by Dinah McLeod
“Six months, maybe longer.”
My mouth had gone so dry it felt packed full of sand. “I see.”
“It’s not forever, Shelby,” he’d replied, taking my hand, his tone earnest and pleading. “And you know I’ll come back for you. I just need you to promise to wait for me.”
“I can’t do that,” I’d replied automatically. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
It was hard to watch the pain my words inflicted on him. I could see it ripple throughout his whole body. “I love you, Shelby.”
I’d sucked in my breath; neither of us had ever said the words, although I’d known how I felt after thirty minutes alone with the man. He was funny, witty, charming and had integrity. He was one hundred percent the kind of man I’d always known I’d marry. “I love you, too.”
“Then say you’ll wait for me!” he’d exclaimed, ducking his head to kiss me.
I had taken a step back and tried to pull my hand away, but he held it tight. “I can’t wait for you, Dean. I can’t wait to be with you.”
Emotion played on his handsome, strong features as I watched. His bright gray eyes shimmered with love for me and my mouth fell open when he suddenly dropped to a knee. “Marry me then.”
I had to giggle. “Why, how very romantic,” I teased him.
“I mean it, Shelby. Do me the biggest honor of my life and say you’ll marry me.”
“Yes,” I accepted with quiet conviction. In an instant Dean was on his feet and I was hauled into his strong arms. He twirled me in the air, hooting in excitement until I was dizzy. When I thought I couldn’t take any more, he stopped and brought his lips to mine, crushing my body against his hard, muscular frame. He kissed me with a possessive fierceness that excited me and made me dizzy in an altogether different way. I’d run my hands through his short, close cropped blond hair whispering “yes” again and again.
My parents had signed the papers that would allow us to get married before he shipped off, however disappointed they might have been. They’d both thought we were too young and my mother had always hoped that I’d find a nice civilian husband to settle down with. She wanted me to have a man to raise kids with, who would work nine to five and come home at the end of the day. But none of that stuff mattered to me. Dean had been the only thing I thought about since the first time those startlingly gray eyes of his had met mine, and I never looked back.
Thinking of our wedding day made me turn to the nightstand where I’d kept a framed photo of us for the last eighteen years and change. No matter how many times we moved, it always went on the nightstand. It was the only photo we’d had taken after we went to the courthouse, but both of us looked positively bursting with happiness. Taking in our young, exuberant faces, I knew that those kids had never imagined we’d have landed, where he and I were now.
I shook my head at the naiveté. Of course, who got married expecting trouble? When I looked at the fresh-faced girl I’d been then, with my long legs, tiny waist and slender hips, it made me want to curse the years that had changed me. I still had the same long, wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. I still had the smattering of freckles on my nose.
Dean, curse him, still looked mostly the same. He still had the same broad shoulders, taunt biceps and a muscular physique of a man much younger. He still turned heads, even at almost forty. He had close-clipped blond hair and amazingly beautiful gray eyes.
The first thing I’d noticed about him was his eyes, but the second would have to be his quick, devilish grin. It set my pulse to racing every time I saw it. Even now, after almost nineteen years of marriage my heart still skipped a beat when he turned that smile on me. It was impossible not to smile back and nearly as impossible for my thighs not to moisten with my own juices as I did.
It had been quite some time since I’d seen that smile. I was beginning to think that at this rate I might never see it again.
“Isn’t breakfast at 0700?” Dean asked, jarring me out of my thoughts.
“Hmm?” I glanced at my watch. It was already seven. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to be at work in an hour and I don’t really have time to make anything. Could you just grab some cereal?”
You would have thought I’d asked him to roast his own kidneys over a fire from the withering look he shot me. Dean was used to having eggs, sausage or bacon and wheat toast every morning. I didn’t think I’d missed more than a single morning in our eighteen years, so I was prepared for the shock he’d feel. I was even prepared for the anger that I knew would come, even though it wasn’t something I could help. Like it or not—and he certainly didn’t—things had to change around here. I knew it was hard for him to accept, especially when things had changed so much already, but as I was the only one working at the moment, he would have to get used to fending for himself a bit more around the house.
I opened my mouth to try to say something, anything to comfort him, but he didn’t give me a chance. He marched out of the bedroom without a backward glance. Sighing to myself, I slid out of my robe and headed for the shower. Something had to give, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of what that was, or what I could do so that we’d all be happy again.
Chapter 2
I ended up taking a shorter shower than I’d intended. Dean was right, it really did only seem to have two settings and I was definitely not a cold shower kind of girl. I wrapped a towel around my long, dark hair and headed downstairs. I was only halfway down when I heard raised voices, which made me hurry down the rest of the way.
When I entered the kitchen our son, Morgan, was at the counter staring moodily at his Rice Krispies.
“When I make a request, I expect a respectful answer.”
“You don’t make requests, Dad,” Morgan fired back in a sullen tone. “You give orders. There is a difference.”
“Hey!” Dean’s sharp tone made me jump. “I did not raise you to talk to me like that!”
“Sir, yes, sir,” our son muttered, just loud enough for me to make out the words.
