The Military Wife

by Laura Trentham

  They’d been married almost two years, but because they spent so much time apart, in many ways they were still getting used to living together and sharing their lives. She was struck by not only how handsome he was but also the kindness in his eyes. How could she deny him anything?

  “I’ll try.”

  “Invite Allison over for coffee. Spend some time with her. If you still don’t like her then—”

  “I never said I didn’t like her. She’s nice. It’s that we don’t have anything in common.”

  “Just one morning, one hour.”

  “Okay, fine.” Her agreement came out sounding more petulant than she intended. He picked up her phone on the side table and held it out to her. She snatched it out of his hand. “You want me to call now?”

  “Yep. Otherwise, you’ll put it off.”

  She tried not to resent his high-handedness. He was used to a chain of command. That was something they never told you about living with a man in the military, and maybe the SEALs in particular. They were bossy as hell. Of course, in the right conditions, that made them sexy as hell, too.

  She had Allison’s number stored and hit it, praying to get sent to voicemail. Her prayers weren’t answered.

  “Why, hello!” Allison’s voice was chirpy.

  Harper popped up. “Hi, Allison. It’s Harper. Harper Wilcox.”

  “I know. You came up on my caller ID. Are you enjoying have Noah home as much as I’m enjoying Darren?”

  Harper shot a look toward Noah, who was sprawled on the couch, his slight smile veering toward smug. “I am. Of course I am. I calling because”—she cleared her throat—“because I was wondering if you wanted to come over for coffee one morning this week.” She felt like she was asking a boy out to a Sadie Hawkins dance.

  An extra beat of silence rang loudly through the phone. “I would love that. Absolutely love it. What day works best for you?”

  They settled on a day and time and Harper assured her that the kids were welcome and even managed to insert a joke about putting away her collection of Ming Dynasty vases. She hung up, her relief shadowed by a slight sense of dread.

  “There. Was that so hard?” Noah asked.

  Harper gave him the finger. On a burst of laughter, he jumped up and pulled her close, his hands wandering down her back to cup her butt. They sank to the floor and didn’t come up for air until dinner.

  The day of her coffee with Allison approached at warp speed. She cleaned the house and dusted the books on the shelf twice. Waffling on appropriate clothes, she settled on a simple skirt, T-shirt, and flip-flops. The coffee was brewed, snacks were arranged on a platter, and the house was spotless. There was nothing else to do but pace by the front window.

  She spotted the stroller first and jumped to the side of the window to watch Allison’s approach around the edge of the curtain. A toddler squirmed in the stroller while a baby slumped in a contraption strapped to Allison’s front.

  The doorbell rang and Harper skipped to the door, opening it and gesturing Allison and the kids through. “Come on in. Can I help you?”

  “Could you lift the front of the stroller?” Allison’s breathlessness gave the impression of being frazzled even though she was put together like a catalogue model, with smooth blond hair and in a pretty sundress.

  Harper helped get the stroller up the two porch steps and into the den. With an efficiency that would do the Navy proud, Allison unstrapped the girl in pigtails from the stroller and set her down. Next Allison pulled a blanket out of a back compartment of the stroller, laid it out, and proceed to unstrap the tiny human from her chest.

  On his back like a stuck bug, the baby kicked his arms and legs, his face turning red until a scream emerged.

  “Sorry.” Allison tossed Harper an apologetic smile.

  Meanwhile, the girl, who was around two years old, took off toward the kitchen like an Olympic sprinter.

  “Oh my God.” Allison scrambled toward her on all fours.

  “I’ll get her. And some snacks, too.” Harper retreated to the kitchen to find the little girl—what was her name? Libby? The little girl was rearranging the magnets on the fridge. A few papers and pictures had fallen to her feet. She was counting one-two-three over and over at the top of her lungs.

  Harper’s usually quiet, mundane morning had been shattered. But, strangely, she didn’t mind. She fought a giggle. “Hey, Libby. Are you hungry? Would you like a snack?”

