by Linnea Valle
Emma
Zach’s interaction with the kids today was an eye-opener. He was great with kids, which I never knew about him. I couldn’t ever recall having seen him around little ones before, but he was amazing and Tommy took to him immediately.
Trinity was always more shy and reserved, so it took a little bit longer for her to feel comfortable with him. Yet, by nap time, both kids were crawling all over him, playing with him and bringing him toys and books. They were thirteen months old and Tommy had started walking at ten-months-old, Trinity at eleven months. They were advanced in their vocabulary and learning too. They were sponges soaking up every bit of information they were given.
I had to pry them away from Zach for naps. When Tommy got upset and started to cry, Zach picked him up and took him to the bedroom. During the short walk down the hallway to the nursery, Zach talked to him about how it was time for a little sleep, and he’d be right here when Tommy woke up. It was amazing watching him calm Tommy down.
We both got them down for naps, and I appreciated the help. Until recently, I received help from Sarah, Zach’s parents, and even Charlie. I had help even before the twins were born. Since Sarah went to her parents’ for the summer, I was doing almost everything on my own. Charlie was working six days a week, and Carol and Richard didn’t come as often now that the kids were a little older.
We went back out to the living room with the door cracked, and I knew this was when Zach and I needed to talk. So far, the morning had been all about the kids, and I’d told him as much as I could think of about their progress. With them napping though, we needed to get to the nitty-gritty and hash out some of the serious shit.
I grabbed a couple of sodas on my way back to the living room, handed one to Zach and motioned for him to sit on the sofa. “So, have you told your wife yet? How’s she going to handle the news of the twins?” I asked point blank.
Nervous energy pushed me forward, not waiting for his answer. “Because, to be honest with you, I don’t want her having anything to do with Trin and Tommy.” I was probably glaring at him, but hopefully I was getting my point across loud and clear. I’d fight him on this if I need to.
“Didn’t my mom tell you?” Zach looked at me in confusion. “Kelly left me after four months. She got our ‘marriage’ annulled.” He said using air quotes around the word marriage.
I was a bit embarrassed at having been so bitchy about the way I brought it up. “No, I made your mom promise me not to talk about you after she had told me you got married.”
I paused, a thought striking me. “Annulled? But, I thought to get an annulment it meant you, uh, well…” I stammered, trying to say what I was thinking but being too embarrassed to say it. Thankfully, Zach suffered no such embarrassment at saying the words.
“We didn’t have sex, Emma. Since the marriage was never consummated, Kelly got an annulment. There are other grounds for seeking an annulment, but I don’t think that was what you really wanted to know.”
He shrugged. “At first, I was still recuperating, then I was in physical rehab and ‘too tired.’” Again, with the air quotes around “too tired.”
Zach looked away from me for a moment, like he was gathering his resolve. “Then I was drinking. I started drinking heavily and it was a downward spiral from there. It never was a real marriage. I know I depended on her at first, but I never loved her. It was a very unfair thing for me to do to her.” He stared over my shoulder toward the window, but not appearing to see anything other than his past.
I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about his confession. I was still mad as hell he’d gotten married. In a sense, he’d dumped me. Yet, another part of me, a very bad part, elated over his admission he never loved her. The fact he never had sex with her gave me an odd sense of satisfaction. Like I said, the really bad part of me, and I was okay with that person.
“After Kelly left, my drinking got even worse and so did my PTSD and depression. I was in bad shape, Emma. It’s hard to admit, but I almost became a statistic. Did you know on average, twenty-two veterans a day take their own life? Well, I was almost one of them.” He paused and looked at me, his eyes revealing the amount of pain he’d gone through. I almost felt guilty I wasn’t there for him.
“Don’t!” Zach commanded and I jerked back. “Don’t try to take any of that blame,” he said in a much softer tone. “I can see it on your face and in your eyes. This was on my shoulders, Em. Mine and mine alone.”
Which reminded me, I should be angry with him. I may not have been there for him, but he wasn’t there for me either. I’d gone through hell and back since the night Eddie told me they were being deployed.
I knew I was pregnant. I’d only just found out for sure before coming home for Thanksgiving. Sarah was the only one who knew about it. I had planned on finding a way to tell Zach while we were home, but I didn’t tell anyone. We needed all our focus to be on Zach and Eddie going into a war zone. Then mom died and I certainly wasn’t about to blab about being pregnant then.
After they left for training, it took me a few more months to tell Eddie about it, but mostly, I think because Sarah made me. She was quitting school and Eddie was sending money to help us.
Neither of us could stay in the dorms. That was when I told Carol, Richard, and Charlie, but I made everyone promise not to tell Zach. I was being stubborn because he kept pushing me away, and I was afraid he’d deny it or push me and my kids away forever. Better to feel in control than to feel like I was at his mercy. The thought of even more rejection had been unbearable.
I must have been thinking out loud, inadvertently exposing my inner musings, because Zach’s next comment caught me by surprise.