“You listen here, I have worked hard for this family and I believe that merits your respect. You may not agree with the choices I’ve made for my life, but you damn sure will not air your opinions for the whole world to see. Do I make myself clear?”
“One college campus is hardly the whole world, Dad.”
“That is not the point and I think you know it. Now, you have your orders and you better be certain that you follow them. If not—”
“You’re not even in the Army anymore!” Morgan protested. It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Dean's face contorted in anger and began darkening to a shade of beet red that could only mean trouble.
I cleared my throat and both of them turned to me. I took in Dean’s glowering eyes and rigid posture and Morgan’s head-in-hands slouch. “What’s this about?”
Dean whirled on me, his eyes shooting daggers. “Your son—” he spat at me, the way he did any time he was angry with our son, “thinks that it’s perfectly acceptable to go around wearing clothes that don’t fit and only get a haircut every other year. And now he tells me—now he tells me that he’s involved in a group of civilians that are protesting the war!” I was still trying to register his complaints when he fired the question at me: “Did you know about this?”
I shifted my gaze to Morgan who was dragging his spoon along the counter, trying to appear bored and indifferent while taking in every single word. “I don’t think he’s protesting the war,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“Thank you! Mom gets it, Dad. This is not about—”
“I will talk to you about this later,” Dean said in a voice that left little room for further discussion. “And you—” he turned his fiery gaze toward our boy, “you need to get to school.”
Morgan didn’t need to be told twice. He dumped his bowl, still half-full with soggy cereal, into the sink. He pecked me on the cheek, grabbed his backpack and was gone before I could blink twice, without a word in parting to his father.
“I was
going to take him,” I said, looking at the closed door.
“I can’t believe you, Shelby,” Dean pronounced, his voice ringing with disappointment. He had his back turned on me as though he couldn’t ever bear to look me in the eye.
“He’s just a kid, Dean. He’s trying to find himself, he—”
“What he needs is discipline!” he barked. “When I was fifteen, I was working toward Eagle Scouts, ROTC, but—”
“He’s not you,” I reminded him, my voice as gentle. “You just need to be patient. If—”
Dean whirled on me, his face a hard mask. “Oh, that’s very clear. You know, I’ve tried that for years, but patience is in low supply right now.”
We both knew why that was, but I kept silent. I didn’t want to reopen the discussion we’d been having upstairs.
“Sometimes I think back,” Dean’s voice took on a softer tone, “and I remember this little boy, all gangly and clumsy.” His lips curved into a smile as he reminisced. “We used to do things together, he used to value my opinion. And now…”
I let him trail off, but I could easily fill in the blanks of what he left unsaid. I could see how much it pained him, even if he’d never admit as much to our son. In an instant his face was wiped clear as though the uncertainly had never been in his eyes at all, as though I’d imagined it.
“Sometimes I feel so ashamed of him, Shelby.”
I drew back, taking his words as well as a bucket of cold water to the face. I’d known for years that Dean wished Morgan were more like him: more stable, more decided about the future, more ambitious. When I’d told him we were having a son, he’d assumed in the way typical of males that his son would come out as a carbon copy, a boy that would allow his father to live through him vicariously as he grew up, sharing in his victories.
Morgan was a carbon of his father in every aspect physically. They had the same dusky blond hair, the same piercing gray eyes. When I looked at my son, with his broad shoulders and lanky frame, his strong chin and prominent nose, it was like looking at my husband at fifteen. I knew as he grew older his gangly frame would become the same solid, muscular one his father possessed.
People had commented for years how alike the two of them were—it didn’t matter that Morgan wore hoodies and jeans to his father’s uniform, their resemblance was undeniable. Secretly I’d always thought that that was the reason Morgan started growing his hair out. It was long in the back and he’d grown his bangs out in front to the point where they covered his eyes, which I assumed was what he was aiming for. He slouched where his father stood straight and tall, he listened to rap music instead of classical, he didn’t like sports. All of these things were bad enough, but even worse was the fact he doodled peace signs all over every available surface and talked about Obama bringing the troops home. It was the final straw for Dean, who considered himself to be a tolerant man.
I would never tell him otherwise, although I certainly questioned his view of tolerance when it came to his son. The two of them had had a strained relationship ever since Morgan was twelve and I feared that all the anti-war talk would be the final pull that ripped them apart forever. Some nights I lay in bed unable to sleep as I tried to figure out what I could do to fix this fissure in my family.
“I’m sorry, Shelby.”
The low rumble of his voice made me look up. And as stunned and confused as I still was, I was touched by the anguish I saw on his face.
“I didn’t mean that. I didn’t—I love the boy, you know that. It’s just…”
“What?”
Dean took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s nothing. Just sometimes, I catch myself wondering if there was a mix-up at the hospital.”
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Of all the things he could have said, this was the one I hadn’t been expecting. “I can’t believe you,” I said without even realizing I’d spoken. I turned away and grabbed my car keys off the counter. “I’m going to work.”
