Page 48 of Salute, To Bravery

Craig

T rembling in my chair, I sit alone in the garden, desperately searching for some kind of solace.

The early morning air is still and cool, but I can’t feel it.

I can still feel her skin in my fists. Still hear her gasping for air.

See the sheer panic in her eyes. The weight of it crashes over me again and again.

I did that.

This is the first time my past has truly caught up with me—and I took it out on the one person who has never given up on me. The self-hatred is immediate and overwhelming.

What the fuck is wrong with me? What if she hadn’t hit me to wake me up? I could have killed her!

The sun is just beginning to rise over the horizon, casting a warm glow over the garden paths and low brick walls. The moment should feel peaceful. Instead, it feels like I’m suffocating.

“Everything okay?” a gravelly voice asks from behind me.

Startled, I turn and look up. A tall man in shorts and a wrinkled t-shirt is walking toward me, coffee mug in hand. A sleek prosthetic leg glints in the early light.

“I’m Jake,” he says, pausing a few feet away. “Everyone calls me Big Hoss.” He tilts his chin toward the garden bench. “Mind if I sit?”

I shake my head numbly.

“I’m in the room across the hall,” he adds as he lowers himself onto the bench. “Heard shouting. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but… walls here are paper-thin.”

“I—yeah. Sorry.”

He watches me quietly, not pushing. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t ask for answers, but makes space for them anyway. “I choked my wife,” I finally admit. The words feel like acid in my mouth.

Big Hoss doesn’t flinch. Just takes a slow sip of his coffee. “Nightmare?”

I nod. “Thought I was back on a mission. Didn’t even realize where I was. She had to fight me off. Hit me. Hard.” My balls will be rightfully swollen for days.

He nods slowly, looking out at the flower beds. “I decked a nurse on my second night in the hospital. Thought she was an insurgent sneaking into my tent. Took three staff to calm me down.”

I glance over, shocked. “They didn’t send you home for that?”

He huffs a dark laugh. “Hell no. They put me on a psych rotation and gave me decaf for a week. We’ve all got blood on our hands, brother.”

Silence stretches between us, but it feels like something useful. Like standing in the ashes with someone who knows the burn.

“I left her there,” I murmur. “After it happened. I couldn’t face her. What kind of man does that?”

“One who’s drowning and doesn’t know which way is up,” he replies. “You want to fix this? You go back. You look her in the eye, tell her what’s going on in your head. You don’t let her sit with that alone. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Before I can answer, a soft voice interrupts us from the kitchen door.

“You didn’t make mistakes,” the woman says, stepping out onto the patio. Then she adds to me, “His wife got tired of being with an amputee and left him.”

Big Hoss groans. “Ash. Really?”

She shrugs as she approaches, mug in shaky hands, her silver-streaked hair pulled into a loose braid.

“Craig, this is Ash,” Hoss says. “Ash, Craig—he’s new.”

Ash nods to me, her expression more amused than sympathetic.

“Nice to meet you. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Hoss.

She thought love was supposed to be clean and easy.

And when it wasn’t, when the nightmares and the surgeries and the guilt got too messy, she bailed.

Sorry about your nightmare, by the way.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I murmur. Fuck had everyone heard it?

Big Hoss rises to take her mug and steady her as she eases onto the bench beside him. There’s an ease between them, a familiarity that says more than either of them is willing to.

Ash takes another slow sip from her mug, then leans forward slightly, her voice a little gentler now. “Look, I don’t know your whole story. But I do know this—whatever happened this morning, it scared both of you. And right now, she’s probably sitting somewhere wondering what to do, alone.”

That hits me square in the chest.

“She’s not the enemy, Craig,” Ash continues, steady and sure. “She didn’t sign up expecting this, no one does. But she’s still here, isn’t she? Still trying. You don’t just get to shut the door on her because you’re ashamed.”

“I could’ve really hurt her,” I breathe, the words feeling like broken glass in my mouth.

“Then tell her that,” Ash says, her eyes locked on mine. “Tell her exactly that. Tell her it wasn’t her, that it was the war, the loss, the noise you still hear in the dark. Just don’t let her fill in the silence with something worse, neither one of you can do this alone.”

Big Hoss nods slowly. “She deserves to hear it from you, man. Not the ghosts.” The silence that follows is heavier than the morning fog. It’s the kind that leaves room for reckoning.

I rise slowly. “Thanks. Both of you.”

