The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (reading well .txt) 📕

“Google, I guess,” he replied.

I snorted. “Well, Christ, Dylan. That was helpful.”

He shook his head in response to the sarcasm. “I don’t know where to start either, Carrie. We stick with him. We let him know we’re behind him. Listen to me on this one thing. I doubt there’s anything we can do on the legal side. But I can tell you this. Ray’s gonna be as alone as he’s ever been. I’d rather go through three fucking Afghanistans than go through what he’s about to. So ... we stick with him. We make sure he knows he’s got somebody backing him up all the way.”

I kept driving, and his words ran through my mind, over and over again. He was right. I didn’t know the first thing about the military courts, though I had to assume they were politically driven and probably not nearly as fair as the civilian courts. Of course, politics I knew about. And, I might be able to get some help from my father in that area. But letting Ray know I was behind him, all the way? That I could do.

I thought about what Dylan had said at the hotel earlier. This is only going to get ... very ugly ... from here. It’s not too late for you to walk away. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t understand why he even said it, but the more I ran them through my mind, the more I realized I was really angry about it. So, as I took the on-ramp to the Long Island Expressway, I said, “You know, I’m not the type of person to walk away from someone I love. It’s bothering me that you said that earlier. A lot.”

Dylan didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he sat there, the fingers of his right hand twirling an unlit cigarette as he looked out the window. Finally, he said, “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you. But I owe it to him to look out for him.”

“How is that looking out for him?”

“You guys have known each other all of what ... ten days? Where you were actually together?”

“About that,” I said. “Although it seems a lot longer. My phone bill says we’ve spent at least another ten days on the phone with each other.”

“Yeah, well ... that’s a really short time. Don’t get me wrong: I’m super happy for both of you. And from all Alexandra has told me about you, you’re right for him. You’re a great person. Under normal circumstances, I’d be behind you one hundred ten percent, okay? I just think ... if you’re gonna bail on him, it’s better to do it now. I’m not saying that you’re ... flighty or something. I’m saying this is going to get uglier than anything you can imagine. Ray’s probably gonna get crucified by the media. For all we know, the Army’s going to make a scapegoat of him. He might end up doing hard time. I don’t see, after just a few days knowing each other, how you can make that kind of commitment.”

With every word he spoke, I felt like I had lead forming a ball in my stomach, and I found myself clenching the steering wheel, my shoulders and back tensing up. I opened my mouth to answer, and he said, “Hold on.”

He took a deep breath, then said, “What I’m saying is this: if you’re in this, you’re in it for the long haul. Please don’t let Sherman lean on you, then disappear when the ugly really happens.”

I glanced over at Dylan. His jaw was set, and he’d crushed the cigarette in his hand. He’d switched from calling him Ray to calling him Sherman. And I think I understood. He thought of him as Ray when he talked about him as his friend. But when he called him by his last name, it had deeper meaning. Sherman had been his buddy in basic training, and in the Army. Sherman had been his Sergeant, his team leader. Sherman was the guy he owed everything.

I nodded, my eyes suddenly watering, and said, “I won’t do that. I promise. I know you think it’s a short time, but I’m going to repeat something Alexandra said about you last night. When you know, you know. What I know is that Ray is the first guy I’ve ever been with who treated me as a partner. He’s the first guy I’ve ever been with who I could see spending my life with. And I’d risk anything for that.”

“Even complete heartbreak? Because that may be what you’re headed for.”

I nodded. “Yes. I’d risk that.”

“Okay then. Enough said.”

It was almost an hour after we dropped off Alexandra before we reached Glen Cove, and I found my way back to Ray’s parents’ apartment building. And I won’t lie. I was scared. I was scared to walk up to that building and hit the buzzer and go upstairs and tell Ray’s parents the Army had called up their son again.

The cold hit us both as I stopped the car and we got out. It felt as if the distance from the curb to the front door of the building had tripled in length in the few days since I’d arrived in town. But we walked up there, and I pressed the buzzer. A few seconds later we heard Kate Sherman’s voice come over the tinny speaker.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Sherman?” Dylan said. “It’s Dylan Paris. And Carrie.”

We heard a pause, and then the buzzer sounded and Dylan opened the door. We walked to the elevator, and I pressed the button and we waited. Dylan paced, his movements tightly constrained, tense, as if he were trying to keep himself from exploding. His limp was bad that morning. I stood there, my own fidgeting and nervousness purely internal, as always. We rode up the elevator, and started down the hallway together.

Ray’s mom was outside her front door before we made it down the hall, an anxious expression on