by A. Gorman
Practical or not, I’m wearing it today. I splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. Then I head out to the kitchen to find Jake sitting with Spence at the table. “Mornin’, Spence.”
He nods as he swallows a mouthful of cereal from the yellow bowl. “Mamma, did Jake sleep over again?”
“No!” I screech too loudly.
“I just came to clean up the yard a little and your mamma asked me in for a coffee,” Jake says.
“You pulled the fence down,” Spencer accuses him.
Jake nods. “Yes I did.”
“It’s not the same. What are we going to do without a fence?”
Uh-oh. Not now, please not now. I take a deep breath and whisper, “Spencer Mason, you remember your manners.”
Jake leans closer and says, “Don’t tell your mamma, but I’m going to build a new one.”
“When?” Spencer asks suspiciously.
“Hopefully by the end of the day.”
Spencer nods and chews another mouthful of cereal. I watch their exchange, the easy way Jake is with my son, who isn’t easy at all; the way Spencer seems to be testing him as much as he is enjoying having him around, and what’s more, it looks as if Jake is passing all those tests with flying colors.
For a brief moment, I let myself believe that this is just another day, that the three of us are a family, and that this is what breakfast looks like, but when Spencer pours a second bowl of cereal and Cheerios fly all over the table and Jake reaches over to help him with the box, all hell breaks loose.
“Not the same, not the same,” Spencer screams, upending the bowl. Milk and Cheerios fly everywhere, splattering my dress and pouring off the edge of the table, but they’re the least of my concerns right now because my son is beating his fists against his head.
“Hey Spencer, I’m sorry.” Jake reaches out to grab my son’s hands.
“Don’t touch him!” I yell. Jake reels back as if he’s been slapped, but I don’t have time to smooth things over because Spence is my number-one priority here. I grab Spencer’s fists and work on talking him through it. He fights me every step of the way, elbowing my chest with brutal force as he tries to free his hands.
“Shh, shh. Spencer, deep breaths.”
He screams again, but there are no words. He can’t convey them because there’s too much going on. This is all too much, Jake here two mornings in a row, the fence, the Cheerio box—it’s too much for him on a sensory level, and it was wrong of me not to know that. It was wrong of me to want more.
“I’m sorry,” Jake says, running his hand through his hair.
“It’s fine.”
“I didn’t know. I . . .” He stumbles over his words. “It was stupid of me.”
“Just go.”
I hate the accusation in my voice, as if this were his fault. He didn’t know, and I don’t have time to tell him it’s okay because I have to give all of my energy to the little boy in my arms who’s battling demons we can’t see.
I feel Jake’s eyes on the two of us, but he says nothing. He leaves, quietly closing the door behind him, and my heart breaks.
This is what I get for wanting more.
Chapter Fourteen
Ellie
On Saturday, I wake to the familiar sound of work going on in my backyard. I get up and brush my teeth and fix my hair, and then I put on a pair of shorts and the same Roll Tide tee I wore the night I cut Jake’s hair. I walk into the kitchen to find Spencer at the table, shoveling Cheerios into his mouth from the green bowl, and I frown. The green bowl is for Thursdays. There’s also a lot less mess on the table. It’s important for Spencer to feel a sense of independence, and even though it drives me mad most days watching him struggle with menial tasks like pouring milk and cereal into a bowl, I try not to mother him too much and worry over the mess, but breaking the routine like this? It’s monumental for a kid like Spence. I know this sudden change isn’t because he’s forgotten what day of the week it was.
“Mornin’, Spence.”
He nods and chews his food, the same as he does every morning when I greet him.
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Saturday.”
“Right, but on Saturdays you use the red bowl.”
He shrugs and keeps chewing.
“I’m curious why you changed the routine?”
“New isn’t bad,” he says, feeding my line back to me, and my mind reels as I turn the coffee pot on.
“No, it’s not.”
