The words made me flinch and groan when pain shot from my spine into my gut from the movement.
I hadn’t allowed myself to let go yet, and at that moment, the first tear fell out the corner of my eye, slowly tracking it’s way to my hairline.
Yeah, they got to go home alive and breathing. Coop didn’t.
“Crying doesn’t make you any less of a man, son,” Samson sighed, leaning on the side of my bed. “Cooper was one of the best men I’ve met in my fifty-three years on this earth, and there isn’t a man or woman who had the privilege of meeting him that isn’t grieving down to their souls right now. At some point, that knowledge will bring you pride, ‘cos not many people can leave a mark on the world like that, but he sure as fuck did.”
Every word made the pain in my chest feel worse, like I had something tearing me open inside it. And the tears—fuck me, the tears—just wouldn’t stop.
“You’ve got more memories than most of us, Eli,” he said quietly, squeezing my forearm. “Hold onto those because they were special before, but they’re precious now. Listen to other people’s memories and add them to what you’ve got of your own. Talking about the ones we lose is what keeps them with us, keeps them alive, and spreads the joy of their existence to places and people they never got to encounter.”
Christ, it felt like I was dying. Each time I tried to breathe in, it would come in little bursts like my chest was spasming.
“But I want you to remember something fundamental. The men on that ship were his friends, and he’d worked with them for six years, Elijah. That’s a long time to be together in the conditions they worked in, so they were like brothers. Sure, the Alex Haley got four of them, but you saved those two others from drowning and got them to safety before you’d even let us bring you out of the water.”
“If it hadn’t been for the Cutter, we’d have lost them, not me, Sir.”
Copying what Jackson had done before he’d arrived, Samson leaned over me so he was all I could see. “That’s where you’re wrong. Without you, Harlson would’ve gone down with the ship. His survival suit was hooked on that metal, and you know it. Without you, Adams would’ve been swept farther away and probably lost. You made us all proud, Elijah, and you made Coop proud, too, because you saved his brothers.”
Every word felt like a knife was stabbing me.
“I’m not extending my service,” I whispered. “Not even on base.”
I only had three months left, but I’d been thinking about transferring to Florida to be closer to my family. Coop was on his last trip, and he wanted to move home and fish there instead of Alaska, so we’d been looking forward to warmer waters.
Brothers for life, in soul and sea.
Now, I wanted as far away from it all as I could get.
Samson’s eyes were scanning my face, and I expected an argument, but instead, I got the opposite.
“Eli, sometimes a man who’s had the world ripped out from under him needs to find life again. You faced your mortality in a way you’ve never faced it before. Jesus, son, you were still on a cable that was wrapped around the damned mast when you helped those men. I know it came undone, but it might not have, so you’d have gone down with it, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now because we’d be preparing to bring your body home to your family. As much as it kills me to say it because fuck me, you’re one of the best I’ve ever worked with, but you need to find life again. And I agree, that’s not gonna happen with the Coast Guard.”
Months ago, those words would’ve hurt me. Now, they only added to the numbness.
When they’d had no choice but to detach the cable from the winch on the helicopter, I’d been able to get down from the mast onto the deck, but it’d still been wrapped loosely around it. I had enough length to swim out and get the men who’d been swept away from us, and then used it to pull us back to the side of the ship while we waited for the swimmers from the Cutter, Alex Haley. They’d been fighting high waves at the time, so when the boat started to sink, the cable had tightened and began to pull me down with it until it slipped loose.
Yes, it technically counted as a mistake on my behalf. I should’ve detached myself from it the second I got onto the deck, but if I had, we might have been swept away in the waves from the fifty-knot winds. I kept replaying it in my mind, though, confident that I’d fucked up from start to finish.