“Why wouldn’t they?” she answers incredulously, as she pushes her hair out of her face. “You’re a hero, Gabe. Everyone knows it but you. For months you only focused on what you didn’t do that night. What you should’ve been focusing on was what you did.”
I stare at her, meeting her gaze. “I know,” I answer.
And finally it’s true. I do know. I know that I couldn’t have stopped what happened that night. It wasn’t my fault. The failure wasn’t mine.
It’s something that’s taken me quite a while, but I’m at peace with it now.
Because the wheels of the government turn slowly, it wasn’t until a month ago that we got the call. They wanted to honor Brand and me for that night. Brand with the Purple Heart and me with the Medal of Honor.
A medal for outstanding valor in the face of great peril, above and beyond the call of duty. That’s what the president said to me today as he hung the blue ribbon around my neck.
Maddy and Jacey sat in the front row and cried.
And Mad Dog’s wife was there next to them. It took her months. But time and a letter from Maddy made her understand that I would’ve given my life to save Mad Dog’s.
And I would’ve.
But that’s not how it happened. So I’m here today to honor his memory in the only way I can.
Kneeling, I drape the blue ribbon around the top of his headstone.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” I tell him.
Of course he’s not here to hear me. But somehow, with the quiet reverence of this place, it seems almost possible that he is. That he’s standing behind me with a bottle of Mad Dog in his hand, laughing as I leave my medal with a dead man.
But that’s OK.
It belongs here.
I need to leave it behind, along with everything else that happened that night. I don’t want to think about it anymore.
“You’re sure you want to leave it here?” Maddy asks gently.
I nod. “I don’t need a piece of metal to tell me who I am.”
She smiles, gorgeous and warm, as her hand flutters down to her stomach, where our baby is just barely beginning to show.
“You feeling OK?” I ask. “It’s hot. Do you need some water?”
She laughs. “I’m good, babe. Ask me again in a few months. Right now I’m fine.”
Brand wraps one arm around her shoulders and the other around Jacey’s. Together the four of us stand for a second, soaking in the quiet, silently paying tribute to all the fallen soldiers around us. I know that Brand is thinking the same thing I am. It could very easily have been us buried here beneath the dirt and the grass.
But it’s not.
“If the baby is a boy, I want to name him Elijah,” I finally say to Maddy. “Is that OK?”
Her eyes well up and she nods. “As long as his middle name is Gabriel.”
Warmth floods through me. “Deal,” I manage to say, lacing my fingers through hers.
“You might not want to talk about it,” she tells me gently. “But our son will hear about what a hero you are. Just so you know that.”
She lets go of my hand, gripping my arm instead, and I think about the words beneath her fingers.
Death before dishonor.
Mad Dog is dead and there is nothing I can do about that. He died with honor. Along with Ara Sahar and all those other women and children. But I’m still alive. So there’s only one thing I can do. Live for them.
Live with honor.
“You ready?” Brand asks, glancing at me.
I nod. “Yeah.”
And finally I am.
We walk away together, leaving the past behind us where it belongs.