wilde or Emma Stone?

Poetic justice that a piece of shrapnel lodged in his throat during the ambush, silencing him forever. Muteness was his cross to bear. His life sentence. He could not speak. He didn't deserve to speak.

Jenner advanced, claiming ground until he stood directly in front of Hutch. “Tell me about your mother.”

Fury was a noose, strangling him. Hutch knotted his fists, shot to his feet. The folding chair collapsed backward behind him. The smack of impact vibrated the air.

Instantly, the soldiers reacted. Leaping to their feet, going for guns they did not have, ready to battle unseen enemies. Even the legless GI, who apparently had forgotten he had no legs, was now on the floor cussing a blue streak.

Hutch moved to help the guy back into his chair, but he got off only one step.

Jenner nodded at the two soldiers who had been sitting on either side of Hutch, and they took him to the ground.

He had violated Cardinal Rule #1 in dealing with a roomful of PTSD sufferers.
No loud sudden noises.
He lay there struggling to breathe against a GI's knee jammed into his lungs, and a hammy palm pressing his face into the concrete floor, getting a whiff of Jenner's boots that smelled of dog turd.

Yep, he fucking hated group therapy.

Hot Legs Spa, Twilight, Texas

December 1

T
he spice aroma of gingerbread scented the darkened massage room with holiday memories. The single source of illumination came from the flame of a tea light candle in a pumpkin-pie-colored holder, squatting atop a black lacquer shelf. It flicked light blue at the core, cupped by a dancing white-yellow that lowered to deep orange-red at the base. Lulling spa music slipped softly through sound system speakers, a solo flute holding a long, mournful note. The silky feel of warm oil heated bare skin.

Normally, masseuse Meredith Sommers immersed herself in movement, focusing on making her clients feel better, and in turn that practice created a Zen-like calmness inside her.

But not today.

Today, she could not quell the inner voice that whispered,
Something's wrong.

She'd learned not to ignore that voice. Over the course of the last five years, it had saved her life more than once.

This time, however, it wasn't her own well-being she was worried about, but rather that of her landlady and housemate, Ashley Hutchinson. Last night, Ashley had gone on a date with a new man, leaving Meredith to watch Ashley's four-year-old daughter, Kimmie. Meredith hadn't minded a bit. She adored the little girl, who was the same age as her son, Ben.

“Don't wait up,” Ashley had said as she headed out the door. “If everything goes well, no telling when I'll be home.” Then she gave a big wink and took off.

Meredith hadn't known what to make of that. It wasn't her place to tell Ashley how to live her life, but the thought that her roommate was planning on having sex on the first date with a man she barely knew didn't sit right. She understood why Ashley was meeting her date at a club in Fort Worth—until you knew you could trust a man, you didn't want him anywhere near your home and your child—but Meredith wished she could have met the guy first, sized him up, and gotten a read on him.

And do what? Warn Ashley off if her gut told her the guy was no good? Ashley was a grown woman. She was allowed to make her own mistakes.

Still, Meredith couldn't help wishing that someone had warned her five years ago before she'd—

That was all water under the bridge, wasn't it? No changing the past. And besides, no matter how horrific the last few years had been, if she hadn't lived the life she'd lived, she wouldn't have her son, Ben.

And he was worth any price.

This morning, when Ashley's car was not in the driveway and her bed had not been slept in, Meredith told herself not to worry. Apparently, her housemate had made a love connection and spent the night with her date. Meredith got Kimmie ready for preschool right along with Ben, and made excuses to the child for her mother's absence. She hoped Ashley was not going to make a habit of overnight, out-of-town trysts.

Meredith had been living on the second floor of Ashley's house for the last six weeks, and so far the arrangement was working out great, but if Ashley was one of those single mothers who neglected her kid once she had a man in her life, Meredith wouldn't sit still for that. She would have to move again, no matter how broke she was.

Before coming to work, she'd texted Ashley, asking when she could expect her home. So far, she hadn't heard back from her housemate and it was almost noon.

“Jane?” said Raylene Pringle, the older woman on her massage table. Someone had told her that Raylene used to be a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, but even if she hadn't known, Meredith could tell from the woman's muscle tone that she'd been athletic most of her life.

“Jane?”

“Yes?” Meredith blinked. Oh no, in her worry over Ashley, she'd forgotten her latest alias.

“I've called your name three times. Are you all right?”

“I'm sorry, I must have been woolgathering.”

“So I assumed. You keep rubbing the same spot on my calf.”

“I do apologize.”

“Don't worry,” Raylene said. “Happens to the best of us. That reminds me of a dog I once owned. Her name was Elspeth and we got her from the pound. She was part Australian shepherd, and she was the prettiest color of silver-blue you've ever seen. Her original owner was going into an assisted living facility and had to give her up.”

“That's must have been hard for the owner.”