  Thank goodness she’d bought juice boxes and Goldfish along with sweet rolls and cheese and crackers. She shook the Goldfish box and the girl focused on the box like a hungry predator.

  She held them out. “Can you carry them back to your mom?”

  “Yesh. Dank you.” Libby took the box with a smile that would break hearts someday if it hadn’t already.

  Harper followed with the plate of snacks. Libby plopped down crisscross applesauce next to Allison and tried to rip into the Goldfish box. Allison smoothly divested her of it before she could make a mess.

  “Is it okay if she eats in here?” Allison looked up. For the first time, Harper could see the exhaustion behind Allison’s perfect smile.

  “Of course. I can’t keep Noah from dragging the entire fridge to the couch when Georgia football or basketball is on.”

  “God, Darren is a Green Bay Packers fanatic. We went to a game for one of our first dates, and he tried to get me to wear a huge cheese hat. I refused. I fully expected him to dump me at halftime.”

  Their shared laugh dismantled any tension that Harper had carried around since the invitation. “How do you take your coffee?”

  “In an IV straight to the jugular,” Allison deadpanned with a dryness Harper hadn’t ever noticed. Maybe she hadn’t been looking hard enough. A grin broke over Allison’s face like sunshine. “Barring that, just a splash of milk. Or cream if you have it.”

  Chuckling, Harper poured two mugs and returned. Allison was trying to get a squirmy Libby to sit on the blanket with her juice box and crackers. The baby was nuzzling at Allison’s breast making little discontented sounds.

  “Do you mind if I nurse?”

  “Of course not.” Harper set one of the mugs on the side table and gestured for Allison to sit on the couch. “Make yourself comfortable. Or as comfortable as you can with a tiny human attached to your body.”

  Allison’s eyes flared before laughter poured out of her. She adeptly maneuvered the baby onto her breast, covering herself with a burp cloth.

  “You’re a natural.” Harper pushed away any feelings of inadequacy.

  “A natural? Ha!” Allison held the baby with one hand and took a sip of coffee with the other. “It took practice. Being pregnant is weird at first. Then, just about when you’re getting used to feeling this actual human inside of you, you give birth and are expected to produce food for it. Which is totally surreal. But, then, somehow it becomes the most routine thing in the world.”

  “Noah wants to have kids.” Harper couldn’t believe the admission slipped out. The only other person she’d talked to about it was her mother.

  “Now or later?”

  “Now. Or yesterday if I could manage it.” Harper stared into her coffee. “I’ve been putting him off. I was raised by a single mom who worked. I worked my way through school. I really thought I’d have a career going before I had kids. I mean, what’s the hurry, right?”

  “I understand where you’re coming from, but these men…” Allison switched the baby to her other breast. “They approach life differently. They see a goal and go after it with everything they have, even if it means they might die. It’s part of why we were drawn to them, right? They pursued us with the same single-minded purpose.”

  That certainly described Noah. What should have ended as a brief summer fling had turned into more than she’d ever imagined. Marriage, with a baby on the horizon.

  “You think we should go ahead and start trying?” Harper asked.

  “Now don’t go putting words in my mouth. You wai
t as long as you need to. I’m just attempting, in my fumbling, obtuse way, to explain the pressure. Whether Noah talks to you about it or not, every time they get orders he worries about dying. Dying without leaving some part of him behind. It’s primal, I think.”

  “Did Darren tell you that?”

  “Goodness no. But I’ve lived it and seen it enough to form my theories. I should write a book. Or maybe a pamphlet for military wives. Forget death and taxes, it’s all about ‘Death and Babies.’” She gestured like presenting a marquee and grinned.

  “That is supermorbid.” Yet somehow Harper found herself smiling back at her.

  “We’ve got to laugh about it. Most people don’t get it. The threat of death is abstract, but for women like us, the threat has moved into the spare bedroom.”

  “Some nights when he’s gone, I can’t sleep because I wonder if he’s okay or I imagine terrible things. Then, other times, I forget to worry and feel guilty as hell.”