Ash lifts her mug, a tired but sincere smile on her lips. “Go talk to your wife. And take the hits if they come—but make damn sure she knows you’re still standing in the ring.”

Heading back to our room to talk with my wife, I find she’s gone. Her running shoes are missing, which tells me everything I need to know. She needed space.

I shut the door quietly behind me, the latch clicking like punctuation at the end of a fight I never wanted to have. The silence in the room feels heavier now, pressing down on me as I stare at the empty bed. I lower myself into the chair near the window and cover my face with both hands.

I’m fucking everything up. Again.

I sit there for a long time, not moving. Just breathing. Barely. The image of her face—terrified, gasping, clawing at my arms—keeps replaying in my mind. I want to vomit. I want to scream. I want to be anyone but the man who woke up choking his wife.

Eventually, I force myself toward the bathroom. Showering these days is a slow, exhausting ritual. There’s a bench in there, and rails to grab onto, but nothing makes it feel normal. Nothing makes it feel like before .

It takes time just to transfer from the chair to the bench safely, everything deliberate, slow, and cautious. I undress awkwardly, still not used to the way my body looks now. The mirror isn’t kind. I avoid it.

The water is too hot at first, stinging the hypersensitive skin near the surgical sites. I grit my teeth and bear it, letting it run over me while I grip the handle with white knuckles. Every scar, every missing piece, feels more visible under the stream.

This used to be the place I reset. Now it’s just a reminder of how much harder everything is.

Afterward, I dry off as best I can without slipping, then slowly work my way back into clothes—loose athletic stuff, easier to manage.

Then I pull out my phone and send a quick text to Rei. Just three words:

Rei: I fucked up.

A short time later, my phone buzzes. She’s calling.

I answer with my Bluetooth, already rolling toward the main building for a full day of appointments and new command meetings.

Her voice explodes in my ear: “What the actual fuck did you do?”

I sigh. “Hi, Rei. I’m good, thanks for asking. How are you?”

“Craig.”

“I had a nightmare,” I say. “A bad one. I thought I was back over there. Fighting. I didn’t know where I was. She tried to wake me and… I went after her. Full-on. Grabbed her by the throat before I snapped out of it.”

There’s a pause.

“Jesus,” she mutters. “Did you hurt her?”

“She got away. Fought back. She’s tough—God, she’s tough.” I swallow hard. “But I saw the fear in her eyes. She didn’t even look at me like I was me anymore.”

“Because you scared the hell out of her, Craig. And yeah, that’s not on her—but you’ve got to understand she’s not just scared for you now. She’s potentially scared of you.”

“I know,” I whisper. “I know. I’m scared too.”

“You don’t get to stay scared,” Rei snaps.

“You fight. That’s what you do. You don’t curl up in guilt and leave her wondering what the hell’s going on.

You go back. You talk to her. You tell her the truth.

Maybe not the classified crap, but the truth , Craig.

What you felt. What you saw. Why you reacted the way you did. ”

“She’ll leave me.”

“She might,” she says bluntly. “But she won’t stay if you disappear on her. And if you love her—really love her—you owe her more than silence.”

I press my palm to my forehead, trying to fight off the rising burn behind my eyes.

“I thought I was supposed to be the big brother.”

“Nope, I just let you think you’re in charge.”

“She’s everything, Rei.”

“Then prove it. Don’t make her beg to understand. You’re not the only one hurting.”

The line is quiet for a beat. Then, softer: “I love you, bro. But if you hurt her again by avoiding her, I’ll drive out there and finish what your wife started.”

I actually laugh, a little breathless and broken. “I hear you.”

“Good. Now get your ass in gear. Talk to her. Today.”

She hangs up.

I sit there, the weight of her words pressing in on me like armor I’m not sure I can carry—but know I need to.

I wheel forward toward my next appointment, but all I can think about is how to get back to my wife… before it’s too late.

Jane

I sit up in bed, the soft blue light of the TV flickering across the room, casting faint shadows on the walls.

Some mindless show plays in the background, noise for the sake of not sitting in silence.

My thoughts have been racing since sunrise, looping back to this morning like a reel stuck on the worst frame.

The door creaks open.

Craig rolls into our room, every movement deliberate. His shoulders are tense, jaw set, but his eyes—those eyes—are full of pain. I instinctively start to rise, ready to help him with the transition to the bed, but he lifts a hand to stop me. Not angry—just asking for the space to do it on his own.