He had tested himself with curtain colors and the closet door last night, but now those victories seemed more like easily rectified props than evidence of a solidity. Shit, even a thought like that made him feel his loose hold on sanity might be slipping away. He simply couldn’t break from the force that pulled him to some sort of connection with Sergeant Casey Stillman, young leader of Marines.
“Jack?” He startled back to reality to the sound of a tap on the window of the grey Volvo. No, green—his Volvo was green.
Jack looked up to see Pam standing by the car, her arms crossed for warmth. The sun had nearly set, the last haze of autumn pink fading rapidly. He realized the Volvo was still running.
Kenny sang gently on the radio, reminding Jack that there were songs that took him to other places. He grimaced and shut off the ignition and opened the door, grabbing his briefcase.
“What’s wrong, Jack? I was calling you from the porch.” Pam grabbed Jack by the arm as they walked towards the house. “You’ve been out here for fifteen minutes, baby.”
Jack patted her cold hand.
“Sorry, honey. Really weird day at work. I was just trying to sort things out in my head I guess.”
“Well, you can tell me about it over dinner. It’s getting cold.” They walked into the house where Jack was met with the comfort of warmth and the smell of food. His stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast—the nearly puked burger bite not counting really.
“Claire is sleeping already. She didn’t really nap today and I think she might have a little bug. She was a little fussy all day.”
Pam continued on, telling Jack about her day, but he was having trouble concentrating. The grumbling in his stomach grew rapidly, and he felt himself salivate at the smell of a home-cooked meal.
Better than cold MREs behind a sand berm in the dark, that’s for fuckin’ sure.
Jack ate, nodding and asking questions at the appropriate times, guilty that he had no idea what his wife was talking about. His mind dissected the events of the day and the feelings that he couldn’t quite shake. He also debated just how much to tell Pam about his bizarre feelings and his fears about losing his marbles.
“Jack?”
“Huh?” Jack looked up from his nearly empty second plate of ham, mac and cheese, and green beans.
“I said tell me what is up with you today. I’m really worried about you, baby.”
“Just that damn nightmare, sweetheart. It haunted me all day long. I just can’t shake it.” He felt a pang of guilt for not sharing his deeper fears and haunting thoughts with the woman who shared his life.
Pam rose from her seat and sat on her husband’s lap. Jack wrapped his arms around her as she caressed his face. Pam kissed him.
“It’s just an awful dream, Jack. You’re such a sensitive man.” She kissed his throat and Jack closed his eyes. “It’s just a terrible nightmare in response to the horrible things going on over there. Now,” she licked lightly on his earlobe, her breath warm and sexy on his neck. Her voice fell to a whisper. “How can I take your mind off of it?”
Jack felt her hands unbuttoning his shirt as she kissed him deeply this time. His body responded and he kissed her back, his own hands running over her skin. Then she stood up and pulled him by the hand towards the stairs.
They made love slowly, passionately. Her touch was warm and gentle, and Jack felt all of his anxiety disappear into oblivion. He lost himself in the wonderful—and more importantly, familiar—feel of his wife’s body moving against his. He felt right for the first time since the dream.
Afterwards he checked on Claire. He watched her sleep for several minutes before he picked her up gently. They sat in the glide rocker beside her bed and he rocked her slowly as she slept on his bare chest. The feel of her little hands on his shoulder, the sound of her slow and gentle breathing, comforted him as much as his embrace seemed to soothe her. His heart was so full of love for her that he thought it might burst. After she settled again into a deep sleep, he placed her softly back in her crib. His big girl. Soon she would be ready for a toddler bed. He kissed her lightly on her warm cheek. He stroked her red hair and then pulled her yellow Pooh Bear blanket up over her shoulders.
“Love you, Bear,” he whispered.
As he crawled into bed, Pam propped herself up on one elbow and stroked his hair, the sheet falling off her bare shoulder.
“She’s fine,” Jack said. “Sleeping.”
He wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and kissed her.
“Good,” she said, her hand finding her way between them and pulling at the drawstring of his pajama bottoms. She leaned in and kissed him deeply again.
They made love again, more urgently this time. Then they fell asleep, wrapped around each other, legs entwined. Jack felt completely at peace. As he slipped into sleep he wondered how he could ever have doubted this reality.
Chapter
4
Jack woke up refreshed and content. Light streamed in through the two large windows, framed by yellow curtains.
Blue and yellow curtains—of course.
He chuckled, then stretched and yawned, squeezed his eyes shut, and reached behind and above him for the reading lamp mounted in the wall. He smelled fresh coffee and heard the chattering of his daughter and wife from downstairs. Jack lay in bed, reliving the passion and comfort from the night before. Yesterday now seemed like nothing more than a bad dream, the anxiety alien and far away. He heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Pam come through the door holding a large mug of coffee in her hand. Claire rested on her other hip.
“Morning, my delicious man! Thought you might sleep all day,” his wife chided. She looked radiant, gorgeous in the short-cut silk robe he had gotten for her in Okinawa…or…no? Whatever. It didn’t matter. She was beautiful and twice as attractive with his little girl in her arms.
Pam set the mug of coffee beside him on the nightstand, sat on the edge of the bed, and put down Claire, who scurried up and onto his chest. She lay there, resting on outstretched arms, smiling.
“Daddy!” she said clear as a bell.
“Hey there, little buddy,” Jack answered, leaning forward and kissing her on her chubby cheeks. She giggled the musical giggle that only comes from happy children. The sound was rich in his ears.
“Kisses, Daddy. Kisses!” She plopped down on his chest, her soft hands grabbing his neck. She kissed his mouth with a loud and exaggerated, “MMMMMM MMAAAAA!”
“Tickle bear!” Jack exclaimed and tickled his little girl lightly. He was rewarded with another wonderful, tinkling giggle.
“What time is it?” Jack asked, looking over at his wife and placing a hand on her bare left knee.
“Ten thirty, Rip Van Winkle. Didn’t mean to wear you out, old man.”
“Oh, shit. I’m late!” Jack exclaimed. He wrapped his arms around Claire and sat up in bed. “I mean shoot,” he reminded himself sheepishly and placed his hands over Claire’s ears playfully.
“Relax, my absent-minded professor,” Pam said. She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Saturday, big boy.”
Jack lay back down and rolled on his side, sliding Claire onto the bed beside him and tickling her again.
“Tickles, Daddy, tickles!” she giggled up at him, with her big blue eyes.
Pam picked up Claire and placed her on the other side of Jack. Then she crawled up beside her in the bed. She leaned across their little girl and kissed Jack on the cheek. Between them, Claire cooed.
“Kisses, Mommy!”
Pam kissed her forehead and smoothed the curls of red hair with her fingers.
“Two nights a week like last night and I may just renew your contract, stud boy.” She winked at him seductively, and Jack grinned an adolescent grin.
“Maybe I’ll give you a down payment this afternoon during nap time in exchange for an off‐season bonus.”
“Deal!” she laughed and wrapped her arms around both of them.
“Hugs,
Mommy!”
“Hugs, Claire Bear,” Pam agreed, leaning her forehead against her daughter’s and rubbing noses in an Eskimo kiss. “Your Daddy is an insatiable animal!”
“Amimimal,” Claire repeated.
Jack reached for his coffee on the nightstand, propping his head against the headboard and taking a cautious sip. The liquid was hot and sweet, and Jack wrinkled his nose.
“Uuuhhh. What’s in this brew?” he asked.
“French vanilla creamer and one sugar, Jack. Just like you drink it every morning.”
Jack wrinkled his forehead, confused.
“I don’t drink it black?”
Pam laughed and rolled her eyes again. “No, Jack. Not in the seven years I’ve been with you.”
