Come Back To Me

by Melissa Foster

  “Hey, sugar, how’re you holding up?”

  Her southern drawl pulled him back to the moment. “Hi,” he said, lowering himself into his seat.

  “I hear you’re a proud papa now. Congratulations.” She checked Tess’s vital signs, humming. “What’re you going to name that sweet little treasure of yours?”

  Beau shrugged.

  “You’re gonna wait and see what Mama says, are you?” She tucked Tess’s blanket around her body. “Well, I think that’s mighty nice. Give her something to wake up for.”

  “Do you think she can hear me?” Beau asked.

  “I’d like to think so. I’ve seen some miraculous things happen in my day.” She walked toward the door then turned back around. “Talk to her, sweetie. She needs you as much as you need her.”

  ***

  Beau sat in the chair for a long time, staring at Tess, the sunshine streamed across Tess’s chest. He’d worked so hard to come back home to her, and now, he wasn’t sure he could ever look at her the same way. How could she have thrown away their relationship so quickly? How could she have slept with another guy so soon after he’d left the country? The veins in Beau’s neck bulged. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

  Beau’s thoughts turned to Iraq, the day he’d awakened in the tent with Suha caring for him. He hadn’t known where he was or who she was. There had been only one thought on his mind: Getting back to Tess. He remembered Samira watching him from across the tent and Edham clinging to his hand as they took their daily therapeutic walks. He heard Athra’s piercing scream when she was ripped from Samira’s arms. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

  He looked at Tess’s broken, bandaged body with fresh tears in his eyes.

  “What have I done?” he asked. “I’ve ruined our lives. I can’t live without you.” He clenched his teeth, “But I can’t,” he pushed back from her, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “I can’t even look at you without seeing him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Samira leaned against the cool cinderblock wall of the army barrack where she and the children had stayed the night before. Her stomach growled. She wished she’d eaten more of the hearty meal they’d fed them the evening before, but she’d been too nervous. The children had been famished. She’d thought Zeid and Edham would be up for hours with bellyaches, but they’d slept right through the night. Only Athra had awakened several times, crying and reaching out for Samira.

  Samira lifted the shade, bringing sun across the children’s cots. She knelt in the center of the small room, her knees pressed against the concrete floor. She bent forward and prayed. She prayed for Suha, who had not been washed and wrapped in a clean, white cloth by a loving family member. She hadn’t been buried after a special prayer had been said in her honor. She hadn’t been buried the same day. Samira prayed that the absence of those acts would not disgrace her in her afterlife.

  Edham knelt next to Samira, his hands clasped together. He rocked in time with his mother. When her body slowed, he spoke. “I miss Mr. Beau, Mother.” His long dark lashes blinked rapidly, awaiting an assurance that was not to come.

  Zeid stared at him from the edge of the cot where he sat.

  Samira leaned back on her heels and ran her fingers through the bush of hair just above Edham’s right ear. She kissed his cheek.

  “I am glad to be without him,” Zeid’s cutting words pierced Edham like a spear.

  Edham jumped to his feet and ran shoulder first into his brother’s chest, propelling him backward with a howl of anger. He punched his brother’s ribs over and over again.

  Samira grabbed him from behind, “Edham! Release him!”

  Tears streamed from Edham’s eyes, his heart pounded, his arms hammered Zeid’s chest with such speed and force that he feared he would not be able to stop.

  Zeid pushed at Edham’s chest. “Get off!”

  “You are just like Father! I hate you! I hate you!” Edham yelled. “I love Mr. Beau!”

  Samira yanked Edham’s right arm so hard it startled Edham out of his hate-driven reverie. He spun and stared at her, his lower lip quivering. He collapsed into her arms, sobbing and panting until his sobs became hiccups.

  “He’s crazy, Mother,” Zeid wrapped his reddened arms around his knees and pushed back toward the wall.

  Samira stroked Edham’s back, holding him against her chest, “Calm, Edham. We’re all scared.” She shushed Zeid before any more words could escape his mouth, staring at him with remorse in her eyes.

  Athra crawled up onto the cot, her thumb jammed into her mouth, and sat next to Zeid, her wide eyes flitted from Zeid to her mother, then back again.