“Mamma, do you think I scared Jake yesterday?”
“No, Spence.” I turn and crook my little finger at my son. He rises out of his seat and takes the few steps toward me, and I grab one of the kitchen chairs and place it beneath the window, indicating that he should climb up on it in order to see outside. I watch his face light up as he sees Jake working in our backyard. “I think Jake will be around as long as we want him.”
“Do you want him around, Mamma?”
I smile. “Do you?”
His brows furrow as he thinks about the question, and he wrings his little hands together. “It’s not the same.”
“It’s not the same,” I agree softly. My heart squeezes painfully in my chest.
“New isn’t bad,” he says.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Will Nuke be around too?”
“Yeah. Where Jake goes, he goes. Though I’m pretty sure Mr. Williams would have kittens if we let Nuke inside the house.”
Spence laughs uproariously at that and I find myself laughing too. He carries his bowl to the sink and runs the water. “Go watch cartoons, okay? Mamma’s going to have a talk to Jake.”
“Okay.” Spencer runs off, and I wait for the coffee to finish brewing. I pour two cups and head out onto the porch with my mugs in tow.
“Good mornin’,” I say.
“Mornin’,” he replies curtly. I guess I deserve that. He takes the cup from my outstretched hand and gives me a grateful nod. “Thought I’d get an early start so I can be out of your way.”
Nuke sits at my feet. I give him a scratch, hitting that one spot behind his ear that he goes crazy over. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“Nothin’ to apologize for,” he says, sipping his coffee. “I shoulda known not to put my hands on Spence in the middle of an episode. Hell, if someone had done that to me they’d be out cold, but I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt him, I swear.”
“I know you weren’t. He knows too. It’s hard with ASD kids, knowing what will set them off and what won’t. I’m still navigating my way through it, and I probably always will be. It’s a lot of trial and error, and a lot of sitting back and relinquishing control when all you really want to do is step in and take over.”
“That must be difficult.”
I shrug. “It is what it is. My parents tried to control every little aspect of my life and look where it got them. I’m just doing the best I can—God only knows if it’s right, but as long as Spence is happy, that’s all that really matters.”
Jake glances down into his coffee cup. “And your happiness? Does that matter?”
It’s too early for these kinds of questions, and I don’t think either one of us are ready for the answers, so I smile and say, “As long as I get six hours of sleep a night, I’m a very happy woman.”
“You deserve more than that, Elle.”
“You’re right. I should really try for eight,” I tease, but Jake’s eyes are hard.
“I’m serious.”
“He is my happiness, Jake. He is what matters. Everything else is just icing on the cake.” I turn away, about to head back to the kitchen, but he reaches out an arm and pulls me to him. It’s the first time he’s touched me of his own accord since the night he knocked on my door and laid bare his demons.
“You really believe that? That your happiness isn’t important?”
“I do.” I stare at his hand before rolling my gaze up to meet his. “I know it’s difficult to understand, but that boy is my
whole world. He is and always will be the most important person in my life.”
“I understand,” he says, removing his hand from my arm.
I know Jake Tucker understands how important my son is, but I don’t think he grasps just what Jake Tucker means to me; how could he? Because even though everything I’ve told him is true, walking away from him, turning my back on the only thing that I’ve wanted in a really long time, feels like a knife to the gut.
* * *
We work on my yard for the entire day, tearing down the fence and putting up a new one. We paint it together, and while Jake takes away the old fence palings in his truck, Spencer and I decide we need a new garden to accommodate the fence, so we began planning.
“You wanna stay for dinner?” I ask Jake the second he walks back through my front door. He glances at Spence, as if he isn’t sure how to answer.
“Stay, Jake,” Spencer shouts. “It’s Spaghetti Saturday.”
“I love me some spaghetti,” Jake says, grinning at my boy.