“Huh,” Jack replied, sipping his coffee again. Not bad, actually.
Pam gathered up her daughter and slid off the bed, pulling her robe around her briefly exposed hip as she did.
“Up ya’ go, baby. Let’s have some coffee cake and get on with our family day.”
They listened to some jazz and nibbled coffee cake in the living room while Claire crawled around, exploring the myriad of toys strewn about the room. The jazz was part of the Pam Parenting Plan, meant to stimulate their daughter’s ear for music and make her more creative. Jack remembered fondly how Pam had rested a handheld tape recorder on her belly during her last few months of pregnancy, playing jazz and Mozart and Handel, stimulating Claire and expanding her creative juices even in the womb.
She had read about it in one of the dozens and dozens of parenting magazines she had devoured during pregnancy. Pam seemed to love being pregnant, almost as much as she loved being a mom. In the rack between the TV and stereo was a complete collection of the Baby Einstein series DVDs. Included in their collection were Baby Mozart and Baby Beethoven, which combined music with lights and colors, fun animals and toys. Some had poetry instead of music, or word games. They really did seem to stimulate Claire, as she would sit enthralled in front of the TV, rocking to the music and delighting at the animals and colors.
Jack chatted easily with Pam, the way all happy couples do, he imagined. They talked about a mix of nothing and the serious; the soft familiarity of it was comforting. He talked to her about starting an educational IRA for Claire to plan for her college. Jack agreed they should plan now, but he hated to think about anything that implied Claire might actually grow up or, worse, someday go away. He wanted her to stay just as she was right now forever, safe and happy in their loving home. He remembered feeling that way about almost every stage of her development, and then always being delighted that the next stage seemed even better.
After some time at the community party and another bout of lovemaking, Jack worked on lesson plans for the coming week—more cell development, which he outlined from The Living Cell, an old text from college. Pam and Claire read books and played in the living room, occasionally coming upstairs to the study to say “Hi” to Daddy. When Jack came down, they were just finishing up a video on colors and numbers. Jack picked up his daughter and hugged her. She gave his nose a tug.
“Whatcha’ thinkin’ about for dinner, baby? My night if you like,” Jack said, as he helped his wife up from the floor.
“How about pizza from Dominick’s? Maybe you could get us a movie while you’re out?”
That sounded perfect. Jack called in an order for white pizza with chicken and artichokes (he could live without the artichokes but Pam loved them), and then grabbed his jacket, kissing both of his girls on his way out.
Blockbuster Video was a chore that Jack loathed. Too many choices for one thing, and usually he would wander about, indecisive, until he finally settled on a title which inevitably would be out. He had tried the Red Box but the only thing worse than shopping through aisles and aisles of movies, was scrolling through them on the little TV screen. At Blockbuster, he fought that by sticking to the new releases so that he could lessen the frustration somewhat; but nonetheless he still wound up watching the fascinating parade of people who passed by him, picked up three movies in two minutes, and then headed to the check out. Bastards!
Tonight would be easy. He had decided to treat Pam to her favorite genre (with titles he found annoying, though in the end he generally enjoyed the films): romantic comedy. Since he knew nothing of these films, the selection became practically random and thus fairly effortless. Jack parked around the corner (the throngs who found exciting titles in seconds also had a confounding way of finding all the up-front parking spots) and walked through the glass doors into the painfully bright, fluorescent light and marquis posters found in every video store in the world. He headed straight to the back, aiming for the hanging sign Romantic Comedy, which was suspended over two rows of shelves.
An image from a video cover, only half registered and caught out of the corner of his eye, pulled him off course.
The shelves labeled War Films were twice as long as and much fuller than those for Romantic Comedy. Jack figured that the fascination with war was as ancient as mankind itself. It seemed to him that man had written about the wartime experience with a passion beyond that reserved even for love. In fact, some of the greatest love stories of all time seemed to tie the plot to a backdrop of war. Probably even the hunched apemen, who took rock and stick to wall to create cave drawings, spent a great deal of time chronicling terrific battles between man and beast—and all too often, other men.