  A knock at the door shot three sets of worried eyes in Samira’s direction. She gently led Edham to the other cot. “They heard us,” she scolded. She wished Suha were there. Fear swelled in her chest. She held up a trembling hand, palm facing the children, signaling them to stay put. She covered her head with her hijab and reached her other hand toward the door handle. Her slim fingers wrapped around the cold metal. The lock sprang open. Samira pulled the door open an inch and peered into the hall. A man in uniform stood with a tall, dark-haired man. Samira dropped her eyes. The man’s pressed trousers lay perfectly above his shiny black designer shoes. His dark skin and thick dark hair were comfortably familiar.

  The man lowered his eyes and gave a slight bow. “Ms. Samira?” His voice was calm and low.

  Samira’s eyes filled with fear. She peered out from behind the door.

  “I am Mr. Fulan. Beau Johnson asked me to come.” Hearing her native language in conjunction with Beau’s name sent a chill of relief through her body. She took a loud deep breath and glanced back into the room, where Athra huddled between Edham and Zeid, and for the first time in many years, she knew they were going to be okay.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Beau paced outside the entrance to the hospital emergency room, favoring his left leg and sweating, despite the cool air. His hands reflexively clenched and unclenched. He’d never allowed himself to think about what Tess might do if she’d believed he was dead. He’d never gotten past the thought of coming home. Tess has a boyfriend. He reached up and rubbed the ache in his arm. He’d calculated and recalculated at least one hundred times—he’d been gone for almost twenty-eight weeks. There was no way the baby was his. He sank down onto a bench, grasping the sides of his head.

  “There you are,” Alice said, exasperated.

  Beau flinched at the sound of Alice’s voice.

  “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  Beau stood and backed away.

  “Beau? She’s okay, they stabilized her,” Alice misread his distress.

  Beau turned his back and mumbled, “Get away from me.”

  Alice, unable to hear him clearly, approached.

  Beau spun around and seethed, “Get the hell away from me.”

  She stiffened, her jaw slack.

  Beau brushed past her and stormed into the hospital, taking the elevator up to the NICU.

  Beau’s anger renewed with each Ding! of the elevator announcing the floors between the lobby and the NICU. By the time the doors opened into the NICU, his jaw was clenched so tight his temples throbbed. He stepped out of the elevator and into the bright hallway, squinting to the left where the babies were kept behind an enormous window. Louie stood with his back to the elevators, his forehead resting against the window. Next to him, Carol was enveloped by Robert’s embrace. She looked up at Robert, said something, then raised a tissue to her face. Beau’s throat thickened, the veins in his forehead ached. He stepped backward into the elevator and watched the doors close, remaining unseen by the others.

  ***

  The cabbie pulled up in front of the small yellow house. Tess’s mangled car had been removed, traces of glass and splinters of metal lay beneath the injured willow. Beau stared at the traumatized tree as if in a trance. He felt his anger—and perhaps his life—being sucked from him, one image at a time.
r />   “This it, buddy?”

  Beau nodded, paid the cab driver, then pushed himself out of the vehicle. He stood on the front walk until he was sure his legs would not fail him, then dragged himself to the shed in the backyard where he retrieved the spare key to the house.

  Beau stood in the foyer, disturbed by the unfamiliar smell of his home. He set the keys on the table next to the door and closed the door behind him. Silence permeated the house like an unwanted visitor.

  The coziness of the home he’d left had been obliterated. He opened the foyer closet to grab the zip-up sweatshirt he’d kept there and was startled to see only Tess’s blue windbreaker and winter coat. He walked past the coffee table in the living room, once littered with photography magazines and snapshots, now bare. The den looked like one in a model home, stripped of all personal effects. He sat in the leather chair, inhaling deeply. His lips curled up at the ends. At least his chair still smelled familiar. He ran his thick fingers along the edge of the desk, exhaling in a way that said, This is more like it. This is home. He opened the top desk drawer—then quickly shut it. He pulled the other drawers open, one by one—all empty.

