by Skye Taylor
The volleyball game ended and the teens trooped past them up the stairs in search of refreshment, but Philip didn’t get up to follow them and neither did she.
“How come you never had more than just the one kid? I thought you wanted a big family.” Philip picked up the infant toy and fiddled with the ribbon again.
Elena’s heart was jerked back to another neonatal intensive care unit. To the endless hours she’d spent sitting beside a NICU bassinet surrounded by beeping machines, watching her baby boy fight for his life. There had been no priest. No baptism. Eli’s son was going to grow up Jewish, but in the end, that hadn’t mattered.
“I did have a son,” she finally answered. “His name was Samuel. He only lived for thirty-six hours.”
“I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Philip’s hushed voice held both shock and sympathy. He dropped the book, this time to take her hand in both of his. He squeezed it and patted the back of her hand. Then he pulled her against his side. “I am so very sorry.”
Elena felt the usual rush of tears and loss that never seemed to get easier no matter how many years had passed. For a moment, she fought the overwhelming pain and the desire to cry. Philip didn’t need to see her that way.
But his body was warm and his embrace comforting. And just this once, she was tired of being strong all on her own. She leaned her head against Philip’s shoulder and let his strength and concern flow over her.
He brought his hand up to cradle her cheek. “That must have felt like the end of the world.”
Chapter 19
August 2001
Tide’s Way, North Carolina
“IT’S NOT THE end of the world.” Philip pulled Elena into his embrace and rested his chin on the top of her head. “I have to go. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“I know,” she whispered, pressing her face into the fabric of his shirt and wrapping her arms about his chest. She held him tight, desperate to put the moment of parting off.
When he released her, she almost fell forward, but he put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her. It was a long, lingering kiss, as if he was having just as hard a time with this goodbye as she was.
Then he stepped back, dropping his arms to his sides. “I’ll see you at Christmas. And I’ll write every day. Take care of yourself.”
He started to reach out to her, but then turned and walked back down the walk to his motorcycle.
Through the tears she’d been fighting most of the night, she watched him strap on his helmet, then swing his leg over the machine and settle onto the seat. He kicked it into life, and looked her way. He touched his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss.
Her fingers trembled as she returned the windblown caress.
Then he pushed away from the curb and moved off. A moment later, he turned the corner and was gone from sight. Long after the sound of his bike had faded and disappeared, she stood where he had left her, fingers still pressed against her lips, her heart already aching with loss.
He’d be home by Christmas. But the past month had been a magical time, and already she knew they would never recapture the carefree days they’d spent falling in love.
For the first time in her life, she began to appreciate the tear-filled homecomings she’d seen on the news and in movies because now she understood the wrenching ache of having to say goodbye.
“Stay safe,” she whispered to the night air. Then she turned and went into the house.
ELENA’S BROTHER flipped pancakes at the stove while her two-year-old niece banged her sippy cup on the table chanting “pancake, pancake, pancake.” Elena hugged her coffee mug and tried to smile at the little girl who was enjoying every moment of her morning with Daddy.
At this very moment, Jake would be driving Philip up to Lejeune from where he’d catch a military flight to Germany. Then there would be another flight from there to Australia. How he got from Australia to his ship, he hadn’t been sure.
Is Philip is thinking of me right now? Will he tell Jake about our last week together?
“So, sis. How did you leave it?”
“Leave what?” Elena turned back to meet Andy’s questioning gaze.
“Between you and Philip?”
She shrugged. She and Andy were close, and she’d shared a lot about her relationships with Brad and Eli with him. But Philip was different. Philip was special. She wanted to hold the memories of their last week together close. Whether Philip shared his feelings with Jake or not, she wasn’t ready to share lest the sharing diminish it somehow.
“We promised to stay in touch.”
Andy dumped a stack of pancakes onto a serving plate, then transferred one to his daughter’s princess plate and began cutting it up. “I didn’t see much of you this past week. I was kind of thinking things must be pretty serious between the two of you.”
Elena swallowed a sip of coffee, but instead of putting the mug back on the table, she sat with it touching her lips and didn’t quite meet Andy’s probing gaze.
“We had a fun week.” A wild, crazy week. It was a wonder she could still walk. But that definitely wasn’t something she was ever going to tell her brother. “We—he wanted to pack as much fun as possible into the time he had left. I just helped.”
“Should I have been asking my best friend what his intentions were toward my little sister?”
Elena set her mug down and forced a chuckle. “Of course not. We’re just—just friends. He’s got his commitment to the Marine Corps and I’ve got college to finish.” She stood and began stacking her breakfast dishes. “Speaking of which, I’ve got to get online and get my books ordered.”
Elena rinsed her plate and dropped everything into the dishwasher, hoping Andy wouldn’t see the tears that had suddenly sprung into her eyes.
