Sacred Sins

it.”
    “Ben, saying I'm sorry isn't enough, isn't nearly enough, but there's nothing else I can say.”
    “He was only twenty-four.”

    And you'd have been only twenty, she thought, but rather than say it, put her arm around him.
    “I thought about blaming the whole U.S. Army—better yet, the entire military system. I figured it made more sense to focus on the doctor who was supposed to be helping him. I remember sitting there when the police were upstairs, in the room I'd shared with Josh, and thinking that the bastard was supposed to do something. He was supposed to make him better. I even thought about killing him for a while, then the priest came and distracted me. He wouldn't give Josh last rites.”
    “I don't understand.”
    “It wasn't our pastor, but this young, straight-out-of-the-seminary rookie who turned green at the thought of going upstairs to Josh. He said Josh had willingly and knowingly taken his life, dying in mortal sin. He wouldn't give him absolution.”
    “That's wrong. Worse, it's cruel.”
    “I threw him out. My mother stood there, tight-lipped, dry-eyed, then she went up to the room where her son's brains were splattered on the wall and she prayed for his absolution herself.”
    “Your mother's strong. She must have tremendous faith.”
    “All she'd ever done was cook.” He drew Tess closer, needing the soft, feminine scent. “I don't know if I could have walked up those stairs a second time, but she did. When I watched her do that, I realized that no matter how much she hurt, no matter how much she'd grieve, she believed and would always believe that what happened to Josh was God's will.”
    “But you didn't.”

    “No. It had to be someone's fault. Josh had never hurt anyone in his life, not until 'Nam. Then what he'd done there was supposed to be right because he was fighting for his country. But it wasn't right, and he couldn't live with it anymore. The psychiatrist was supposed to show him that no matter what he'd done over there, he was still decent, still worthwhile.”
    As she had been supposed to show Joey Higgins he was worthwhile. “Did you ever talk to Josh's doctor afterward?”
    “Once. I think I still had it in my head I should kill him. He sat there behind his desk, with his hands folded.” Ben looked down at his own, watching them curl into fists. “He didn't feel anything. He said he was sorry, explained how extreme Delayed Stress Syndrome could be. Then he told me, while he kept his hands folded on the desk and his voice just two shades away from being involved, that Josh hadn't been able to cope with what had happened in 'Nam, that coming home and trying to live up to what he'd been before had created more and more pressure, until finally the lid had blown off.”
    “I'm sorry, Ben. Probably a great deal of what he told you was true, but he could have done it in a different way.”
    “It could have meant a damn to him.”
    “Ben, I'm not defending him, but a lot of doctors, medical or psychiatric, hold themselves back, don't let themselves in too close, because when you lose someone, when you aren't able to save them, it hurts too much.”
    “The way losing Joey hurt you.”
    “That kind of grief and guilt rips at you, and if it rips at you too often, there's nothing left, not for you or for the next patient.”
    Maybe he understood that, or was beginning to. But he couldn't see Josh's regular Army shrink closing himself in the bathroom and sobbing. “Why do you do it?”

    “I guess I have to look for answers, the same way you do.” Turning, she touched his face. “It does hurt when it's too little, or too late.” She remembered how he'd looked when he'd told her about three strangers who'd been murdered for a handful of coins. “We're not as different as I once thought.”
    He turned his lips into her palm, comforted by it. “Maybe not. When I saw you tonight, I felt the same way I did when I saw you looking at Anne Reasoner in that alley. You seemed so detached from the tragedy of it, so completely in control. Just the way that major had been, with his hands folded on the desk, telling me why my brother was dead.”
    “Being in control isn't the same as being detached. You're a cop, you have to know the difference.”
    “I wanted to know you felt something.” Sliding his hand down to her wrist, he held it firm while he looked into her eyes. “I guess what I really wanted was for you to need me.” And that was perhaps one of the