  Beau bounded up the stairs two at a time. He threw the bedroom closet open. “What the—”

  He ripped open his empty bureau drawers, sending them crashing to the floor. Beau sank down onto the bed, burying his face in his hands. He’d been erased from Tess’s life, and it cut him like an ice pick to the heart. He ignored the ringing of the house phone. He clenched his eyes shut and rocked back and forth, unable to cry and wishing he could.

  “What the fuck,” he mumbled.

  The phone rang incessantly.

  The muscles in Beau’s arms flexed. He crossed the bedroom in two steps, yanked the phone cord from the wall and threw the phone, sending shards of plastic across the bedroom floor. He pushed Tess’s books and perfume off the bedside table with one swipe of his arm, then ripped her closet doors open and tore out every piece of clothing, hurling them across the room. Panting like a wrestler after a brawl, he stomped downstairs, grabbed his car keys, and burned rubber out of the driveway, hoping someone would hit his car and wrap him around a tree.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The purple bruises had deepened and begun yellowing across Tess’s jaw, tugging at Beau’s heart. He stood in the shadows of the room, every fiber of his being pulling him toward her. The rage in his chest stopped him. She’d abandoned him. Beau wrung his hands together. His head throbbed, and his shoulders ached. The pain in his leg had become an angry reminder of all that was bad in his life. He punched his thigh, wincing at the pain. His eyes darted around the cold room bouncing from the sterile flooring, to the white walls, and settling on the medical equipment standing sentry at her bedside. His heart raced. He didn’t know whether to ravage her room or climb into the bed like a needy child. He was stuck in a middle ground that was neither safe nor sane.

  Tess’s chest rose with each aided breath. Wake up, he silently urged her. Tell me I have it all wrong, he pleaded. He hoped for a flutter of her eyelids, for her finger to twitch, some mystical sign that she’d heard him, that she knew he needed her. Even the air in her room remained still.

  Beau crossed the room out of the shadows and into the streak of light from the monitors. He hovered above her. The longing to touch Tess’s skin was so strong, he could almost feel her softness on his fingertips. He reached for her, then pulled his hand back slowly, holding it under the bicep of his other arm, as if his hand had a mind of its own and might betray his anger. The hand won. He ran a trembling finger along her skin, shivering with the soft familiarity of it.

  He took the photo of Tess that he’d carried with him in Iraq out of his pocket and laid it on her stomach, watching it rise and fall. Tears filled his eyes. He closed his eyes and breathed in the antiseptic smell of the room, his teeth grinding against each other. His hand squeezed Tess’s arm until he felt the sharpness of her bone press against his palm. He released her, leaving an indented white streak where each finger had laid and a twinge in his wrist. The lump in his pocket silently beckoned, pressing against his thigh. Beau shoved his hand deep into his pocket, making a fist around the circular memory.

  “How could you do it?” he fumed. He withdrew the watch, raising it to his forehead and imprinting the cold engraving into his mind, his eyes clenched shut. Thoughts of Tess and Louie assaulted him. His stomach burned, bile rose in his throat. Beau bit the acrid taste of hatred that grew within him, a guttural sound pushed from his lips. He lowered his fists and stared at Tess’s battered body, steeling himself against the guilt that drew his shoulders down. He wiped his hand up and down his face, forcing the tears to stop. He shoved the pocket watch under the edge of the blanket.

  “Hey there, sugar,” the cheerfulness of the southern nurse’s greeting was in sharp contrast to the storm brewing within Beau.

  He pushed past her, muttering under his breath, “I should’ve never come back.”

  ***

  The hall was suspiciously quiet. Beau’s gait was stiff, threatening, every footstep determined. The nurse looked up as he neared the desk. He lifted his eyes above her gaze, set his jaw. The nurse answered the telephone as Beau passed the desk.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll check.”