She and Philip had kissed goodbye less than six hours ago and already she missed him terribly. She’d missed him the moment his bike pulled away from the curb. They were friends. Friends who happened to have become lovers. But no words of love had been spoken by either of them and most definitely no words of commitment. Saying goodbye in the wee hours before dawn had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
The reality was that, if their relationship did move past friendship and lovers to something permanent, nights like last night and mornings like this would become part of her life. The Marine Corps had been part of Philip’s life before her and would continue to be. Deployments would be expected. Months spent apart to be endured. But women did it every day.
She straightened her shoulders and turned back to the table, determined to be as strong and capable as any military wife or sweetheart.
“Let me know when you’re ready to take off. Bianca and I have plans for our girls’ day together. Right, pumpkin?” Elena kissed her niece on top of her silky black curls.
I can do this, she told herself as she strode from the room. I can definitely do this.
Chapter 20
March 2015
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
“I CAN DO THIS,” Philip muttered through gritted teeth as he forced himself into a third set of dips on the parallel bars. “I can definitely do this.”
When he finished, he hopped down onto the mat, cradling his aching right hand against his chest. He looked up and caught Elena eyeing him with her brow furrowed and her jaw set. He dropped his hand to his side, then plucked the sweat-soaked shirt away from his chest and wiped his face with his left arm.
“You are an idiot, Gunny.” Elena threw a towel at him.
The towel slapped against his chest, and he caught it before it fell to the floor. Whatever it was that had her so incensed better not end up in another workout requiring a lot of endurance because he was about tapped out. Hauling ass out of the office because he couldn’t bear to
listen to another moment of Captain Clueless’s conceited speculations, he’d come to the PT department early and put himself through a rigorous round of conditioning drills. It was appalling how out of shape he’d become.
“Do you have any idea how much damage those dips probably did to your hand?” She was practically hissing. “All the hours the doctors spent fixing it. All the hours I’ve spent rehabbing it. Do you even care if you’ve undone everything?”
“It’s my hand,” he protested, stunned by her fury.
“But I’m the one who has to answer for your lack of progress. It’s my responsibility to see that you get as much use back as possible.”
Philip glanced at his throbbing hand. “They can’t blame you if the screw-up is mine.” He looked back at Elena. He’d never seen her this angry before. Not that he could recall. And it didn’t feel particularly comfortable aimed at him.
She scribbled furiously on her clipboard. “This will get reported. Your doctor needs to know when the patient is noncompliant.”
“What do you mean, noncompliant? I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to. Even when I thought it was dumb.” He tensed. An answering anger began bubbling in the pit of his being. He’d spent the whole last week picking dimes and quarters out of rice and therapy putty, fingering them until he could tell the difference between one and the other without looking.
“I’m sending you over for an X-ray before we go any further.” She shoved a slip of paper at him. “Tell them I want the images immediately. Then get yourself back here. Today.” She turned on her heel, then hesitated. “Wait—”
She crossed the room to a small freezer and then hurried back and with two small blue ice packs and an ace wrap. “Your hand?” she demanded, gesturing for him to hold his hand out.
Philip offered up the aching appendage, and she placed one cold pack on the back of his hand and one in the palm. Then she swiftly wound the wrap to hold them in place. “Bring them back with you.” Then she stormed into the glass-enclosed office without looking back.
AN HOUR LATER, Elena set a small laptop on the rolling table and cued up the X-ray images of Philip’s hand that the technician had emailed over to her. She scrolled through them, flicking back then forward again, studying each image carefully. Then she sat back with a sigh.
“You’re lucky. You didn’t refracture anything. But you could have. Very easily.”
“I thought broken bones were supposed to heal in like eight weeks or so. It’s been months.”
She bit her lip and didn’t meet his gaze.
“I apologize for yelling at you before. I know you’re used to powering through pain and maybe didn’t realize how much you could have hurt yourself by ignoring it.” She raised her eyes to his and swallowed. “I was just thinking about me and about how big a black mark would appear on my six-month evaluation if you’d seriously set your rehab back. I’m sorry.”
“I guess I was being selfish too,” he admitted reluctantly. “I just wanted to get back into shape and I thought four months was long enough.”
“If you just had a simple break, then yes. Eight weeks is a reasonable estimate for limited stress on the healed bones. But you did a lot more than bruise soft tissue and have a clean break. Bones were crushed and had to be reconstructed. Besides that, muscle and tendon damage takes longer to heal so the new bone growth has nothing to give it support. Nothing to back it up when you put stress on it.”
Philip spread his fingers and studied the web of scars, long healed and already fading. His hand looked ready to get back to business. He looked at the X-ray image, but it meant nothing to him. “When can I expect to be able to use it like I used to?”
“You’re going to be sorry for what you did today in a few hours,” Elena warned with a little shake of her head.
