Maggie had been a big help though. Being a nurse, she knew all the ins and outs of the diagnosis and treatment. She worked in the ICU and often dealt with cancer patients at the end of their lives. She got teary-eyed telling James how many of them had regrets about various things they hadn’t accomplished or experienced during their abbreviated lifetimes. He thought about his mother, who at 52 had lived a full life, getting to see her children grow up and become successful adults, getting to see her grandchildren born. But she hasn’t met my children, he thought. I want to give my mom grandchildren while she’s still here, he resolved.
Letting thoughts of his family momentarily dissolve, he glanced at the animated, fire-lit faces around the circle. It’s good to see the guys enjoying themselves, he thought. They deserve it. He pulled up a chair next to them and saw they were passing around a bottle. One of the locals they had befriended had managed to get them some vodka, some beer, and some baklava. A lot of the top brass were gone for the holidays so the atmosphere was a bit more relaxed. Alcohol was forbidden, of course, but as one of the guys pointed out, “What are they going to do? Send us home?”
The bottle invariably got passed to James. He was ambivalent about drinking in front of his men but on the other hand, a good leader knows when to show solidarity, he reasoned. They were doing four shots each, one for each of the men who’d been lost in the attack in the fall. For each one, they went around sharing funny stories and memories, all light-hearted, nothing too heavy.
After the third shot, he noticed the full moon rising in the clear night sky. The conversation with his mother still weighing heavily on him, he stood up and left the men to their funny story exchange and drinking. I don’t want to bring anyone down he thought. He walked some distance along the gravel road lit up by the moon, till the bonfire was in the distance and the sounds of laughing and drunken shouting had faded.
He reflected back on the four men he’d lost in the attack and felt a swirling nausea rising up in the pit of his stomach. He saw each of their faces etched on his mind: Tyler, the gung-ho 20-year-old who wanted to be the next Superman; Jason, whose wife had just had a baby girl right before he deployed; Steve, who was the best damn poker player on the base; and Erik, who gave it his all everyday even though he was so damn homesick.
It’s New Year’s Eve, James thought, and their families are wondering how they’re going to face a new year with no traces of their loved ones. As long as it’s 2011, there’s still active memories of them. Their last birthdays, anniversaries, holidays with their loved ones are still fresh. 2012 is the beginning of life without them. And those memories will age... They could grow richer...or fade.
Fuck. He spat on the ground and kicked some gravel over it with his dusty boot. New Year’s Eve and here I am deployed again. I think I’ve spent at least 3 Christmases and New Years deployed now. It sucks that it almost feels normal.
He thought back to the prior New Year’s Eve in his cozy little book-lined cave of a house. Sarah was there, he remembered. She spent the weekend with me. He remembered holding her against his chest, raking his fingers through her dark hair, listening to her breaths deepen as she succumbed to sleep. And then the next morning, lazily making love as if they had no other obligations beyond pleasing each other all day long.
I miss her, he conceded. He’d fought off the memories and the longing for months now. I love Maggie and I want to start a life with her, but I can’t get Sarah out of my mind.
Fuck. I don’t know what to do.
***
Sarah waited after reading the message on Garrett’s wall, saying nothing to him, calculating her reaction. He had texted her to say he was en route to Maryland and wanted to confirm that she’d be picking him up at the airport. She waited even longer and then sent him a simple three word text: “Make other arrangements.” Her phone immediately lit up with a call from him, but she ignored it.
She went alone to visit Rachel that evening and explained what had happened. Rachel was flabbergasted. “Garrett seemed so ideal, so open and genuine. I don’t understand why he would do this.”
“Me either,” Sarah agreed. “He promised we would be open about all of our activities and lovers. I told him I’d be seeing Pawel and he was perfectly fine with it. I don’t understand why he’d lie to me when he had no reason to.”
“Immaturity maybe?” was Rachel’s theory. “He’s only 27. Maybe he’s fine with you having other lovers but he’s not quite secure in the fact you will be okay with him doing it too.”
