Life had become one incredibly long surreal day that just kept repeating itself.
“Is something wrong?”
Jumping so rapidly she hit her wrist on the granite countertop, Emily turned and stared at Winston.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she told him, noting his frown. They had a routine. She got into bed, and a few minutes later he came in. They either had the TV on or not. He’d turn his back and they’d go to sleep. Never touching under the covers. Ever. At all.
She’d broken the routine with the extra time she’d taken to stand there and look at herself.
He glanced at her wrist. “Is it okay?”
Flipping her hand back and forth, she showed him the wrist still worked. And then grabbed her nightgown. Pulling it over breasts that ached for his touch.
He’d looked at them—her breasts. When he’d first come in. She’d seen the surreptitious glance. Warmth was flooding her lower parts. Even now, after all of these weeks of stoicism. The fact both pleased and bothered her.
Because nothing was just one way or the other these days.
Nothing made sense.
And nothing was clear.
* * *
Emily standing nearly naked in the bathroom, looking at herself. For the next couple of days Winston couldn’t get that moment to leave him alone. He’d send it off and it came back. Again and again.
Her mom was in town, which made things easier for him. She didn’t see him as well as his own folks did. Didn’t look as hard, he figured. Mostly, he just had to act around her as he’d acted before Afghanistan and she was happy.
Keeping Emily’s mom happy was important to the plan.
Not that he’d been “acting” in the past. He’d been sincerely living what he’d believed to be true. But propriety had meant he couldn’t act on all his impulses and emotions back then. He couldn’t say whatever thoughts might occur to him—not when anyone else had been around. Or grab her up and kiss her. Haul her off to bed. Or out on an adventure. No, when others were around, he’d always had to filter. Figured most couples did.
Being removed was a way of life now. Real life. He just had to touch Emily when others were there, because they’d find it odd if he didn’t, which would create complications neither of them wanted or needed. Touching in front of others couldn’t lead to anything more as others were right there. So there was no threat to the plan in doing so.
But her staring at herself as she had...there was a threat there. He just couldn’t find it. What had been wrong? Had she been to the doctor? Heard some bad news?
Dear God, had she lost the baby? And not told him? Wouldn’t he notice something like that? She’d be in the hospital, right? Or lying in bed at home?
There’d been a girl in their high school who’d been said to have had a baby at home and come to school that same day. She hadn’t even told anyone she was pregnant. She’d been a big girl, but Winston had never quite believed the rumor. Emily had. Still...
They didn’t ever mention Emily’s child. At all. But he figured she was taking care of herself. And it. The child. Doing whatever she needed to be doing at that stage. Seeing the doctor. Eating what she’d been told to eat, not that he’d noticed any real change in her diet, other than the coffee.
He hadn’t seen her taking vitamins, either, though he remembered his sister-in-law, her brother’s ex-wife, complaining about the horse pills she had to get down every day. She’d complained about stretch marks, too. So maybe that was it? Emily had been checking for marks?
On Sunday after Emily’s mom left and before dinner, when Emily was doing a load of laundry, he quickly searched online for information about miscarriages. And found, as before, it could go any number of ways. A woman could have a miscarriage, not tell anyone and go on with her day. Almost like a monthly cycle, apparently, as early on as Emily was.
Or she could be hospitalized with hemorrhaging.
And there were many many scenarios in between.
How in the hell did one do this? Have a baby with any kind of strategy? The parameters were so broad there was no way to prepare for all eventualities.
He was still in a flux over the whole thing when he crawled into bed, as far from her as he could get, later that night. The television was on. Streaming an old sitcom rerun. He tried to focus only on it. To relax his muscles, one section of the body at a time, as he’d trained himself to do. To allow sleep to take him long enough to rejuvenate his assets.
He couldn’t do that until her breathing settled. It was wrong for him to go to sleep if she was bothered enough to stay awake. He was there to help her get through this, to find the new reality, and then be able to find her happiness. One thing was certain for Winston: he didn’t sleep on the job.
“Is everything okay? Physically?” His voice reverberated with the force of a gunshot to him, breaking the silence as it did. Talking in bed wasn’t part of their current procedure.
There’d been something displeased about the way she’d been looking at her belly—not that he saw anything distressing there. A little bit of shape, firm, gorgeous as it had always been.
“Physically?” She turned her head to look at him, her long blond hair a halo around her pillow, framing her face with the TV casting light and dark shadows over her. He couldn’t make out the blue of her eyes, but recognized the way they’d just softened.
Off course. Off course. Off course.
“With the...child you’re carrying,” he quickly veered back. Finding the whole situation too damned awkward. What did he call it? Pregnancy seemed too...personal...though he couldn’t say why. And baby... Yeah, everything about that gave him the cold sweats. Add the “our” to it that he feared she was doing in her own mind, and he would be out of bed and on his way to San Diego on foot in his pajamas.
