“Yes. I’m so sorry I didn’t give you the chance to just explain that. I’m so sorry.”
“Ethan, I want to tell you one more thing while we are clearing the air.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“I came to your graduation ceremony.”
I smiled softly at him when I said it, but I think I hurt him. He may have been better off not knowing. He pulled my hand to his forehead like he was praying again and a tear fell.
“You were there?” he was barely able to speak.
“Nothing in this world was going to keep me from seeing you graduate. In addition to that day being your graduation, it was also our first anniversary. You graduated on May twenty-fifth. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have spent that day anywhere but near you.” I smiled softly trying to uplift him.
“How’d you get there, and get in?” He knew attending his graduation would not have been simple due to regulations.
“I called your mom and worked out a plan for there to be at least one extra ticket for me, and I made her promise she would never tell you. Then, I booked a room at the hotel we stayed in together a few times and I got on a plane. Your family was in the same hotel, but I only stayed one night. I didn’t leave my room until it was time to take a cab to campus. Afterward, I caught a late flight back to Charleston.”
“My God Evi, that had to be so hard for you.”
“It was probably one of the most difficult moments of my life, well next to being sixteen and having the man I planned on marrying go back to his ex-girlfriend of course.” I laughed and rolled my eyes at him still trying to lighten the mood a bit, but he wasn’t ready for a lighter mood yet.
Another tear fell, and then more tears as he said, “Evi, how could you bear that alone? How could you not come to me that day? How painful was that for you? I can hardly handle thinking about you sitting alone, then having to leave alone. What have I done to you?” Ethan rested his head on the edge of my bed still holding my hand.
“I’m better now Ethan. It has been a rough three years, but I’m healing.”
“I will spend the rest of my life making things up to you. I don’t deserve your constant love and forgiveness, but I am so grateful for it Evi. So grateful.”
“Ethan, I love you. I am curious about something from that day though. I am surprised that you didn’t see me. I really thought for a few moments you looked right at me. I hoped you noticed me. But after the ceremony, you didn’t come to me. Did you see me?”
Ethan lifted his head as he spoke, “One of my classmates who was next to me as we stood on the field at attention whispered and said to check out the blonde girl sitting on the far right of the stands. We weren’t allowed to move or talk. I cut just my eyes over, and I thought the girl sitting there looked just like you. It hurt my heart to even imagine you at that moment. I stared for a few seconds, then looked straight ahead again. I knew there was no way it could have been you, so I just ignored it. I shut down my feelings.”
“Hmm, I thought I saw you look at me.”
“Thank you for telling me you were there. It means everything to me that you came to my graduation, and I did notice it was on our first anniversary. I’m sorry. God, I’ve caused us so much pain.” He kissed my hand and pressed it to his cheek.
“Evi, so much of this conversation is strange because I had a dream of your life without me. It scared me, no it terrified me. Promise me that you know our marriage is real. This is not a fantasy or a joke. We are a family. This is our family. I love you and I love our baby. Nothing and no one will ever separate us.”
“Thank you Ethan and of course our marriage is real. Now, I’m hungry and I’m ready to go home,” I said softly looking at my belly.
“I’ll ask the nurse if I can take you to the cafeteria to eat babe.”
He leaned down and put one hand on my belly and the other on my head and he kissed me. “Can we brush your teeth first though?” he asked and we both laughed.
Ethan helped me get up and stretch. I brushed my teeth and my hair, and refused to spend time looking in the mirror. It was horrifying. My body and face were cut and bruised from my fall. Noticing my shock, he hugged me carefully rubbing his hands on my lower back. We kissed more. Again, thinking I would lighten the mood and draw attention away from my wounds, I said to him, “Hey at least you’re trained for all of this.”
He looked so serious and said, “Evi, there is no training that could prepare me for the possibility of losing my wife and my baby.”
I felt bad for what he must have been going through while I was unconscious.
Ethan finally called the nurse to see if I could walk around and go get food, but they wouldn’t let me walk that far just yet. I still had a headache, and they wanted me off my feet for another day so the bruising could heal. The doctors also wanted to make sure the baby was secure.
Ethan brought me dinner and I felt so much better after eating. I hoped that meant my morning sickness would be gone for good soon.
I was released from the hospital two days later, and Ethan wouldn’t leave me. He still had to go to Fort Jackson, but he had another nine days with me. I was more energetic and needed him to know that my fall had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t even realized I had gone to the steps. He thought when I walked away, I had gone back into our house. He said he would have never let me go to the lake alone. When he heard me scream, he said he got sick because he immediately knew I had fallen down that hill and it was serious.