“I would never have denied it, Emma, because I knew the condom broke the first night we were together. You thought I was mad at you, regretted being with you. And yes, I regretted your first time was in the back seat of my car. You deserved so much better, better than me. But I was furious and scared when I saw the broken condom. I assumed you’d tell me or tell Eddie, and Eddie would tell me if you got pregnant. So, when no one told me. I didn’t think…” Zach trailed off. “I would have been there for you. How could you even question that? You’ve known me my whole life. Is that how little you think of me as a human being?” Zach looked at me hard. I could feel the pain, disappointment and anger rolling off him. “I know I’ve let you down, more times than I want to admit, but you know I’m not a bad person, Emma.”
He stood and started pacing the room. I sat there, absorbing this information. He knew the condom broke and didn’t tell me? I knew I was pregnant and didn’t tell him. God, we were both so stupid and stubborn, and look where it got us. Here we were a year and eight months later, still not sure where to go or how to move forward.
Zach
My body felt like it was buzzing under the strain of too many frustrations and so much pain that had been pent up for so long. I couldn’t sit still any longer. I started pacing Emma’s living room while my one-year-old twins were napping in the other room. Kids I didn’t even know existed until last night.
I was trying to hold my shit together, but it was starting to overwhelm me. What was worse was we hadn’t even started talking about Eddie yet. It was going to be a whole lot more stressful to talk about the end of a life than the existence of new ones. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with it if I could barely handle the happier conversation.
I started running my hands through my hair as I paced, and happened to catch sight of Em. She was watching me warily and it occurred to me maybe she was afraid of me. Scared of the me I had become while in Afghanistan, and the downward spiral my life took after I got back. I couldn’t blame her, I scared myself sometimes.
All my recent life experiences, the things I saw in war, losing Eddie, and what I did to cope when I came home broken, swirled around in my head in a toxic cloud of guilt. I felt that my physical pain from being injured when we were attacked, and the painful rehabilitation I had to go through weren’t
enough punishment.
That was why I started drinking. I had to numb it somehow. I wouldn’t lie, I would fucking love a drink to calm my nerves, but I also knew what a slippery slope it was. I would never go down that path again. It wasn’t worth it. The depression that accompanied all this bullshit was hard enough to shake without adding alcohol.
“I need a minute to get some air, but I’ll be right back.” It was as much of a warning as I could muster to prepare her for the next half of our conversation, because I had some heavy-ass shit to lay on her and it wasn’t going to feel good for either of us. She nodded as she wrapped her arms around herself in a protective posture.
The air was already warm at 11:00 a.m. Spring was over and Midwestern summers were usually hot. I paced around for a few minutes, employing some of my coping techniques. I concentrated on my breathing and removed myself from the stressful situation as much as humanly possible. I utilized positive self-talk instead of negative, thought about the future I wanted to have, and worked out how to achieve my goal. I knew my future was in that apartment with my children, even if Emma ultimately rejected me.
I needed to believe eventually, I’d be able to win Emma back. Stupidly, I had pushed her away, thinking I wasn’t good enough for her, and deluding myself in to believing I was protecting her.
Look where my actions got both of us. I should have manned the fuck up back then. Remembering the weekend we spent together was the only thing that got me through until now. I had to have known I loved her, but I was too stubborn to admit it to myself. Eddie told me as much. I should have listened to him when I had the chance.
My breathing evened out and I believed I’d avoided a panic attack, for the time being at least. I headed back inside, giving a slight knock on the door as I entered.
Emma was sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee. “There’s more in there if you’d like a cup.” She tipped her head toward the kitchen.
I’d like a cup, or at least something to do with my hands so I didn’t go bald from running my fingers through my hair. Both of our sodas sat, forgotten.
This was going to have to be it. The time had come to bare my soul to the only person it would matter to. Also, the one person I cared about most. What she thought about me mattered. Emma was the one person who could make me whole or shatter my soul into fragments. I’d hand my heart and soul to her on a silver platter and let her do with them as she wished.
I came back into the living room with my coffee, sat down on the opposite end of the couch, and turned to face her. I took a deep breath and prepared myself, but she spoke first.
“Did you seriously not have sex with your wife for four months?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she barreled on. “So, have you been with anyone since we were together?” Her voice became a bit stronger because I was certain she could read the answer in my face. Not a hard thing since Emma and I had been almost as close as her and Eddie had been, once-upon-a-time. Mentally, I switched gears from the discussion I had just psyched myself up for to another. Her question made my breath quicken and my heart started to beat again, this time not with fear but with hope. I knew where she was going with this.
“Emma, I had a lot of excuses why I never had sex with Kelly, but I knew they were all excuses. I couldn’t have sex with her because she wasn’t you. She wasn’t the woman I was in love with.” Em’s eyes widened when I finally admitted my feelings.
“You are,” I looked her directly in the eyes, without flinching, and without hesitation.
“Emma, I’m in love with you. I think I always have been, but I was too young and stupid to realize it or admit it to myself. I’m not afraid to love you anymore. The only thing I’m afraid of is you not loving me, because I know you’re going to hate me even more than you already do after we talk about Eddie.” I gave myself an internal fist bump for being able to utter her brother’s name in her presence for the first time. Hurdle number one was clear, but the hurdles I saw ahead looked like they’d never end.
