If You Believe in Me

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  Fuck. That meant there’d been an incident, and they were making the worst kind of notifications. He wouldn’t be allowed to log in to freaking Facebook until the blackout was lifted. No matter. He’d be home by then.

  “How soon can I leave?” he asked.

  “That’s yet to be determined. A couple of weeks, at least.”

  “No.” Kale pushed himself higher on the pillows and tried not to reveal the new wave of agony weakening his muscles. “I need to be home for Christmas. Christmas Eve. I know we can’t complete my termination that fast, but I was promised—”

  “I know what you were promised.”

  Kale frowned at DiPaolo’s tone. Was he going to block him?

  He chose his words carefully. “I hope there’s no problem with that promise, sir.”

  “The problem isn’t with your termination, Riker, but with your condition. There’s no way they’re letting you out of here in the next two days.”

  Chapter Three

  “Bingo!”

  The activities room of the Holly Glen Home for Active Living buzzed with the disappointment of a few dozen senior citizens and their guests. Amber stared in mock dismay at her nearly full card. “No way, Rose! I only needed two more!”

  Rose cackled and accepted her prize, a super-soft plush rabbit, from the teenager who carried it over. Her gnarled hands shook as she turned the bunny to face her, and a deep sigh ended the cackle. “This is just like the one Caitlyn sleeps with every night.”

  Amber doubted Rose’s granddaughter still slept with stuffed animals. The girl was nineteen, a freshman in college. But her family had moved to Colorado years ago and rarely came home to visit. It broke Rose’s heart that her only grandchild had chosen a college even farther away, in Oregon.

  The runner bent and kissed Rose on the cheek. “I brought that one ’specially for you, Ms. Rose. Congratulations on winning.”

  Rose smiled and patted her hand. The girl went back to the snack table, and Rose caught Amber watching the interaction with, she was sure, way too much sympathy on her face. The old woman’s expression went soft and shrewd at the same time.

  “Sometimes we just need to let them go, don’t we?” She tucked the rabbit next to her in her wheelchair and ran a magnetic wand over her metal-ringed playing pieces to collect them.

  Amber, who didn’t have fancy bingo gear, crumpled her marked-up paper and tore a new one off the pad in the center of the table. “Let what go? Teenagers? In some ways, yes.”

  “Not just teenagers,” Rose scoffed. “Everyone who’s no longer in our lives. At some point, we have to just accept that they’re gone.” She wheezed a little and paused to catch her breath.

  Amber tried to keep her expression clear and reached for a pitcher to pour Rose some water. “I suppose, when it’s impossible for someone to come back, it’s healthier to move on. For our own well-being. But Rose,” she continued before the woman could make her point more bluntly. “Caitlyn isn’t gone. She’s just far away. You’ll see her soon.”

  “Everybody ready for the next round?” Chad, the Holly’s activities director, vigorously rotated the drum of bingo balls. A few shouts of “ready!” rose above the clatter.

  Rose scooped up a pile of chips in one hand. “Maybe. I’ll ship her presents anyway. Better than leaving them lying around forever.”

  Amber snorted at the not-so-subtle jab. Apparently, it was common knowledge that she had a stockpile of presents for Kale from birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries he hadn’t been home for. This afternoon, Amber had taken Rose for some last-minute shopping downtown. While Rose debated between pairs of gloves for her beau, Amber had come across a leather excursion messenger bag. Kale used to talk about the business he intended to start when he got out. The bag was expensive, and Rose hadn’t withheld her opinion of “wasteful spending on things no one would ever get to use.”

  “O-62,” Chad called. “That’s O. Sixty. Two.”

  Amber X-ed through the space with a pencil and studied her game cards. Between them, she had the numbers relating to her birthday, Kale’s birthday, the day he said he loved her, and the day he was deployed. If all of those numbers get called…

  “B-1. B. One.”

  None of the cards on Amber’s strip had that one. Rose snapped two markers down.

