Page 102 of Dissonance

“I stood there, watching that monitor, waiting for someone to tell me whether everything was okay, or if…” I trail off, fingers tightening around the phone. “And all I could think was, this is what happens. This is how it goes. You get handed something good, and then you lose it.”

I push to my feet, unable to stay seated, and start pacing in the dark.

“I should have trained him,” I say, going back to the root of everything. “If I’d known he was serious, I could have given him better odds. Or talked him out of it completely. He didn’t need to enlist. He could have been anything. A doctor, an engineer, anything. He didn’t have to… He chose that because of me.”

Joanne’s voice is gentle when she speaks. “Is that what you believe? That you failed him?”

I laugh under my breath, but there’s no humor in it. “Aye.”

“Even though rationally, you know that what happened to Calum was not within your control?”

My hand thrusts into my hair, pulling hard enough to sting. Rationally. Isn’t that the word of the year? Neat, clinical, completely useless when you’re standing in a hospital room, thinking you’re about to lose everything you’ve only just let yourself want.

Was Calum thinking rationally when he enlisted?

“He followed me,” I say. “That part never goes away. He followed me, and I should have—” The heel of my hand rubs into my sternum. “I don’t know. Said more. Done more.”

I drop back onto the sofa, head tipped forward, forearm on my knee, phone pressed hard to my ear. In that room, Thea on the bed, our daughter on the screen, all I could think beneath the fear and noise was, this is it. Maybe this is the point the universe finally evens the score. Maybe this is me getting exactly what I have coming. I already failed my family once, and I was about to again.

“You think you don’t deserve them,” Joanne says.

I don’t answer. The quiet on my end is answer enough.

“Thea, the baby, this life you’re building…” She continues. “Some part of you believes it isn’t yours to keep.”

I dig my fingers into my eyes until black spots swim in front of them. Still, I don’t speak.

“Lockie,” she prompts.

“I know how it sounds.”

I sit there for a long moment, the city beyond the windows all lights and movement and people living their lives as mine cracks down the middle.

“Tell me about the things you’ve been doing for Thea and the baby, the coffee, making sure she’s not under excess stress, the company research. Strip away the logistics and the lists and the tasks, what’s underneath that?”

I think about early mornings. About nights falling asleep with her in my arms. About reading mind-numbing documents on building a business at stupid hours while she uses me as a pillow. About the cabin and the list in my head of everything that still needs doing. About wanting, fiercely and so completely, to make things easier for her. Safer, lighter, better.

“Love.”

The word sits in the dark room. I’ve never said it like that before. Out loud, without anything attached to it. Just a fact, as simple as breathing. Because it’s always been true.

“When did you last speak to your father?” she asks, the change in subject anything but random. Nothing she does is random.

“A few weeks ago,” I say. “Nothing real, just checking in.”

She hums to herself. “Grief doesn’t only belong to you.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” she asks, calling me out on my bullshit the way she always does. “Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds like you’ve been focused on carrying your guilt for so long that you’ve forgotten what your father might be carrying too.”

I stare at the floor. Twelve years of assuming I know what he thinks, who he blames. Twelve years of letting silence harden into facts because it was easier than facing him properly.

“He lost a son,” Joanne says. “And you lost a brother. It’s not the same grief, but they’re bound to each other whether you speak about it or not.”

Exhaling slowly, I nod. “Aye.”

“I want you to do two things before our next session, Lockie.”