There's nothing wrong with my cookies. Baba loves them. He's the one always encouraging me to send them overseas to help cheer up deployed soldiers. I guess I shouldn't be surprised a man with a nickname like Iceman doesn't like cookies. He probably steals candy from kids and tells five year olds there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny.
"Baba always asked what it'd take to keep you quiet, Kitty-Khav," Petr says, smiling. "I guess the answer is a Force Recon Marine. God knows two Green Berets couldn't."
I'm glad he's smiling. I just wish it wasn't at my expense.
They chat about people they know, rattling off names of other service members. I've heard Petr mention a couple of them but can't recall much about them. Gazing out the window, I watch as we exit the highway for a winding road leading through a forest. My family owns a lot of land along here. Our house is situated on about four hundred acres, a quarter of which was annexed from an old summer camp then renovated earlier this summer.
Mikael would love this camp idea.
Thinking of him makes me hurt inside. My chest gets tight, and my heart aches so much, I rub my left shoulder. I haven't been to the forest since Mikael's death. It didn't seem right to return to his favorite place without him.
We turn down a dirt road, and Petr, too, falls silent. I have a feeling he's thinking the same thing. I've gotten good at sensing his mood after sitting with him for most of the past four months. I was there when he awoke from his coma and when the night terrors seized him. He'd wake up screaming, and I'd crawl into the hospital bed with him and hold him until he stopped shaking. I helped him eat and take his meds when he was too weak or fevered to do it himself, and we developed our own little language for those days where he was too tired from the many surgeries to speak.
My eyes are blurring as I stare outside the window at the forest. I blink back tears.
"Kitty-Khav," Petr says, stretching his arm back over his head towards me.
I reach forward and take his hand. He squeezes.
"We've never been out here without Mikael," he explains to Captain Mathis.
He doesn't deserve to know. I want to say something, walking be damned, but there's a lump in my throat that prevents me from speaking.
Captain Mathis catches my eye in the rearview mirror. His attention lingers for a moment before shifting back to the road. He doesn't say anything, and I glare at the back of his head.