Chapter 27
The final week of June, I was completing my fifth month of pregnancy and Ethan was to report to work. We discussed me moving with him right away and having our baby there, but I had to be honest with him. Even after everything we had just been through, I wasn’t ready to move away from our house on Lake Everclear, or from our parents and families. He understood. We knew his time was more flexible and we’d be able to see each other more often anyway. I needed to stay in Ponderosa. The nausea wasn’t completely gone and there was no way to know how long it was going to last. At our home, I had people to help take care of me every day. Work would keep Ethan busy, but in South Carolina, I would be alone all day. So, we made the decision to separate again.
Before Ethan left, we briefly talked about actually getting married. Again, I was the one who said no. I told him, “We are married Ethan. Just for now, let’s hold off on any ceremonies.” My main reasoning was that I wasn’t feeling much like a bride. I was tired, sore and still a little bruised.
We agreed I’d sign the baby’s birth certificate with Parker as my last name and really, no one would ever know the difference. They don’t check marriage or driver’s licenses when you are signing a birth certificate.
Even though Ethan was so much closer, once the reality of him leaving set in, it still felt like he was going to be a world away. I know I made his leaving very difficult, but when it was time for him to go, I cried until I couldn’t breathe.
“You can’t do this to yourself Evi. You have to calm down. I love you. We’re going to see each other a lot now. I’m just going to work. That’s all. I’m just going to work.” He wiped my tears, kissed me, held me. He stayed so calm, so reasonable. Ethan is very skilled at turning off his emotions. I don’t know if he believed what he was saying so he truly wasn’t sad, or if he was dying inside but trying to stay strong.
The following months, Ethan visited a few times, then he was able to get an official family leave for Brighton’s birth in November. He got here to Pondersoa the week before she was born so he could set up her room. I wouldn’t let anyone else do that for us. That was our job together.
Brighton’s birth was, well the usual. I had her naturally. It took about six hours, so there was a lot of screaming and a lot of pain, as you can imagine. Ethan never left my side. He never even had to take a break to get water, or fresh air, or to stretch. As long as I wasn’t moving, he wasn’t moving. When I wanted to walk, he held me up and walked with me. He never let me go. He was calm and wa
nted to help. I actually don’t think an entire army could have pulled him away from me.
Our daughter was finally born, and they handed her right to me. After a few minutes, they cleaned her up. Ethan cut her cord, and they handed her to me again. My whole world forever revolved around her. I suddenly became hers. I belonged to her, but we belonged to him. He would die for us.
Ethan was able to stay for two more weeks and spend the holidays with us. After he realized how tired I was all the time, he rearranged the nursery so I could have a place to sleep while I nursed Brighton. He had a custom recliner made just for my size! It’s the best gift ever. She and I love it and we spend hours in that chair together.
Ethan soaked up every second of being my husband and her daddy. He wouldn’t let anyone come to our house during the time he was home with us. Essentially, other than seeing her at the hospital, no one saw her again until she was two weeks old.
Before he left, he always reminded me to stay away from the lake, stay off the steps and stay off my skis. He forbade me from skiing down the mountain with our baby in a pack. Yes! People do that. My parents did that with me and my brother! Of course I would not have taken her down this young, but he didn’t know that.
Ethan went back to work. We had video calls every single day, and he visited over a few weekends while I was still getting my strength back.
When the topic of moving to South Carolina came up again, there was no question that I was ready to be with him. However, now don’t judge me, I was still not ready to take our baby away from our home. He lives in a little apartment, and we live here in this beautiful home that he built for us. We’re living on my lake. This is still home for now. In addition to that, winter had set in out here and with a new baby, I did not feel like packing until early summer.
I, no we, will be moving very soon though. Ethan’s coming for us very soon. He just hasn’t told me the exact date yet.
“So there Mr. Moore. I have shared almost my entire love story about my soldier with you. Feel free to edit any parts you wish. There are many more stories that I could fill a book with, but I think these will give your viewers a perfect sense of our nine years, oh my, nine years together?
“I hope you are able to convey to those who will be watching a few important points. I want your viewers to not only know our history, and our love story, but know us. I want them to know who I was when I met Ethan and who I slowly became because of him.
“I believe our love story is unique to us, but also exactly like many others. I began my dating years never doubting that I would wait until I was married to give myself to someone. Then, no matter how hard I tried, as soon as I was faced with the gift of true love, I had to rethink everything I believed. Perhaps I should have waited, but I paid for my decisions every day for almost three years.
“I didn’t fall in love with Ethan because he was a soldier, a hero. I loved him long before he made the decision to dedicate his life to serving our country. I didn’t give myself completely to a romanticized version of a man. I gave myself to the one man I had wanted since I was fifteen years old.
“I want you to tell our love story as one that is possible. I’m not perfect. Many of my decisions could have cost me this life with my soldier. For Ethan and me, our decisions worked out perfectly, but for too many others it doesn’t. I hope the young people out there who will be watching this next Valentine’s Day will see our story as a possibility for them.