“Her profile said they are in a D/s relationship,” Sarah added. “That usually doesn’t just happen overnight. I’m guessing he’s known her for a while.”
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know but this sucks. I really liked him too.”
Sarah nodded, still feeling numb, unable to produce any tears over the situation. “I’m not sure what to say to him.”
“So you’re really going to just strand him at the airport?” Rachel asked.
“I didn’t strand him,” Sarah said defensively. “I told him to make other arrangements!”
“Oh,” Rachel laughed, “I would have ditched his ass!” They both giggled and then Sarah went off to the kitchen to get Rachel a snack. She saw Thomas peeking around the corner, wielding a plastic light saber in one hand and a spaceship in the other. He looked forlorn.
“When’s Owen coming back?” he asked, his eyes sad and lonely like a caged puppy.
Sarah looked at him empathetically, “I miss him too but he’s not going to be back till next week.”
Disappointed, Thomas trudged down the hallway and back to his bedroom. God, I really do miss my boy, Sarah thought. Owen was always a shining beacon for their family. He has so much of his grandmother in him. I sure hope Daniel doesn’t snuff out any of that light with his cynicism.
As she headed back into the living room with Rachel’s food and drink, her phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She set the glass and plate down on the end table for her friend and went to retrieve the phone. It was Garrett again. She felt suspended on a pendulum swinging back and forth between “answer it” and “ignore it.”
“You can’t avoid him forever,” Rachel reminded her, sensing the internal battle being waged in her friend’s mind.
Sarah pressed the button to accept the call and breathed, “Hello,” devoid of inflection, completely neutral.
“Why aren’t you picking me up?” came his tenor voice.
“Aren’t you already back in town?” Sarah asked, still managing to achieve neutrality.
He was silent. Sarah knew how rare it was for Mr. Navigator to be at a loss for words so she considered it a bit of a victory. When he did speak, he stumbled over his words like his tongue was too long for his mouth: “How did you know?”
“So let me get this straight,” Sarah said, her tone growing darker as Rachel’s eyes grew wider listening to her end of the conversation. “You were going to stage getting back today just to avoid telling me what you’ve really been doing? If so, that’s the most immature, pathetic, ridiculous thing anyone I’ve dated has ever done. You made a promise to keep me apprised of all of your activities. Why in the world would you find it necessary to lie to me?”
She could hear him breathing long before he put together any words of response. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
Rachel had maneuvered into a sitting position and was leaning forward expectantly. “Put him on speaker!” she whispered, clearly enjoying the entertainment factor inherent in the conversation.
“I’m done here,” Sarah said, clicking the red end call button.
***
Rachel had graciously excused Sarah from her New Year’s Eve painting obligations but insisted she still come over so she wouldn’t be alone on the holiday. Abby had gone to a party at Bree and Brooke’s house. Sarah had refused three subsequent phone calls from Garrett and ignored multiple texts of apology. “Do you really intend not to forgive him?” Rachel asked with surprise, always believing
her friend to be one of the most compassionate, understanding people she knew.
“I need to calm down first,” Sarah explained. “And I need to examine if the whole reason I was so interested in him was just to get my mind off James.”
Rachel nodded in sympathy. And even if that was my motivation, Sarah considered, it didn’t work. Last New Year’s Eve I was with him, she remembered. We fell asleep talking about his war memories and then woke up and made love. That night he opened up to me; he let down his walls. I was already in love with him, but I fell for him so much harder that night. I told him I didn’t want to go home and he said “So don’t.”
I want to be back in that moment, she thought. I would give anything to turn back the clock to New Year’s Eve 2010.