Jack found himself absent-mindedly wandering down the aisle between shelves packed with volumes and volumes of war films. His eyes drifted slowly over the pictures on the case covers—men battling enemies, guns blazing, flames surrounding them. The men on the covers were grimacing and gripping weapons with amazing strength.
Not at all what it’s like, he thought. Not at all.
Jack picked up Blackhawk Down and flipped it over, looking at the pictures on the back. He was staring solemnly at terrible scenes of destruction, a tear running down his cheek, when a woman’s voice caused him to start. Suddenly his pulse began racing and his mouth turned dry.
“Casey! Casey!”
The blood drained out of his face, and he felt the room pulling in on him. He heard the clattering sound of the video which slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.
A woman moved quickly down the aisle towards him, calling out his name. He was about to answer when something bumped into his leg. He jumped back and nearly stumbled into the video rack, looking down in terror—where all he saw was a boy, perhaps four or five years old. The boy looked up and grinned, and then maneuvered around him. But by then the woman had knelt beside him and grabbed the boy by his hand.
“Casey, shame on you! You know not to run off from Mommy.” She looked up at Jack. “I am so sorry.”
Then she stood up and turned away, dragging the giggling boy behind her.
“You stay right here beside me, young man. No more horseplay!”
Jack steadied himself with one hand on the video shelf. The color returned to his face and his pulse slowed. He looked at his other, outstretched hand, which he saw had a wicked tremor. He clenched the hand tightly into a fist and closed his eyes.
No!
He would not let this ridiculous nightmare come back to him. He would not give up Saturday, his Family Day, for this insanity. It was a nightmare. Nothing more. Jack decided that his unhealthy obsession with it, and the war, could only be rectified by him. He picked up the video at his feet and replaced it on the shelf, angry and disgusted with himself. He then quick-paced down the aisle towards the Romantic Comedy shelves.
“I am getting a video and heading home to my family,” he said firmly, barely aware that he had spoken out loud. Jack felt the stares of several people who no doubt looked at him the way you might look at the disheveled man on the street corner holding a sign announcing the apocalypse and muttering to invisible colleagues. Jack ignored them and scanned the titles briefly, and then grabbed two videos off the shelf without reading them. More random than he had
intended, but he marched to the register, paid, and then walked purposefully out of the store.
Jack drove home slowly, determined to work through the ridiculous coincidence from the Blockbuster before settling in with Pam. He stopped on the way and picked up their pizza, even managing a genuine smile when he paid. By the time he pulled into the driveway the time and the smell of pizza worked together with the anticipation of a relaxing evening to push the fear and uncertainty almost completely out of his mind.
I have to decide to let this obsessive shit go.
He said nothing of his anxiety attack (as he had decided to name it on the drive home) and mostly succeeded at putting it out of his mind by the time he and Pam curled up under the couch blanket. They munched on pizza (which Jack casually thinned of artichokes) and watched the video Pam had selected from the two choices. It wasn’t bad, actually. Yet another boy-meets-girl-blows-it-and-has-to-win-her-back-again vehicle starring one of the guys from Friends and some hot, but unknown, woman star wannabe. He actually laughed out loud more than once. And when the credits rolled, he was again relaxed and happy. He smiled to find that Pam had fallen asleep (as she almost always did at movies on the couch, a constant source of teasing from Jack), so he covered her up with the blanket. He cleaned up the kitchen, woke her gently, and checked on Claire while Pam “readied for bed,” whatever that meant. Whatever it entailed was more involved than a leak and a quick brushing of the teeth, which Jack still accomplished in time to slip under the covers before his wife.
They held each other gently and swore their love, then he clicked off the light. They both fell asleep before a few minutes had passed. As he slipped into the comfort of sleep Jack felt content, but unsettled, like something might be waiting for him, just on the other side of sleep.
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