  “The point is,” she said, scouring the half-dozen cards in front of her, “sometimes people won’t be back. Sometimes they can’t be. And the way of the world is that not everything gives us a solid finish.” Satisfied that she didn’t have any other squares to mark, Rose raised her head. “Do I need to spell it out for you, dear?”

  Amber forced herself to laugh even though she’d rather snap at her. “He’s not dead, Rose. I won’t believe it. I can’t. That choice is doing much more good than harm, trust me.”

  Something caught Rose’s attention behind Amber, and her wrinkles rearranged themselves into that crafty expression women of her age had perfected when they decided to become matchmakers. “Some people would beg to differ.”

  Amber didn’t have to look to know who had walked into the room. The other night, after the shock at the Rikers’ house, she’d called her cousin Rina for commiseration. Rina had been Amber’s best friend for two and a half decades and formed her one-woman family support team since Kale left. But she’d almost seemed to be on the Rikers’ side when she said Danny, a guy Amber had known since kindergarten, was waiting for her as patiently as she’d been waiting for Kale.

  Danny owned the hardware store next to Amber’s consignment shop. They saw each other every day, shared coffee, took turns bringing each other lunch, and volunteered on a few of the same committees. Rina thought Danny did some of those things for other reasons, not because he liked to do them. But he knew as well as anyone that Amber’s heart belonged to Kale.

  Okay, not everyone seemed convinced. Rose made eyes at Amber, then at whoever approached behind her.

  “Hello, beautiful.” Danny braced his hand on the back of Amber’s chair to bend and give Rose a hug. “You win yet?”

  “Of course.” She showed him her rabbit.

  Danny’s big hands stroked over the soft fur. Amber sat back in her chair, tuning out Danny’s rumbling voice as he chatted with Rose. He was an attractive guy. His strong, capable hands were connected to powerful arms and a gracefully carved torso. Quick to smile, quicker to laugh, Danny was more compassionate than half the people Amber knew who pretended to be do-gooders because it elevated their own social standing. He was a great guy, and he deserved a great woman.

  Someone who wasn’t her.

  He examined her bingo cards. “Aren’t you paying attention? He called three numbers.” He picked up her pencil and quickly marked off the ones she’d missed.

  “Thanks. Just thinking.”

  He circled behind her to claim an empty chair and ripped off a playing strip for himself. “Let’s see if I can catch up here.”

  Rose cast proud glances between the two of them for the rest of the session, but despite her split attention, she still managed to win two more times.

  After the games were over, Amber helped clean up and then made the rounds to say goodbye to Rose and the rest of her friends at the Holly. By the time she left, it had gotten dark outside, and colder than the night before. She zipped her parka all the way up and paused on the building’s front porch to pull on her gloves. Her breath misted in front of her, pale in the glow from the overhead lamp. The street was quiet, with most guests exiting to the rear parking lot. After the excess heat and noise of the activities room, Amber savored the silence and chill.

  Her thoughts drifted again to the pile of gifts under the Christmas tree at home. Some had football wrapping paper, some pumpkin. One, her favorite, wasn’t wrapped. It commemorated the day Kale told her he loved her. They’d been walking around the lake after a dinner date. It had been warmer than it was now, and the park’s pair of swans was out. They did the thing where they curved their necks and touched beaks so they lo
oked like a heart. Kale had just blurted it out—I love you—no preliminaries, no warning. Amber, already on an emotional precipice, had tumbled hard. Since then, swans had been her touchstone, symbolized by a necklace from Kale that she never took off. Last year at a yard sale, she found a ridiculous-looking stuffed swan dressed in battle fatigues and bought it for a dollar. Kale would have found it hilarious.

  Would have…

  The cold air crystallized in her lungs. She hadn’t just thought that. He will find it hilarious, she corrected furiously. She would not let the people in this town, with all their well-meant fatalism, weaken her convictions.

  And she would not burst into tears standing here alone in the dark. She glanced down to gauge the distance to the first step, but before she lifted a foot, a voice hit her out of the darkness, making her jump.

  “Heading home?”