Maybe they wouldn’t, perhaps I’d spend the rest of my life jumping over obstacles in vain. I expected a reaction from Emma at my admission, but she merely sat there, stone-faced. Not giving a hint at what she was thinking or feeling.
She’d gotten good at hiding her emotions. Before, I would have been able to look at her, know exactly what she as thinking and feeling by the look on her face or her body language. It was like she’d stopped feeling anything. The only time I saw her completely open herself up now was with Trinity and Tommy.
She was a good mother. I watched her this morning. She loved those two with all her heart. She doted on them. The house was clean and a healthy environment. I hoped to become a fixture in their lives as well, if Emma was willing to let me. I’d have to wait to see.
“Zach, I think I’m going to need some extra time to process everything. You showing up at my door last night, watching you with the kids today, the information about your marriage and now you telling me you love me. This is a lot. The kids are going to be up from their nap soon.” She looked down at her hands, and I noticed she was wringing them. My earlier hope began to waver, I was starting to get worried she wasn’t going to give me a chance.
“Do you think you could leave?” Emma looked up and noticed my face drop, so she was quick to add, “Only for a few hours.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. “Maybe you could come back around six for dinner and then bath time? After the kids go down for the night, we’ll have more time to talk,” she offered.
How could I argue with her? She was right and if I wanted her to hear me out I needed to comply with her wishes. At least she asked me back for dinner and was giving me more time with the twins She was still offering me the opportunity to purge myself of some of the guilt I held on to regarding Eddie.
“Okay, I could use a little rest anyway,” I lied.
“I’ll come back about six o’clock. What should I bring?” I never knew Emma to be much of a cook, so the thought of her being all domestic and cooking dinner had me intrigued.
“I wasn’t prepared for your visit. Maybe you could grab pizza?” She gave me a small grin, which was the first glimmer of the old Emma I’d seen.
“Sure, what kind?”
“Well, the kids will want plain cheese so if you could get a mini for them. And, um, I’m not sure if you remember or not, but I like…”
I cut her off before she could finish her sentence.
“I know what you like, Em. Even on your pizza.” My voice betrayed my wayward thinking as I recalled the last time we had pizza together. I watched Em blush, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. I felt like I’d gained a small victory in connecting with our past. I’d take it and run. “I’ll see you then. Call me if there’s anything else you or the babies need.”
I took my untouched coffee cup to the kitchen, dumped it, and rinsed the cup, then headed toward the door. As I passed the couch, I couldn’t stop myself and I leaned down, gently cupped her head and brushed a light kiss on the top of Emma’s red hair, inhaling her scent before I left. It might be the last chance I got after we talked about Afghanistan.
Emma
Zach’s parting gesture was so sweet and innocent it had me shaking by the time he closed the door. Memories flooded into my consciousness. The same ones I’d worked so hard to ignore. Reminders of a past I couldn’t fully forget, because I stared at a miniature, female version of Zach every day.
Still, I’d tried to block out how good it felt to have his attention. I attempted to ignore thoughts of the passion we once shared. Most importantly, I endeavored to forget the pain I felt when he turned his back on me, refusing to admit how he felt. Before that last weekend I was so sure of his love, until he so easily pushed me away.
Now, he was back and he’d told me all the things I once craved hearing him say. I was in shock when he told me he hadn’t been with anyone, including his own wife, since he had been with me.
Was that even possible for a g
uy, especially one who looked like Zach? Despite my doubts, I knew Zach wouldn’t lie to me about it. When he told me he was in love with me, a part of me was jumping for joy, but another part was skeptical. My uncertainty was the only emotion I’d let him see.
How many times had I thought I knew what he felt? How many times had Eddie and even Carol told me what they suspected Zach felt, only to have Zach break my heart again and again? How could I trust he wouldn’t rip my heart out once more? This time, the stakes were a lot bigger than my broken heart. It was imperative I think about my kids, our kids. How would it affect them if I let him into our lives and he couldn’t handle it and pushed us away like he’d done in the past?
I’d already withstood more than any twenty-one-year-old should have had to go through. Trinity and Tommy were still untouched by that kind of strife. They were too young to face rejection by their own father.
I thought about last night and this morning’s events and how drastically my life had changed by just answering my door. What if I hadn’t? What if I’d looked out the peep hole and seen Zach? Would I have let him in anyway?
I had no doubt if he tracked me down and came all this way, he wouldn’t have been put off. Even if I hadn’t opened the door, he would have waited. He was obviously determined to clear the air.
This brought me to the subject we were both dreading most. Eddie. All this time, I’d sought answers, needed to hear the details. Cursing the one person who refused to give them to me. I thought I needed them to find closure, but now that the time was near, I was terrified.
If hearing those details caused me to revert to those first few weeks, would it be worth it? I had such a hard time, having to rely on Sarah and Carol to help me with the babies. I couldn’t shut down like that again. Worst of all, what if I never gained any amount of closure from Zach’s words, but instead they only managed to break me? Forever haunted by his description of that day.