***
Chapter Eleven
Forgiveness
Sarah loved how the bedroom Rachel and Jack chose for the nursery greeted the day awash in the glimmering morning sun. It seemed like a happy, peaceful place to grow up. She had already taped around the window and the baseboards and was starting to cut in with the lavender paint. Oh, I’m sorry, she corrected herself after reading the name of the shade on the paint can label, I mean Harmonious Lilac. The closet on the far side of the room was already filled with tiny, adorable outfits, mostly pink and purple. And glittery wooden letters in a crate at the bottom of the closet awaited spelling out the baby’s name on a freshly painted wall: A-M-E-T-H-Y-S-T.
After finishing the edges, Sarah washed out her paintbrush in the bathroom and went to check on Rachel, who was propped up on the sofa multitasking with her laptop on her knees, the television tuned to The View and her cell phone beeping with notifications on the end table beside her. “You look like you’re running a Fortune 500 Company in here,” Sarah teased.
“I can rule the world from this couch,” she played along. “Seriously though, how’s it looking in there? The paint’s not too dark is it?”
“It’s gorgeous,” Sarah reassured her. “You feeling okay? No contractions today?”
Rachel shook her head. “I’m fine, just restless. I think Jack is sick of taking care of me already though,” she whined. “I go to the doctor Thursday and I think we’re going to talk about an induction date for mid-February. At least I won’t have to go to the end of the month like I originally thought.”
“That’s good,” Sarah replied cheerfully.
“Oh, get this!” Rachel’s volume shot up as her face became animated. “My mother says she refuses to call the baby Amethyst. She said she’ll be calling her Amy because that’s a nice, normal name.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and snickered, remembering how overbearing Rachel’s mother was. Sarah had to circumvent Mrs. Brock several times during Rachel and Jack’s wedding the summer before. She was certainly not a pleasant individual to confront. “Is your mother coming for the birth?”
“God no!” Rachel exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll go visit them this summer. I sure as hell don’t want that woman in my house.”
“I can’t wait to see Owen tomorrow,” Sarah said, changing the topic. “I talked to him on the phone last night and he’s had a lot of fun but it sounds like he’s ready to come home.”
“Is Adam staying at all? I’d love to see him!” Rachel asked.
“Sadly no,” Sarah said, “He and Brandon are catching a flight right back to Seattle. They won’t even get to leave the airport.”
“That sucks,” Rachel lamented. “Hey, did you ever talk to Garrett?”
“No,” Sarah responded. “You know last year when James and I got into that fight and I ignored him for a few days, do you remember what happened?”
“I sure do,” Rachel brightened with the memory, “I helped him track you down in Denver and he showed up at your hotel room.”
“Yes. Exactly,” Sarah said. “If I were that important to Garrett, I’d think he’d come hunt me down. Talk to me in person. He called a few times, texted a few and that was it. He’s done.”
“That’s a 27-year-old for you,” Rachel observed. Sarah nodded in agreement. She hadn’t decided if she was going to try to talk to him about the situation or not. In some ways she felt obligated to tell him how he’d fucked up so that she could possibly spare some other woman from enduring the same hurt in the future. But the other less mature part of me just wants to tell him to go fuck himself.
***
The last three times Maggie had brought up the topic of setting a wedding date, James had bristled. It was a physiological reaction. His skin felt clammy; his nerves were burning, not with pain but with an uncomfortable itch, like a mild allergic reaction. He had changed the subject each time. But now he had a perfect excuse to be ambivalent about looking that far in the future.
“Why don’t you want to discuss this?” Maggie pressed. “When I had the whole thing with Dr. Parker a few months ago and switched shifts, we had that long Skype session and you promised me we’d decide after Christmas. I’ve told you a zillion times that I can’t plan a wedding overnight. I need time to order a dress and choose invitations, a cake, book a venue, all that stuff.” She was nearly pleading with him, her hands visibly trembling with conviction. “Is there something wrong? Something you’re not telling me?”