  She whipped around to see Danny leaning against the first turn of the handicapped ramp. He’d been there a while, judging by his crossed feet and hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  “You jerk.” Amber tried to laugh, but it sounded like she was hacking up a hairball. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “I know. Sorry.” He pushed away from the rail and crossed the porch to her. “If you don’t have your car, I’ll walk you home.”

  “Thanks.”

  They passed the first block in silence. Danny seemed fine with it, but Amber couldn’t ignore the opportunity to confront him. He’d been everywhere the last few days. At first she thought he was just being supportive at a time he knew was hard for her. But after Rina and now Rose had both indicated his feelings were stronger than that, Amber had to bring it out into the open.

  “Kale is coming home,” she said.

  “I know.” He sounded perfectly calm and comfortable with the idea.

  “I love him.”

  “I know that, too.” He took a longer stride to check the cross street, then let her catch up to him after he signaled the coast was clear. “But is the guy you love the one who’s going to come home?”

  She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Of course he won’t be. I can’t even imagine what kinds of horrors he’s seen, what he’s done.” What had been done to him. She shoved away the thought. “But I don’t care. He’s mine.”

  Danny nodded as if he agreed. “What if you’re not his?”

  Wow. That was blunt. And Amber had no argument. Kale being dead was a possibility she had little trouble dismissing. Kale not wanting her anymore? That was a fear so big it didn’t even fit in her brain.

  When she didn’t answer, Danny didn’t press her. He let the question bounce around in her skull for another block. They turned left onto Main Street. Cars zoomed past, and a few people hustled in and out of the stores, movie theater, and restaurants that made up downtown.

  “I know the holidays are hard for you.” Danny tilted his head back and squinted at an angel perched on a streetlight. “Has it gotten better or worse this year?”

  “I don’t know.” Amber scuffed her foot. “I guess a little worse, with his parents preferring to think he’s dead.”

  “Whoa.” Danny stared down at her. “That’s the first time I ever heard you say anything negative about them.”

  Amber shrugged. She’d tried hard not to resent them but was losing the battle. Every time someone gave her a sympathetic look or mentioned grieving or, like Rose, letting go, she knew it was because they were following the Rikers’ lead.

  They turned again, onto her street with its little brick Cape Cod houses, half of them surrounded by chain link fences to keep the dogs in. She’d left the light on next to the front door, and it beckoned to her. There was warmth in that house, and coziness. And incredible loneliness.

  “Amber.” Danny stopped her halfway up the walk to her steps. “Look at me.”

  She did, reluctantly, because if he didn’t say what she expected him to, she’d have be the one to address it. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him or anyone else.

  He settled his hands on her shoulders and stared down into her eyes. His were gray-blue where Kale’s were bright blue, but they held affection, hope, concern, and maybe even love. He hadn’t worn a hat on his light brown hair—again, different from Kale’s short, dark waves.

  Before she’d even finished the comparison, Danny had tugged her closer, bent, and laid his mouth over hers.

  Cold immediately turned to warmth. Amber hadn’t been kissed in three years, and part of her clung to the simple joy of human touch. But that was all she felt. There was no cascade of goosebumps when his tongue stroked her lips. No burn of desire down deep, or craving to be closer, to have more of him. He smelled good, and they were obviously compatible. But Amber knew if ever she allowed a relationship between them, it would be comfortable and sweet and nothing like what she knew she and Kale would have.

  Amber took one step back, breaking the circle of his arms. He let them fall. The cold rushed between them, and Danny didn’t speak but was clearly waiting to hear her reaction.

  “Everyone keeps telling me to move on.” She cleared her throat. “They point out that if I did, you’d be there, waiting.”

  “I am.” His expression was still hopeful, but held a new reserve that made Amber’s heart ache. She didn’t want to hurt him, but it would be better to do it now, definitively, than to let him keep hoping when there was no reason to.

  She had to take a moment to fight a sense of futility that had nothing to do with Danny. No notification, no body, no twenty-one-gun salute, she reminded herself.