  Beau slowed, peering over his shoulder as the nurse left her station for the supply room. His eyes bounced wildly down the empty hallway, settling on three pill bottles left next to the nurse’s computer. Beau’s nostrils flared, his heart raced. Those pills, any pills, would do the trick. He pushed forward, reached a sweaty hand over the counter, pocketing the pills, and spinning toward the exit. A nurse exited a patient room, smiled at Beau. Beau looked down at the floor, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he pushed through the doors and into the corridor. He took the stairs two at a time to the ground floor.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The lights in Tess’s room had been turned down, barely lighter than the darkness of night outside the shaded window. Alice sat rigid, her eyes downcast, Tess’s hand in her own. “Do you think she can hear us?” She turned to face Kevin. “I’m glad they let us both come in this time, but I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.”

  Kevin shrugged, the bags under his eyes pronounced, his lips set in a hard line.

  The grooves between Tess’s eyes had faded, leaving her skin smooth, an attribute that had been missing since Beau had left for Iraq. Her almost translucent skin sent a shiver down Alice’s back. She cleared her throat in an effort to stifle the sobs that had lodged in her throat.

  “I couldn’t take another second with Beau’s mom,” Alice whispered. “She’s a doll, but it’s just so sad. What the hell is Beau thinking? Where is he?”

  Kevin shrugged again. He knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, and he was in no shape to make one up. His best friend had returned from the dead only to abandon his wife and child. Kevin sighed, slumped into a chair.

  “Do you think they’ll stay all night with the baby?” She didn’t wait for an answer, “I do. God, I hope she makes it. The baby, I mean.”

  Kevin lifted his eyes.

  “Tess, too, of course,” she rubbed her neck, wishing the day had never begun. “What do we do now?” she stared at the darkened blinds. “Maybe you should try to find Beau.”

  Kevin stood, headed for the door.

  “Are you not talking to me now?”Alice snapped.

  Kevin closed his eyes, turned around slowly. He shook his head, his voice calm, low, “There’s just nothing to say.”

  Tears slipped down Alice’s cheek. “Why?” she hissed. “Because I called Louie? Because Tess is dying? Because her baby’s dying?” She threw her hands up, sending the chair toppling behind her.

  A nurse appeared in the doorway.

  “All of it, I guess.” He walked past the nurse and out of the room.

  The nurse walked gently into the room and righted the chair. Alice leaned against the wall, her hands covering her face.
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  “Are you okay, sugar?” the “ar” sounded like “ah”.

  Alice sniffled, shrugged.

  “I’m Mary, hon, Ms. Johnson’s nurse, and if you need anything at all, I’m right here.” Mary hummed, giving Alice her space and checking each of the lines that led from the machines to Tess’s body and arms. “Poor thing. She’s been through an awful lot,” she said.

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Alice shifted against the wall. “Do you think she’ll make it?”

  Mary waited one beat too long before answering. Alice’s hands trembled.

  “We’d like to hope so,” Mary said. She replaced the IV bag and headed for the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  Beau sped along Route 15 North, dodging cars like bullets. Suburbia fell away behind him, replaced with placid pastures. The storm brewing within him did not ease with the scenery. His muscles remained tense, his jaw clenched, knuckles white-gripping the steering wheel.

  The tires screeched as he careened onto an unmarked dirt road just outside of Thurmont. He eased off the gas, and the car rolled toward the darkened forest before him.

  He parked in front of a small wooden shack, just a mile from the main road, though the thick woods felt like another world altogether. He climbed from the car, wound so tight he breathed in short, clipped bursts—a tiger ready to pounce. He slammed the door and placed his hands flat upon the hood of the car. Images of Tess exploded in his mind: Tess’s eyes holding his gaze for a split second before her car was rammed, Tess’s battered body pulled from the wreckage, her face torn and bloody. He hadn’t seen her swollen belly, he’d been so focused on her breathing. Her belly. The baby. Goddamned baby. Why couldn’t she have waited? Was she in that much of a hurry to have a family? He’d have reconsidered his goddamned five-year plan if he’d known she wanted a baby so goddamned bad. Or would he, he wondered? It didn’t fucking matter if he would or wouldn’t have changed his plans. What kind of wife gets pregnant weeks after her husband leaves the country? Had she been cheating all along, just waiting for him to go away so she could be alone with another man? With Louie? Fucking Louie! Who the fuck was he, anyway? Some goddamned prick who has to sleep with another man’s wife, that’s who.