“Can’t be sorry if it gets me back where I need to be,” he shot back. He was already sorry. His hand felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. Since he’d jumped down from the P-bars, been on the receiving end of Elena’s tirade and taken himself to the X-ray department and back, the throbbing in his hand had gotten worse in spite of the ice packs.
“And where do you need to be?” Elena closed the lid of the laptop
“Back in action with my team. With any team.” Philip just barely managed not to press the hand to his chest again where he could cradle the aching limb and maybe put a stop to the stabbing pain.
“On a scale of one to ten?” she asked pointing to the chart he’d come to hate.
He started to fudge his answer, but then changed his mind. Honesty was the only way he’d get her total cooperation. Besides, he owed her that.
She had unexpectedly shared a very painful piece of her history at Bianca’s party. She had trusted him with the truth about the most difficult experience in her life. Her sudden capitulation, leaning into him and allowing him to offer his sympathy, as useless as it was against the enormity of what she had lost, had touched him.
He dreamt about her that night and every night since. His sleeping mind had conjured up images of her holding her lifeless son in her arms with tears running down her face while he tried desperately to reach her. But an endless desert of shifting sand had kept him from getting to her, and her anguish had grown louder as her tears kept falling.
And every night he woke with his face wet and his heart pounding.
“About eleven and a half,” he admitted.
She had begun to turn away, but stopped. Her eyes appeared darker than usual, and he couldn’t guess the emotion lurking there. Was she still angry about his workout and about possible setbacks that would compromise the reputation she’d worked so hard to gain?
“Other than pushing yourself beyond any reasonable limits on the P-bars, how have you been doing with the fine motor tasks you’ve been working on?”
He wiggled the fingers like a wave at the ballpark. “Pretty good, actually. Except for a reluctant pinky, typing is a lot easier.” He held up the offending digit and tried to fold it down. He could bend it halfway and no further.
She took his aching hand in her capable, soothing hands and massaged it for a bit. “Is there pain when you try to use it? Or is it more that you can’t control your movements?”
“No more pain than anything else. It’s a good thing there’s spell-check. Without it, there would be a whole lot of missing Ps. I have to be careful about punctuation, too.”
She hooked her first two fingers around the last joint in his pinky finger. “Try not to let me straighten it,” she said as she began to apply pressure. Very quickly, the finger gave way and pain shot up to his elbow, but he managed to stifle the cry forming in his throat. She repeated the process with each of the other fingers on his hand, working her way up to the index finger. All of them hurt like hell, but he gritted his teeth and persevered.
“When I can I go back to the gun range? Among other things, I need to get my rifle qualification scores back into the top tier, and I’ve already been away too long.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be in such a rush to hurry your recovery along.”
“You used to be in a rush to hurry everything along,” he retorted, remembering, quite incongruously, her rush to get his clothes off whenever they returned to his parents’ house during their last week together. She’d been young and impetuous about everything.
Elena flushed at his inappropriate remark. He almost apologized, but the tinge of pink coloring her neck and ears made him wonder if the same image had flashed into her mind. Perhaps she wasn’t so immune to the chemistry between them as her aloofness would indicate.
He’d given up pretending all he wanted from her now was friendship, at least to himself. He was still hurt and baffled by her failure to wait for him fourteen years ago, but he was willing to forgive her whatever her reason had been. He wanted her back in his life. But there were s
till so many missing years, so much of her life and his that hadn’t been shared. Was it even possible to bridge the gap between then and now?
She got up abruptly and walked away without speaking. She was definitely still angry with him if she was going to end the session just like that. He waited, not sure if he’d been dismissed. But then she reappeared and gestured for him to follow her.
“How does that feel?” she asked a few minutes later.
Philip glanced down at his hand immersed in a small basin of warm water into which electrodes had been introduced. The low voltage current felt a little shocking at first, but then soothing. “This will help with both swelling and the pain you’re feeling right now.” She set a timer. “I’ll be back.”
Philip wiggled his fingers. Carefully, he made a fist in the water, then relaxed his hand. He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and let the gentle vibration and warmth soothe both his hand and his heart. Maybe he should step up his efforts to revive their relationship. Spending time getting reacquainted would be a distraction while he strove for patience with his recovery.
“Better?”
He opened his eyes and pulled his head away from the wall. Had she caught him dozing? “Much.”
“Good. You better not make me sorry for this, but—” She handed him a towel and held out the clipboard. “If you can sign this with your right hand, then it’s yours.”
He dried his hand and took the clipboard and the pen. Clipped to the board was his permission slip to return to the firing range. He balanced the board on his knee and began writing. He could do this. He had to do this. He’d graduated from the crayons, but he’d still been signing his name with his left hand. He concentrated on gripping the pen tight enough to keep it from slipping and ignored the stab of lightning that ran up his forearm. A little slow, but he finished with what he hoped looked like an easy flourish and handed the clipboard back to her.