She blinked but didn’t turn away. “Yes,” she said, a little smile forming on her lips. “It’s great, actually. Dr. Miller says that so far, we’re perfect.” She met his gaze...that look back again, only different, too. Something new—even for the old “them.” “Our first ultrasound is in a couple of weeks. If the baby’s presenting right, we’ll know if we’re having a boy or a girl. You’re welcome to come along if you’d like.” She named the date and time. A Wednesday, more than a week away.
He thought about it. Because a soldier needed all bases covered, a leader needed to gather as many firsthand facts as possible, and a protector had to understand the risks.
Then he pictured himself standing in a small examination room with Emily lying on the table.
“Technology has improved so much,” she said softly. “You can really make things out a lot more clearly now than you used to be able to do.”
As in, a small arm, or leg, as opposed to a blob on a screen?
He turned over, giving her his back.
“Winston? I’d like you to come.”
Oh God. What was a man supposed to do when being decent just didn’t seem to be working?
“I’ll see what I can do,” he told her. Honesty was all he had.
And he honestly couldn’t envision a time when he’d be standing in that room, with Emily on the table, looking at that screen. There was absolutely no contingency for such an action.
In spite of the meeting he had at the base the next morning—discussing intel, giving his opinion as to possible reaction against potential strategies, just based on what he’d seen and heard—he lay awake a long time, pondering action items. Seeking internal approval or rejection. He’d mentally given their current situation three months and had no way of knowing if they would be enough.
Emily was changing...he could see it in little ways. The calm that sometimes replaced her usual positive outlook. Fewer tears. The way she gave him room when he passed her, making sure they didn’t touch.
The way she never looked at him when others were around and they
did touch.
Her ability to fall into a completely platonic routine with him.
She was getting it. He was sure of it.
Until she’d looked at him in bed that night. Was she just camouflaging for his sake? Exhibiting more of that unending patience she’d always had? Hiding her inexhaustible hope on his behalf?
Time was doing one helluva lousy job taking care of things.
Eventually, with the television still droning softly in the distance, he fell asleep. But awoke again, instantly awake, some time later. Because of the TV? He reached for the remote on the headboard. Clicked off the TV before his eyes were fully open, and froze. The movement, he now realized had awoken him, was a problem. A big problem.
He was in bed with Emily. And hard as a rock.
He’d been dreaming. Rubbing whipped cream on Emily’s belly so that it didn’t get stretch marks. Or something.
So far, he’d mastered mind-over-body with precision, preventing himself from reacting sexually when he was close to her. The ease with which he’d completed the task had actually been a blessing.
And now his mind was turning traitor on him?
That was a complication he did not need.
Chapter Thirteen
It was the little things. Her mother had always told her, pay attention to the little things and usually the bigger ones would fall into place.
She was trying. God, she was trying.
She’d spend the rest of her life with the current version of Winston, if that was all that was left of the man she loved, but it was taking its toll.
Not nearly the toll he’d paid, though, losing two years of his life in the Afghan desert. Still, as almost another week passed and the ultrasound loomed only five days away, she drove home Friday knowing that something had to give—at least a little. Either her hope or his reticence. They were facing the first weekend home alone since his return. And they hadn’t even discussed what those two days might look like.
Would he be going to the base? Doing whatever he did there, besides working out? And it wasn’t like he’d even told her he was doing that. She’d seen him carry his gym bag into the house and throw the clothes in the washer. His uniforms, he took to the cleaners. The rest of his clothes she’d washed with hers just as she always had.
She was trying so hard not to push him, but dang, nothing seemed to be changing. They were living in a stagnant unrealistic world that wasn’t going to be a healthy environment in which to bring a baby.
If only she’d waited a couple of weeks to have herself inseminated. While in the beginning, she’d thought the timing to be the universe taking care of them, she was edging more toward darker thoughts these days—finding the timing almost cruel.
For everyone.
Winston’s car was already in the garage when she pulled in, ready for, if not a showdown, at least some kind of meaningful conversation.
And at the very least, to find out once and for all if her baby’s father would be accompanying her to the ultrasound five days hence.
Letting herself into the kitchen with a strong reminder to herself not to push, but to maybe gently lead a little, she was surprised by the stillness. No dinner cooking. Not even any lights on.
Setting her bag and keys down quietly, she slipped out of her heels and proceeded quietly into the rest of the house, looking for her husband.
Had he fallen asleep?
Or God forbid, just fallen? Hurt himself?
Rustling drew her down the hall and toward their office. Nearing the door, she could see that the light was on. Heard papers shuffling. And then, total silence.
She rounded the corner of the doorway, mouth open on its way to “hello” with perhaps a “how was your day?” attached, and she stopped. Winston was sitting in his chair, turned sideways at his desk, the bottom drawer open, a green hanging file folder sitting next to the stapler not far from his left biceps. Another folder, mostly empty, sat next to the green one.