  “I know exactly how you feel.”

  Harper believed her. No one else, not even her mother, could truly understand.

  “Did you work before you had kids? Before you and Darren got married?” Harper tucked her feet under her and nibbled on a cracker.

  “Darren and I were high school sweethearts. He went through ROTC in college and applied for the SEALs right after graduation. I got a degree in education, but we got married before he got sent to boot camp, and I went home to live with my parents until he made the cut and got assigned. I’ve never worked. Well, except at home.”

  “Do you regret that?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I wouldn’t change my life for anything, you know? It’s hard to have regrets.” She gave a slight eye roll. “Except for the lack of sleep. I really miss sleep.”

  Allison put the baby over her shoulder and alternated between rubbing and patting his back. The wet protracted burp that emerged made Harper laugh, but Allison jumped up.

  “Sorry. I hope we didn’t turn your couch into a toxic waste site.” Allison craned her neck to look over her shoulder. “The baby spit up.”

  “Couch looks fine. Your dress on the other hand…” Harper winced.

  “Here. Could you hold him a second while I change?” Allison didn’t wait for an answer and held the squirming baby out. Harper took him, and Allison squatted down to rummage through the bottom of the stroller. “No one tells you that you need spare clothes for not only the kids but yourself.”

  “Bathroom’s right off the foyer.”

  “I’ll just be a sec.” She stopped in the doorway, her expression equal parts serious and amused. “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”

  “’Cuz he doesn’t bite?” Harper attempted a joke.

  “Oh no, he bites all right. Four little nubby teeth can do more damage than you think.” Allison’s laughter trailed and echoed in the foyer, fading when the bathroom door shut.

  It took Harper some juggling before she found the most comfortable hold was to prop the baby on her hip. His head seemed entirely too big for his spindly neck. Harper had never babysat or been baby wild. The closest she’d been to babies was funny internet videos.

  Birds darted around a hanging bird feeder, and she moved toward the window and pointed. “Do you see the pretty red bird?”

  The baby grabbed her finger and gurgled. Harper held her breath, but it seemed to be a happy noise and not foretelling another imminent eruption of spit-up. She rubbed her chin against the baby’s head. His hair was soft, the smell inherently snuggly, but Harper couldn’t say why.

  The baby guided Harper’s finger toward his mouth, but Harper jerked her hand away. The baby’s face went blank for two blinks, then screwed up into a bawl.

  Harper bounced him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Here’s my finger.”

  She shoved her finger at the baby’s mouth. The cry stopped like turning off a spigot. It was more of a gnaw than a bite and Harper made a funny face. The baby’s big belly laughs made Harper laugh, too.

  “You’re a natural, too.” Allison stood a few feet away in shorts and a T-shirt. How long had she been there?

  Harper gave her the baby back. “No, I’m not. More coffee?”

  Before Allison had the chance to answer, Harper grabbed both mugs and retreated to the kitchen. She rubbed her hands over her face and stared at her wavery reflection in the window. Holding a baby for two minutes wasn’t the same as being responsible for one every minute of every day and entirely on her own when Noah was deployed.

  What if he didn’t come back and she was left to raise a child by herself? The thought shot her knees with Novocain, a sick feeling making her head swim. She grasped the counter and let her head hang low to get a handle on the panic.

  “Harper? Are you okay?” Allison had come up next to her without her noticing.

  “Not really, no.” The words emerged around a block of tears.

  Allison leaned back against the counter. “I’ve scared you with all this baby talk, haven’t I?”

  “It’s not you. I’m scared that Noah will leave me to take care of a baby all by myself. You have two kids. Doesn’t that possibility freak you out?” Harper raised her head enough to cross gazes with Allison.

  “Of course it does. But it’s more likely that you and Noah will retire to a peach orchard and grow old together rocking on your front porch. You’ll never be happy if you can’t find a way to deal with the SEAL lifestyle.”