“Well alright then,” I turn and head to the kitchen to get started. Jake follows and Spencer is hot on his heels, as always.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Why don’t you two take Nuke out on the back deck so he doesn’t have to be alone out front,” I say, pulling the ground beef from the fridge and getting to work. “I think Spence has some plans for a new garden that he’d like to discuss.”
“That so, huh?” Jake chuckles.
“That’s so.” I nod and shoot him an apologetic smile.
“I have a lot of ideas,” Spencer says seriously.
“Well, what are we doin’ standin’ around then?” Jake asks. “Let’s do it.”
My son tears through the house toward his bedroom, coming back with crayons and a bunch of empty scrapbooks he likes to doodle in.
“Thank you,” I whisper as Spence tugs on the hem of Jake’s shirt and he has no choice but to be pulled along. He don’t say nothing, but the sweet grin on his face as he’s walking out my back door about sends my heart into cardiac arrest.
I make a garden salad to accompany spaghetti and heat up one of those frozen garlic breads, and the boys help me take the food and plates out to the table. After we eat, Spencer shows me their landscaping plans, and then he and Nuke run about the yard chasing lightnin’ bugs while Jake helps me wash the dishes.
I offer him coffee and dessert, but I get the feeling he doesn’t want to disrupt the schedule too much, so when he tells me he has to leave in order to head home and feed Nuke, Spence and I walk him out to the car.
“Well goodnight.” I jam my hands in my pockets, feeling like a school girl on a first date.
Jake looks at me funny, as if he’s memorizing my face. Finally, he says, “Thank you.”
“I should be the one thanking you,” I say, shaking my head ruefully. “I can’t imagine what you’re getting out of all this.”
“I’m no longer alone,” he whispers, and pulls me close, pressing a kiss to my forehead. I’m still reeling when he pulls away and he and Nuke climb in the truck and head for home while I stand in my driveway, my heart racing, my stomach fluttering and my head spinning.
Chapter Fifteen
Jake
I’m held down on a rickety table by one man on each of my limbs, while another stands against the wall with a rifle aimed at my head. The infection in my side burns. I’m running a fever—a pretty fuckin’ nasty one if the hallucinations are anything to go by. With any luck, it’ll kill me, because these fuckers don’t seem capable of doing the job, despite their best efforts. When we landed in Afghanistan we were given names and faces of Taliban leaders, not unlike the personality identification playing cards of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Aasif Bashir had been on that list. I’m staring up at the very same motherfucker I was sent back to Afghanistan to kill, only we’re in the wrong positions.
He orders one of his men to hold the muslin over my face as another stands by with a bucket of water.
“You will talk,” he says, not in Pashto, but heavily accented English. “Or you will die, but not before you are begging for your miserable life.”
I laugh, causing the muslin to be drawn tighter over my face, and then I suffocate beneath the deluge. Buckets and buckets of water are poured over my face, and he’s right—I do beg. Between drowning and breathing, my mouth, nose, eyes, and ears filling with water, I fight, despite my brain telling me not to. It’s instinct, and afterward, as I lie there with my whole body on fire, my wounds reopened in the struggle and my lungs burning for breath, I beg for my life. I beg for mercy, and I beg for them to kill me.
Bashir doesn’t say a word, but he leans over and licks the water from my cheek.
I jolt awake, sitting bolt upright, my breaths coming hard and fast. My heart races and my whole body trembles. Nuke is in my lap, licking my face. He whines and jumps off the bed, pressing the lamp switch with his nose, which I rewired into the wall at the right height for this very reason.
“Nudge,” I command, my voice shaken and so alien after the dream. Nuke rests his head on my knee, and I pat his fur with trembling fingers. I run my free hand through my hair and it comes away as wet as it’d been on that table two years ago. I wipe my sweat off on the sheet and get up, though I wind up pacing the room a few times before lying down on the floor beside the bed. Nuke lies in front of me, and though I’m burnin’ up and shakin’ like a leaf, I hold him, taking comfort in his warm fur.