She noticed because she recognized them—or rather, the markings on the manila one. It was the one in which he’d kept all of the cards she’d given him, notes she’d written that he’d saved for one reason or another, even a few ticket stubs.
Winston’s head was down, chin against his chest, his hands against his skull. Her gaze fell to the box between his feet. She recognized the card on top. She’d given it to him the night they were married, but had actually written the page glued inside the day she’d met him. At fourteen she’d just known.
He’d always been as into her as she was him. He’d brought up marriage at fifteen. Talking about their future as though it was a done deal and they’d always be together.
But it wasn’t until their wedding night, when he’d read her card, that he’d admitted to her that he’d known, too. That he’d told his mom, the day he’d met her, that he’d met the girl he was going to marry.
He wasn’t moving, just sitting there holding his head, that box at his feet.
Was his head hurting? Was he having some kind of breakdown? Or, dare she hope, a breakthrough?
“Winston?” She spoke softly, not sure how to handle the situation. What was best for him. But leaving him like that wasn’t an option.
He sat up instantly, his gaze clear, as sharp as always, the second he looked at her.
“Yeah?”
“Your head...is it hurting?” She glanced at the box again and then wished she hadn’t. It sat there, an unspeakable wall between them.
“No. I’m fine.”
He was not. He just wasn’t. And she couldn’t take another one of his empty platitudes. They were keeping them locked in a place that went nowhere. Ever.
Her card was in a box on top of a pile that she knew was everything else she’d given him that he’d kept. Except for maybe the one or two things still causing a slight bulge in the folder on his desk. Because he’d chosen to keep them?
And if so, what were they?
Or just because she’d interrupted before he’d completed his task?
The wedding night card was on top. He’d been holding his head.
That meant something.
Desperate as she was, she couldn’t let it go.
“Winston, I saw you. You weren’t fine. A fine guy doesn’t put his chin to his chest and hold his head. He just doesn’t.”
He stared at her, silent as always.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” She might have fallen on her knees in front of him if not for that box in the way. He was hurting. She knew he was. He had to be.
“I do talk to you.”
“You said you’d be honest if I asked a question,” she remembered, fighting for their lives now.
“That’s right.”
“So why were you all bent over, holding your head in your hands?”
“I was trying to think.”
The words said nothing. And yet they felt important enough that everything in her slowed. Focused. Was he, contrary to what he was telling everyone, having memory problems?
“About what?”
“How to get us out of this entanglement and get you happy.”
He wanted her happy. Relief was like fine wine, making her feel bubbly inside. Her Winston was still there. Caring.
“By entanglement, do you mean the current situation? Where we’re having to wait for time to help us heal?”
He shrugged.
Or did he mean entanglement as in marriage? She’d been trying for almost two months to keep his divorce comment at bay. To not let it play with her.
And yet there it was. Front and center.
She couldn’t voice it. Wouldn’t give whatever evil had a hold of him that much credit. Or let it know how much she was growing to fear it.
“Did you come up with any ideas?” she asked, trying not to stare at that box. And needing to
know what he’d been planning to do with his things.
“No,” he said, his voice sounding almost deflated. “I’m sorry, Emily. I... The way isn’t clear. Or easy.”
She did fall to her knees then. Right at his feet. “I think that’s the job of the ‘giving it time’ part of this,” she told him. “Sometimes you just have to take it day by day and wait for clarity to present itself. Trust that it will.”
Lifting a hand, almost as though he was going to run it through her hair, he let it fall to the top of the folder on his desk. “Is that what you’re doing? Waiting for clarity?”
“I’m trusting, Winston, that’s what I’m doing.” But even as she said the words, another shard of fear shot through her.
What was she trusting? Him? Them? Two months ago, there wouldn’t have been a question. But now... Was she still trusting in them, or really just trusting that clarity would come?
Because if what she was trusting was that answers would become clear, there was no guarantee that those answers would contain any way for them to find each other again.
She still wasn’t going to consider divorce. Not unless he just went out and did it without her. But the idea of living the rest of their lives in this endless emotional void...
And with a child coming. Could she, in any fairness, do that?
Thinking of the Winston their folks had been seeing these past weeks, she actually entertained the thought that they could pull it off. Stay together, as things were, and raise a child in a loving environment.
Assuming, of course, that Winston was going to take some ownership of his child—that he’d be willing to put up that facade all the time instead of just on weekends. At the moment that assumption felt kind of like counting on the lottery to pay her bills.
But she was discounting time. And the miracle of unconditional love children brought into the world with them.
She glanced down at the box. “What’s up with this stuff?”
He knew she knew what it was. At least there was still enough understanding between them for her to be certain of that now.
Having the Soldier's Baby Page 10