James thought back to that conversation which had occurred in the fall. Maggie had promised to talk to her boss about the situation with Dr. Parker and when she did, it was revealed that complaints had been lodged by other nurses against the doctor. First the hospital administrators switched Maggie to a different shift so she could avoid interaction with Dr. Parker, and then after further investigation he was dismissed from the hospital entirely. Maggie had been so upset and shaken by the way the events unfolded that James had spent hours on the phone and Skype with her trying to calm her down. That’s when he pacified her by promising to set the wedding date after Christmas.
He looked at her face intently, scrambling for the right words to say, the right phrases to stitch together. He hated disappointing her or telling her no; he was much better at telling her to wait. This wouldn’t be the first time; he’d asked her to wait when he went off to Basic years and years ago. You can see how well that turned out, he smirked to himself. “Maggie, there’s nothing wrong except for the fact that I’m trying to fight a war and I just found out my mother has breast cancer. I really want to get home and see how her treatment is going and what the prognosis is before I set any dates. Okay? Can you please try to understand that?”
She had already begun to cry. “Do you remember when we were in high school? Do you remember our senior year when I had that big turquoise binder I kept all my notes in?” She was sobbing and sniffling as the words poured out. “I wrote Margaret Leanne McAllister all over the cover of that binder in big cursive script a million times. That’s all I wanted then, and that’s all I want now!”
“Maggie, it’s alright,” he said in the softest voice he could muster, “I’m sorry to make you wait. I want you to be my wife too but I just can’t commit to a date yet. It will happen though. I promise you.”
She blew her nose on a tissue and wiped a stray tear out of the corner of her puffy eye a millisecond before it trickled down her cheek. “Okay, honey, I’m sorry for pushing you. I’m just so ready for you to be home and to be in your arms again. I love you so much. This is killing me.”
“You’re strong, Maggie, you can do this. WE can do this, okay? Only two and a half more months now, alright?”
She nodded, satisfied for the time being. He said goodbye and closed down the computer. He had forgotten all about that turquoise binder in high school but once she’d mentioned it, he could clearly envision it like it was yesterday. It’s funny what women remember, he thought, then headed toward the gym for his morning workout.
***
It took a week, but he finally showed up.
Sarah had run through the potential scenarios in her mind hundreds of times by now. She questioned her motives, whether or not she really loved him, whether or not they rea
lly had anything worth preserving. Maybe she’d taken him, their relationship, for granted. It had seemed so easy, maybe too easy. In the end, she knew he’d have to come to her. Otherwise, it wouldn’t seem like he wanted to make the effort to fix what he’d broken. We had a promise, Sarah knew she’d argue, when and if he came. We had a promise.
He came to her office unannounced a week before the spring semester began when she was putting the finishing touches on the syllabus for the Human Sexuality course she was teaching. He didn’t even bother to knock, just pushed the door open and there he stood in the door frame, all 6’4” of him, crowned by his trademark shock of red hair, which looked longer than she remembered it being, as if he was letting it grow out. It made him look wilder and more charismatic than ever.
“Hello, Garrett,” she said calmly, as if she was expecting him, just barely glancing up from her computer screen in acknowledgment. She knew he wasn’t used to not immediately commanding someone’s attention.
He gave a little shrug accompanied by a smirk as he proceeded through the door, closing it behind him. He took a seat in the chair beside her desk and crossed one long leg over the other, his knee jutting into the desk. “We need to talk,” he said.
“Yes,” Sarah agreed, finally twisting away from her monitor. “Yes, we do. You first,” she offered, tossing the ball into his court.
He seemed perplexed, as if he would have placed a bet on her reading him the riot act before he could get a word in. Sarah smiled, using a trick she’d learned from her mother. Make him lay all his cards on the table first while I sit here and smile. Then I’ll react.
He cleared his throat and leaned toward her. “I really don’t have any excuses, Sarah,” he said. “I lied to you and for no good reason.” He sat back against the chair, anxiously awaiting her response. As if his work here is done and it’s all in my hands now, Sarah noted.
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