  “Maybe I’ll never be happy then.”

  Harper wasn’t sure what she was looking for from Allison. Maybe some motherly comforting, even though she wasn’t much older than Harper.

  Allison’s face tensed, faint lines bracketing her face. “Shut down the pity party. You need to get out of this house. If not a job, then volunteer somewhere. Join a book club or the wives group I coordinate. If you love Noah, you have to learn to deal with the uncertainty, and staying busy and engaged helps.”

  After an initial flare of resentment, she absorbed the tough love and her panic receded, still lapping at the shore but no longer swamping her.

  “I still don’t want to have a baby right away.”

  Allison made a harrumphing noise. “Then don’t. But don’t rule out a family down the road because you’re scared.”

  Harper nodded and tried on a smile. It wasn’t her biggest or brightest, but it was better than nothing. She was the hostess of this shindig after all.

  “Here, let me get you more coffee.” She bustled over to the pot.

  “Actually, I’ve got to get home and put the baby down for a nap. Thanks for the coffee and chat, though.” Allison breezed back into the den, where Libby was flipping through a pile of board books and the baby was strapped into the stroller.

  Allison packed everything away like the stroller had some magic compartment and maneuvered it to the door.

  Harper mouthed a curse before slapping on a smile and following Allison. Instead of providing a normal “get to know you” coffee, she’d aired her neurosis for the other woman to pick over like a rummage sale.

  “I hope—”

  “Why don’t you—” Allison spoke over her and gave a little laugh.

  “Thanks for coming,” Harper said.

  “Thanks for inviting me. How about you come over to my place next? What about Thursday morning? Come around now. I’ll put a show on for Libby and the baby will be down for a nap. We can actually sit down and relax.”

  Maybe she hadn’t screwed up. Relief relaxed her smile. “That’d be great.”

  After Harper helped her get the stroller down the steps, she stood there, feeling awkward, until Allison leaned in to give her a quick hug.

  “See you soon,” Allison whispered in her ear.

  A bond of friendship, as fragile as it still was, had formed between her and Allison over the short morning and she didn’t feel as alone. Or lonely.

  Instead of retreating to the empty house, she sat in one of the rockers on the porch. The set had been a wedding gift from her mot
her. With her foot she made the other chair rock in tandem with hers, and imagined Noah, old but never gray, beside her.

  Chapter 11

  Present Day

  Harper tried to get a read on Bennett. Between the flickering firelight and his beard, she couldn’t interpret his expression.

  “Noah and I fought about me getting a job. And having kids. I was happy with Noah, but not so happy with my life in Virginia Beach. Things got better after Allison and I became friends. I volunteered with Meals on Wheels and with an adult literacy program. That gave me a purpose, I suppose.”

  “You didn’t want kids?”

  “No, I did, just not on the same timeline as Noah. I ended up giving in, though.”

  “You don’t seem the type to give in or give up. No offense.” His lips quirked into what qualified as a smile for him.

  How much to admit? “Every time your team deployed and came home safe, it was like cheating Fate. Like it was only a matter of time before something bad happened.”

  “I felt like that at the beginning of every mission, too.” His soft admission was threaded with understanding.

  “I tried to keep that pessimistic side of me hidden from Noah.”

  “Why?”

  “He wouldn’t have understood. He comes from a long line of happy, optimistic people. Eventually, I couldn’t stand myself. I was being selfish. A baby would make him happier than anything, and I wanted to make him happy more than anything.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  For the first time, she spoke the truth aloud. “Not anymore. Not after how everything turned out. I can’t imagine my life without Ben.”

  He flinched at the sound of her son’s name.

  “Does it bother you?” she asked.

  “What?” The wariness in his voice betrayed him.

  “That my son is named after you.”

  He shook his head and rolled to his back, throwing his arm over his eyes. His jawline was prominent and hard, his mouth pulled into a tight line. “Not bother. It humbles me. He was a good man. I did my best to protect him.” His voice had thickened. “It wasn’t enough.”