Free The Heart You Carry Home by Jennifer Miller

technicality, at least to Bull. Also, as a child, Becca had watched her father fly from kind to cruel faster than a sports car going from zero to sixty. She’d never grown used to this behavior, and when she saw it happening with Ben—lethargy running to rage and back again, not to mention the drinking—she didn’t want to believe it. Ben had promised her—sworn to her—that he would never, ever turn into King.
    â€œWhat if I don’t know you when you come back?” she’d asked on the morning of his deployment. But Ben reminded her that this was his second tour. “I’ve done this once already. And I came back fine,” he said, pulling her close. “Fine enough for you to fall in love with me.”
    But he’d been wrong. After the second tour, he wasn’t fine. The wedding had been the eye of an emotional storm. The days on either end of the event were beautiful and brilliant. But afterward, especially, things turned bad. Ben had gotten drunk and crashed his truck; he’d destroyed his father’s fiddle. He’d broken everything.
    â€œEverybody judges us,” Bull said, dragging Becca away from her own misfortune and into the glare of his own. “And the kids your age are the worst. Everybody’s entitled. Nobody appreciates what they’re given.”
    â€œNot me.”
    Bull chuckled. “Right. You’re different.”
    â€œI am, actually,” she said. “Nobody else in my family went to college. I worked hard for that. I know nothing’ll be handed to me on a platter.”
    â€œLast night, King said you’d gotten into one of those fancy schools up north—they gave you some money to boot. But you didn’t go.”
    She wasn’t sure why she’d confessed this to King; it had kind of just spilled out one day. He’d seemed a little disappointed in her decision, though she couldn’t imagine why.
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with entitlement?”
    â€œNot that part, Rebecca. The appreciating-opportunities part.”
    â€œIt made more sense to stay close to home,” she said.
    â€œYou want to appreciate the freedom I fought for? The freedom your daddy fought for? Then don’t be afraid to confront your fears. The CO taught me that. Too bad you can’t meet him. You could learn a lot.”
    â€œYou don’t know me, Bull, so I’d appreciate you not judging my decisions.”
    â€œCollege girl thinks she knows so much.” And then, as though the whole conversation had never happened: “It’s grub time.” Bull downed the rest of his Bud Light and licked his lips.

9
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    L ATER THAT DAY , while the men were in town, Becca used the cabin’s landline to call her boss and ask for time off, pleading a family emergency. If she was going to stay at the cabin for a while, she’d have to find an Internet-connected computer in town, and no way the local library was going to have the necessary design programs. Now she sat in the kitchen and explained the situation to her aunt, but Kath abruptly veered off topic. “Why’d you really come here, honey?” she asked, pointing her mixing spoon at her niece.
    â€œJust postwedding stress,” Becca said, avoiding her aunt’s eyes.
    â€œWhat’s that phrase your mother uses? ‘Too blessed to be stressed.’”
    Becca thought about her mother at the Hands of God Church out in Colorado. There, a group of Christian faithful tended an organic garden and knit socks for orphans. And prayed, obviously. Jeanine probably had to feed her smoking habit on the sly, sneaking cigarettes behind the quinoa patch.
    Kath continued. “The stress is supposed to come before the wedding, honey, not after.”
    â€œBen’s been touchy since he came back. King says he just needs some time.” Becca knew full well that if she was leaving Ben for good—divorce leaving—then eventually