Several hours later, I still can’t sleep, and I get up and walk downstairs, opening the French doors onto the back deck. Nuke follows me out into the garden and down the walkway to the pier house. I don’t bother switching on the lights; the moon is high tonight, and I don’t need to see where I’m going because I’ve walked these boards a thousand times since I got back.
The last time I came down to the pier house was around a month ago. I open the front door and stale air greets me. It reeks of salt and dust, but I ain’t here for the smell or the view. I’m here for what’s hidden in the small pantry beside the sink.
I open it and grasp one of the three bottles inside, and then I unscrew the lid and take a hearty gulp. It burns all the way down, and the nightmare hits me full force—the water, the shortness of breath, the ache in my lungs. I stumble over to the couch and toss worn cushions aside and there I stay, looking out at the moonlight on Mobile Bay, drinking Johnnie and wishing like hell things had ended differently in Afghanistan.
The scenery has changed, and the people, but at the end of the day I am still a prisoner in my own body. I may have been home for a year, but a part of me never came back, and I’m still the same man now that I was in that building, a gun to my head, longing for death with no way to pull the trigger.
Chapter Sixteen
Ellie
Sunday after church, Jake didn’t show up at the beach like he always did, and he didn’t come by the house to finish the gardens like he’d said he would. I’d had this niggling feeling in my gut since I woke up, this ache inside that I couldn’t put my finger on. I learned a long time ago to trust that feeling, so when he doesn’t show up at the duck pond Monday morning, I take Spence to school like nothing is amiss and then I drive to Jake’s house.
Now that the huge sand-colored Prairie-style home looms up before me, I wonder if I shouldn’t just turn right back around, but I steel my nerve. I grab the container full of snickerdoodles made from Memaw’s recipe that I stayed up baking until one because I couldn’t sleep—nothing gets my mind sorted like filling my house with the scent of warm vanilla sugar—and I switch off the engine and climb out of the car. It’s so quiet here and eerily still. There’s not even a breeze off the bay this morning—not that you’d get much of one from the front of the house with all these beautiful trees blocking it. It sure is a private lot; I bet you can’t even tell that you have neighbors for all this green around. Jake may not be so great with people, but he has one hell of a green thumb.
> I close my car door quietly in case he’s sleeping, and I climb the front porch steps. I knock, but I can’t hear nothin’. I try the knob; it’s unlocked, so I poke my head in.
“Jake? You here?”
Nuke barks, but it sounds as if it’s coming from the back of the house, and then I hear a terrifying roar of anguish and the sounds of breaking glass. “Jake?”
More barking and a scratching sound too, as if the dog’s been locked out and is desperate to get in. I run down the hall. The house is huge and I’ve never been inside before, but I realize when I reach the kitchen and family rooms that the barking is coming from upstairs, so I double back through the hall and take the steps two at a time. The scratching starts up again and I follow the sound through another hall leading to the main bedroom. Inside, Nuke scratches at a closed door, tearing away strips of varnished hardwood. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence, he’s so desperate to get in.
I’d heard those same noises the night Jake had shown up on my doorstep. He needed me, and now Nuke needs to get to him. From beyond the door, Jake roars, and the loud thud of flesh hitting the wall repeatedly sends a chill down my spine. That’s not a sound I’m unfamiliar with, though it is one I hoped to never hear again in my life. Despite my fear, I twist the knob. The door is locked.
“Jake. It’s Ellie. Let me in,” I say, surprised at how steady my voice sounds. Another anguished cry and the door I’m leaning against rattles on its hinges. I press my palms to it. “You let me in this bathroom right now.”
“Go home, Ellie.” He grunts, and he don’t sound like himself. I glance around the dark room. The sheets on the four-poster bed are tangled in a heap, and on the nightstand there’s not one but two empty bottles of cheap whiskey turned on their sides.
Oh Johnnie, you always were a mean bastard.