The Acceptance
Page 50

“I could certainly get used to you cooking like this,” she said as she finished her bite and then sipped at her iced tea.
“I have about four meals I can cook well. This is one of them.”
“Well, let’s do this often.” She laughed and reached for him. “Thank you for handling her the way you did. I’m not sure I can convince you she’s different, usually. This seems to be the only side you’ve seen.”
“A woman with a very direct husband, a son who has been killed in combat, and a very independent daughter who doesn’t need her all the time, is what I see. She’s just a bit out of sorts.”
“You always tell me I see more than sighted people. I can read them. But I think you do too.”
“Sometimes when you’re too close to it, you can’t see what’s going on.”
“Like when you left.”
He winced. “Exactly. I had to step away from it to realize she hadn’t hurt me. She’d protected me by not telling me about everything. Spencer understood that. Me—I had to go have a pity party.”
Courtney stood and moved to him, sitting down on his lap, and wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m very glad your pity party ended when it did. I’m very happy that fate threw you on that plane.”
“I’m just glad that when it did, I still smelled good.”
She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Let’s clean this up and spend the rest of the night numbing our brain in front of the TV cuddled up.”
“I think that sounds like a fine idea.”
They moved in sync in the kitchen, cleaning dishes and wrapping up leftovers. Tyler washed the dishes and Courtney dried them. They laughed. They talked about the gala. They fell deeper in love over simple and everyday activities.
When everything was tidy and back in place—which was necessary for her safety and was going to take some work on Tyler’s part—they moved toward the living room to spend their evening wrapped in each other’s arms.
As they passed the table by the stairs, Tyler looked down at the basket filled with mail. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why do you have a basket of unopened mail?”
She stopped and turned to him. “I just put it there when it comes and my mother usually comes by and helps me take care of it. Mail doesn’t usually come in braille. But I haven’t been spending time with her. Oh, Tyler, there are probably some very important bills in there.”
“Okay, let’s take this into the kitchen and go through it. I’m here now. I can help you with this every day.”
She nodded, but the crease between her brows told him that this was one of those cases where she needed someone’s help and that bothered her.
Tyler picked up the basket and they walked back to the kitchen. For the next hour, they sorted envelopes according to what they were. Courtney pulled out her laptop and as Tyler told her what bill was to be paid, she entered it into the computer and sent the payment through the bank.
Eventually the pile was dwindled down to junk mail, sale ads, and one letter.
“It’s just addressed to the family of Fitz Field,” he said.
“A sympathy card?”
“No, it must be a letter. No return address on it.”
She lifted her hands in the air and sat back in her chair away from the computer. “Let’s hear it then.”
Tyler opened the letter and pulled out two sheets. One was crisp and pristine the other very obviously had been tattered and folded many times.
Tyler began to read, “To the family of Fitz. I hope I have waited long enough to send this letter. I was with Fitz when he was injured in combat. We had taken fire and he’d been hit in the leg. It wasn’t a fatal wound, in fact, except for the chance of infection, it was only a flesh wound as the bullet hadn’t even lodged itself in his leg.” Tyler took a breath and continued.
“When we were able to take cover, we were in an area where there was still heavy gunfire. We had the unfortunate moment to come across a young Afghan man who was very scared. He held us at gunpoint, but obviously he was in as wrong a place as we were.
“He shared with us his food and at one point Fitz asked him if he had something he could write on. Fitz spent the next few hours penning the note I have sent along.
“I know he was in some pain, but he’d not been himself in months. He was angry and spoke of his father many times. And on more than one occasion he mentioned that he never should have been in a war. He should have been home running some financial company. That was what he wanted to do. The military was never his choosing.”
Tyler stopped for a moment and looked at Courtney whose face was pale. “Maybe we should stop for now.”
“Are you kidding me?” she snapped out at him. “Finish the damn letter. In fact, read Fitz’s letter. I want you to read Fitz’s letter.”
Tyler looked at the second piece of paper. It had been wet, ripped, and drenched in blood. But the only part of the letter he could read was the writing at the top.
“I can’t read this. It’s for you.”
Courtney’s lips pursed and her cheeks grew redder from anger mixed with the tears that were filling her eyes. “Don’t mess around. I’m not kidding. Read it.”
“The only part I can read says, For Courtney. Please get this to her.” He swallowed and placed the letter in her hands. “It’s in braille, done with the tip of a pen.”
Her hands shook as she took the paper. “I taught him braille so we could send notes to each other and my mother would never be able to read them.”
“I don’t know how well you’ll be able to read it. It has been folded.”
Courtney set the paper flat on the table and gently skimmed her fingers over the raised bumps on the paper. She did it repeatedly.
Her lips trembled. Her nose grew redder and she closed her eyes as the first tear rolled down her cheek.
“Can you read it? Do you understand it?”
She nodded and wiped her eyes.
“Sweetheart, what does it say?”
Courtney pulled the letter to her chest. “I think you need to go for now. I need some time alone.”
“Courtney, what does it say?”
She stood from her chair, her hands flat on the table. “I said I need some time.”
“And I want to know what’s going on,” he said as he rose.