Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
We finally rounded the last path, and I saw my man. The one who I only recently discovered was mine.
And his back was stiff, his hands clenched at his sides.
Brady kept talking, unaware of what we were walking into.
“I spent every waking minute with my Molly for the next three days, and on the day that I deployed, she waved at me until the bus disappeared.” He cleared his throat. “I came home a different man, but she helped put my broken mind back together again. We married two years after we met and had five kids together. Four of whom are now gone. One is in a nursing home not far from mine.”
I looked away from Sean. “Kind of young to be in a nursing home.”
He nodded, eyes solemn.
“Heart disease runs in our family. On my Molly’s side,” he murmured regretfully. “All of my children suffered heart attacks. Donnie, my youngest, is the only one to survive his.”
Brady’s life kept getting sadder and sadder.
Jesus, I felt like shit for even bringing up how he’d met his wife.
“I…what in the world?”
I looked where he was staring, and I felt my heart get tight.
Someone was burning a flag!
And oh, God! Sean was standing there, about to lose it.
“Oh shit,” I said, hurrying forward.
Brady shuffled as fast as his cane and bad leg would allow him behind me, but I didn’t wait.
Instead, I ran up to Sean’s side, latching onto his straining arm.
It was clear to me that he was only seconds away from blowing up, and this needed to de-escalate quickly or someone—likely Sean—would cause chaos to ensue.
“Sean,” I whispered frantically. “Come with me.”
He didn’t budge when I tried to pull him, and I had a sinking sensation fill the pit of my belly. I knew he was closer to that line than I realized.
“Sean,” I repeated.
His eyes, however, were focused on the group of what appeared to be college students and church protestors burning up a flag.
They held signs that read, ‘Too late to pray’ and ‘You deserve those tears.’
And I realized then that this was a ‘peaceful protest’ of a veteran’s funeral, possibly even the zealot group from Westboro Baptist Church.
There were about fifty of them, all surrounding the path of the walking trail, and trickling out into traffic.
I wasn’t sure if the protest had started at the mouth of the trail so they could walk down it, or if they’d just ended up at the start of the trail because they were stopping traffic on one of the busiest streets in Mooresville.
Regardless of what they’d intended, they were now not only disrupting the traffic on the road, but also causing a whole lot of ruckus in the area and offending every single citizen, not just the Veterans, in the general vicinity.
“The funeral procession is supposed to take this route in about five minutes,” I heard one of the protesters say. “Get your flags ready.”
A kid stood up, and reached for another flag that he had left carelessly laying on the ground.
The minute it was in his hand, he reached for the lighter that another boy was holding out to him and struck the ignitor with his thumb to spark the lighter when Brady, cane in one hand and holding onto a park bench with the other, brought the cane down onto the boy whose intention was to burn the flag.
Right over the back of the other kid’s head.
The boy was stunned, falling to his knees, and dropping the lighter before it could so much as flame.
Sean jerked as he seemed to get his wits about him and finally moved.
Butterfinger, who was still in my hold at my side, lurched forward, trying to get to her master, and would’ve taken me down to my knees had Sean not waded in.
Grabbing Butterfinger before she could even make it a step, he pulled her over to the dog park and locked her behind the fence before turning back to the crowd that was now circling Brady.
Brady, who looked not one single bit concerned about the angry mob that was surrounding him, started yelling at the kids.
“This is my flag!” he bellowed. “I fought for this flag! I bled for this flag! I lost friends and family for this flag. All so you all could do dumb shit like this instead of using the brains that God gave you!”
Oh. Shit.
The crowd moved in even closer, surrounding Brady.
But then Sean was there, parting the crowd with his bare hands and a whole lot of strength.
“Move!”
Sean’s bellow made everyone in the vicinity freeze, and slowly part until Brady was able to extricate himself from the sea of protesters.
“You will not burn another flag,” Sean’s words were horrific in their power and anger. “Or I will make sure your hands don’t work to light another fucking lighter.”