“Shelby, wait. I just meant—”
I turned to face him, my mouth set in a hard line. “Good luck with your interview. I have to go.” Before he could respond, I headed toward the door without a backward glance.
* * * * *
I managed to cool off on the drive to work, but no sooner had my anger cooled I felt tingles of anxiety begin to seep in. I’d never spoken to Dean that way before in my life, much less walked out on him. It wasn’t something that he accepted and I knew very well it wasn’t allowed. Even if I hadn’t had the prospect of a stern lecture hanging over my head, I still would have been disappointed in myself. What was happening to us? This move was killing my family—first Morgan and Dean who, while they had always butted heads, were at least civil to each other before. Now us.
“Hey there, Shelby,” my coworker Dana winked at me as I walked in. I managed only a strained smile in return.
I tried to change gears and concentrate on work, but I couldn’t help noticing that my hands shook as I counted out the money in my till. I’d been working at the local Dairy Queen for nearly three months now. It wasn’t much, it certainly wasn’t glamorous, but it came with one thing I couldn’t say no to: a paycheck. Also, it had the dubious benefit of free ice cream. While I certainly enjoyed it, I’d also noticed I’d gained seven pounds in the last three months!
Dean hadn’t been thrilled when I’d gotten the job. I shouldn’t have been surprised—he’d never liked the idea of his wife working, and until he’d retired, I hadn’t had to. Everything was different now. I’d stupidly thought he’d be grateful that I’d been able to find a job—no small feat for a woman who’d never worked before—and had been hurt when he wasn’t. Even now, all these weeks later, he’d never come up to see me at work and rarely did he ask me how my day was.
I knew it had more to do with him than me—his pride was hurt that I had to work at all and perhaps even more so by the fact I’d found a job before he did. Of course, not having ever held a job before I wasn’t nearly as choosy as Dean, who was used to being in charge. I was a cashier, at the bottom of the totem pole and while that suited me fine, I knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it.
When people found out Dean’s rank they were surprised that we were having financial troubles. A Colonel certainly got paid well, after all. The trouble was that I’d sent a lot of money to my parents who were in danger of having their house foreclosed on. It had happened right before Dean’s back injury and like a fool, I’d wiped out most of our savings just to keep my parents afloat. They’d been immensely grateful, of course, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Then there were the other expenses, like Morgan’s private school and saving for college. Worse yet, right after he’d retired, Dean had gone out and bought a silver Spider, a car that, while pretty to look at, also came with a hefty four hundred dollar a month car payment. It wasn’t like Dean to be so impetuous and frivolous, but I’d attributed it to the fact his life had just been thrown into an upheaval and left it at that.
He was so difficult to live with lately, always irritable and sporting for a fight, or so it seemed to me. Still, he’d never once mentioned that I’d wiped us out to help my parents and I had to love him for that.
“Hey, Shelby? Shelby?”
I winced inwardly before turning toward Dana. Her tone of voice said that it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get my attention. I had to stop getting lost in my thoughts. With an apologetic smile, I took the bag from her and walked it over to my customer. I apologized for the wait as I handed it to her and was headed back to the counter when my boss poked his head around the corner.
“Hey there, Shelby. Got a minute?”
I forced a smile. “Of course.” Great. I just knew he was going to ream me out for not paying attention to the customers. In all the time I’d worked here, I’d been the best employee I could be. I’d showed up early, stayed late, never complained or asked for time off. Everyone had told me that the manager, Greg, was a Grinch three time
s over with a heart of coal who wouldn’t hesitate to can my butt for even the simplest mistake. Thus far, our only exchanges had been restricted to hurried greetings and him telling me about the occasional cleaning project he wanted me to do around the restaurant. Otherwise, I had made a point to steer clear and had assumed he didn’t notice me much. Apparently I’d fixed that tonight when I’d let my mind wander.
It was hard to keep my head held high as I walked over to the table he sat at, but I managed. I offered another tentative smile and sat down across from him. Even if it hadn’t been for the rumors, I would have been wary of him. Greg was six foot three, from the looks of him, and about as wide as he was tall. His salt and pepper hair was thinning at a rapid rate, which he tried to compensate for by brushing the strands until they stood on end.
Just now he had his wire rim glasses pushed down on his nose and he was studying a sheaf of papers that he had in front of him. I waited for him to look up, but when he didn’t, I folded my hands in front of me, trying to keep them still. I made myself wait patiently, although on the inside I was screaming for him to get on with it already.
I swallowed nervously and licked my lips before putting my smile back into place. Just in time, too, because Greg chose that moment to look up.
“Shelby, how are you?”
The question caught me off guard. I was pretty sure it was the first time he’d ever asked me how I was since I’d come to work there. “Fine, sir, thank you.”
“Good, good. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about—”
“I know,” I interjected softly. “And I just wanted to say how sorry I am.”
Greg put down the sheaf of papers in his hand, tilted his head quizzically and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more. “And why is that?”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
I paused, searching for an answer. I’d thought he wanted to yell at me for being so preoccupied, but if that wasn’t it, what was it? “I thought that maybe…” I trailed off helplessly, unsure how to answer.