  “You can’t,” she said simply, and he nodded. But what he said wasn’t what she expected.

  “Your loneliness kills me.”

  Amber’s eyes stung with sudden tears. She hadn’t even noticed how lonely she really was until a few minutes ago—or hadn’t been honest with herself about it—and it had clearly been obvious to Danny all along.

  She still tried to deny it. “I have a very rich life full of friends.”

  “I know. But none of them gives you what Kale did, and you deserve it. Love, a partner, a family. I can do that, Amber.” He held up a hand. “I know you’re not ready to consider it. I just wanted you to know that I am here. I care about you more than you realize. And I didn’t want you to dismiss us as a possibility.”

  Because she was pining for a dead man. That was what he meant.

  “Is that why you kissed me?” She sniffed and swept her glove across her cheek. “To make me think about possibilities?”

  He nodded. “Did it work?”

  There was only one thing to say. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “No.”

  After Danny gave her a sad, resigned goodbye kiss on the cheek, after Amber wrapped Kale’s new leather bag and put it under the tree for him, she lay alone in her bed, in the dark, and wondered.

  Had Kale’s kisses really made her feel so very different from Danny’s? Or was that just how she remembered they felt? Maybe her memories weren’t real. Maybe she’d enhanced them over time. Maybe, even if they were real, Kale didn’t share her feelings.

  What if his had faded while she’d turned hers into some impossible ideal he could never live up to?

  Was holding on to him noble and loyal? Or foolish and cowardly because she didn’t want to risk getting hurt again?

  Chapter Four

  Fever dreams, they were called. And they sucked ass. Unlike the dream-memories of his best Amber moments, these were full of anxiety and desperation. Worse, they made it impossible to convince the doctors he was well enough to be shipped stateside.

  He did everything the nurses told him to, despite the instincts that urged him to get out of bed and run a few miles to prove he was fine. He took his antibiotics, drank gallons of whatever they gave him, forced down food he had no appetite for—every bite making him miss Amber’s cooking even more—and slept as much he could.

  And dreamed.

  His father loved to tell stories. “Frank was so mad at the guy just standing ar
ound, he asked how much he made a week. The guy said about three hundred dollars, so Frank peeled that out of his money clip, shoved it in his hand, and said, ‘take it, and you’re fired!’ When he asked the supervisor how long he’d been working there, the guy told him he didn’t! He was just delivering a pizza!”

  Everyone howled with laughter. Kale grinned at his mother’s indulgent head-shake and the tears Amber had to wipe from her eyes. “We should make this a tradition,” he said, feeling stupidly sentimental. “No matter what’s going on for the holidays, exactly one week before, we should all have dinner. Amber’s chicken marsala.” He forked a bite as everyone agreed, but then his father began another story, and everyone ignored Kale.

  His father’s voice began to warble like a bad radio. The table stretched and stretched until Amber and his parents were at the other end, talking avidly, leaving Kale by himself at the far end of the room.

  “Hey!” he called, testing. “Someone pass the salt!” No one moved. They didn’t seem to hear him. He pushed his chair back and stood. That worked, but when he tried to walk along the side of the table, tried to reach for Amber, nothing happened. He couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t make progress on the slick floor. The harder he tried, the more he hurt. Burning in his side. He looked down. His fatigues were red with blood.

  “Time for meds!” a cheery voice rang into the dream, and Kale blinked his eyes open. Thank God. That wasn’t how that night had gone at all. His father’s stories, yeah, but Kale had sat next to Amber instead of at the end of the table. Their thighs had pressed together, and Amber kept giving him little touches. Stroking his hair from his temple to the back of his neck. Gripping his arm when she laughed or remembered something. They’d made the meal together, the two of them, and Kale had been struck by the rightness of everything. He’d wanted to propose to Amber right then, but he still had just under a year to go before he could leave active duty. So he’d suggested the tradition, instead. They’d all loved the idea.

  And then he’d fucked things up. They’d have had that meal a couple of nights ago, without him. Again.