“This only works out though if they are willing to love only each other, and trust God’s timing. I’m grateful every minute of every day that Ethan came back for me. It could have ended differently, but I’ve been blessed. My soldier came home for me. He is my only one and I am his.”
“I will try to convey your entire story to our viewers. I do have one more question though regarding how to conclude your story together.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Are you saying at this point in time that you have been in love with this man since you were fifteen years old, which is pretty close to nine years, and in this nine years you have only been together for a total of a little more than two of those years, you have a baby together, and you’re still not legally married?” Mr. Moore asked.
“Huh? I guess not sir. You do have to consider though, to Ethan and me, we have been married since May 25th of 2012, which means we’ve been married for five years now. Oh my, what is today’s date?”
“It’s May twenty-fifth?” the interviewer replied.
“It’s our five year anniversary! Brighton! It’s your mommy and daddy’s five year anniversary! We need to call daddy! Do you have everything you need now Mr. Moore? I need to feed Brighton, put her down for a nap and call my husband.”
“Yes, I believe we do. I appreciate your time. We’ll start packing up and taking the lights and screens down. We’ll only be here for a little while longer.”
Before getting up, I rested my head back on the couch. I held Brighton straight up above me and in my baby voice I said, “Look at you. I made the most beautiful baby girl in the world. You have your daddy’s brown hair, and your mommy’s blue eyes, and curls. I did make the most beautiful baby girl in the world.”
In a split second, someone took her from me and said, “No WE made the most beautiful baby girl in the world.”
Ethan was home! My goodness, he’s good at surprising me! He was home for our anniversary. This was the first time in five years we were going to get to spend our anniversary together. He looked wonderful. I needed to touch him.
I jumped up. Just as I was about to leap over the couch, he held out his hand for me to stop. Holding Brighton in one hand, with his lips pressed on her cheek, he walked around the couch to where I stood in utter disbelief. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a beautiful diamond ring. He knelt down on one knee and said, “This is the last time I am ever going to ask this question. Everclear Jordan Parker, will you and Brighton marry me, right now? Forever?”
I burst into tears and said, “Yes!” and I kissed him like I was starving. The three of us held one another.
“So are you ready to get married for real? No more seeing each other on just weekends and holidays Evi! Are you ready for forever to start right now?” Ethan asked me.
“What?! Now? Of course!”
The pastor from our church, a bunch of our friends, his parents, my parents, our brothers, and our family members came in to our house.
Ethan said, “I had everything set up outside in my parents’ backyard while you were doing this interview.”
I couldn’t believe he had prepared all of that for me, for us. He had been working on it for months with the television station and our friends and families.
The cameras continued rolling. Ethan was in his dress uniform, and because I was on camera all afternoon, I was already in a nice dress, ironically, a white one probably because I almost always wear white. We were ready.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“One more thing.”
“What is it?” he looked concerned.
“I have to go feed Brighton first. I am about to die here. All of this is going to have to wait a few more minutes. This body belongs to her now. Sorry.”
We laughed.
Ethan sat with Brighton and me in the nursery. He kissed me, then her. While I fed her, he stroked her hair, then mine. There was no way he was leaving our side.
He said, “I can’t believe I’m going to get to come home to my beautiful wife and baby every day from now on.”
Everyone went outside and waited patiently for us to join them. We had a beautiful wedding and reception. We took pictures on the beach. Ethan of course carried Brighton in one hand down the stairs and held onto me with his other. He never let me go. I’m still forbidden from carrying her down to the lake, but I will be skiing with her in a few months! After the day ended, we put our baby to bed and closed the door to her room very quietly.
I turned to my husband without hesit
ation, slid my hands up under his shirt and pulled it up over his head. I rubbed my hands down his chest and kissed him. He guided me to our bed with his hands in mine. He moved around behind me, unzipped my dress, slipped it to the floor, and with his hands on my waist, he kissed me all over my back. He turned me to face him, pulled me close, then motioned for me to lie down.
I smiled and settled into our pillows.
Ethan stood beside me and stared at all of me. He then carefully turned me over. I faced away from him as he ran his hand up and down the entire length of my body. Turning me over onto my back again, he slowly placed every part of me exactly where he wanted me. He lowered himself to our bed and sat in the exact same place he had sat with me in our hotel room the night before we made love the first time. His hands slid teasingly from my knees, up my thighs, up my body feeling every inch of me. Then, he placed himself on top of me.
He whispered, “This is real. We made it. Now, close your eyes.”
Ethan traced my lips with the tip of his tongue. I wanted him. He kissed me very softly at first, then, very passionately. We celebrated another wonderful moment alone together.
Just for Now Page 24