SORRY CAN'T SAVE YOU: A Mystery Novel

by Willow Rose

  The food is done, and the kids are getting burgers and hotdogs first. Spouses next. We eat, and I compliment the salad that Lisa McCandless, who we usually call Lotty, has created. She is the wife of the squadron commander, Colonel Chip McCandless, and they’re the hosts today. It is a really good salad and has cranberries in it, along with some type of seed that tastes good. And kale, of course, but I am not that fond of kale. Not like everyone else these days.

  Still, no Ryan.

  Is he even coming? I know he has been invited. The guys love him, and I know they see each other, even though he is on leave due to his injury. They probably mostly meet up at the bar outside of the base. But I am certain he knows we’re all here.

  So, why isn’t he here? Is he just staying away because he knows I’ll be here?

  Vera sits next to me, eating a hotdog with extra ketchup. She hasn’t taken any of the salad. She’s no one’s wife, but her sister was in the unit as well, deployed with the rest of them. She came home in a casket before everyone else. According to what the Air Force has informed Vera, her sister, Clarice, was killed after leaving her duty station. Initially, her family was informed that Clarice was killed in action from “hostile enemy fire.” The Air Force later revised its statement, saying that she had died in a “non-combat-related incident.” The family believed it was a case of “friendly fire,” but then the Air Force later ruled her death a suicide. What was clear was that she was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head, near a chapel, inside the secure airbase. Vera, who is also enlisted and lives on base, is a close friend of mine. But since she received the news of her sister, she hasn’t been the same. She has grown this spite, this resentment toward the Air Force that I never saw in her earlier. She only stays because she has a contract, she tells me. I’m not opposed to her resentment, as I feel it growing in myself as well. I’m not happy to admit it since the Air Force has been our entire lives so far, ever since I married Ryan. But I don’t like what being deployed does to our loved ones. I don’t say it out loud, of course. Not like Vera, who airs her resentment publicly any chance she gets.

  “So, when are you going to let Ryan come back home?” Lotty suddenly says. The question catches me completely off-guard, and I stare at her in confusion. I look for an answer, something clever to say, but there’s nothing ready.

  “I…I…he’s the one who left,” I say. “I didn’t throw him out.”

  “He’s been sleeping on our couch the past couple of days,” Lotty tells the other women around the table, to justify her question. Like she at least deserves to know what she’s dealing with here, how long he’s going to stay. I am happy to hear he’s at least been sleeping somewhere safe. I fear he spends the nights in bars or maybe even sleeping on the street downtown. I know he goes off base a lot since I have this app that I use to spy on him. It gives me his location, not a completely accurate one, but enough for me to know a little about where he goes. I downloaded it last year on all of our phones to be able to track my teenage daughter. I could never have guessed I’d need it for this. But watching him on the app has made me more paranoid, and I realize it is doing me no good. Yet, some nights, I can’t seem to stop. I worry whether Ryan is hooking up with someone…if he’s hanging out with women. I don’t think that is what he is doing, but the worry lingers in the back of my mind; of course, it does.

  Lotty tilts her head as she looks at me. “Really? Isn’t it the same? Don’t you think he just left because he didn’t feel welcome?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean…well, now, don’t get me wrong, but maybe you should think about creating a more…uhm…welcoming environment.”

  I don’t know what to say, literally. Okay, maybe I have a lot of things I’d like to say, involving lots of bad curse words, but I hold it back. I have never been good at comebacks, and more than often, I regret the ones I do sling out. It’s better to keep my mouth shut. I have learned that the hard way.

  Vera comes to my rescue.

  “Are you serious right now? How can you even say something like that? You don’t know what Laurie and Ryan are going through.”

  I send her a grateful look. Vera is the only one I have confided in. I’ve told her everything about how Ryan felt different, how he changed when he came back, about the nightly bar visits, and the fists planted in doors and walls at the house. I even told her about the day when he grabbed my throat. But I have a feeling that Lotty knows these things too. I went to her husband, who is Ryan’s superior, right after, and told him everything. I even asked him for help. I asked him if he could talk to Ryan. Tell him to get help.

  He told me to deal with it myself. This was above his paygrade. “Everyone else deals with these things within the four walls of their home. Why can’t you? Why do you have to tell everyone your private affairs?”

  So, I went to a mental health professional on base and told him everything too, thinking he’d know what to do.

  He gave me a Valium and told me to go home.

  That’s when I realized that the Air Force doesn’t want to deal with wives.

  “I’m just saying that I believe it is our duty as wives to make sure our husbands feel welcome once they get back from deployment,” Lotty continues.

  As she speaks, I can’t—for the life of me—understand why she is still talking. How is she even from this century? She can’t be serious about what she’s saying. No one stops her, and she just yaps along about how important the wife is to her husband’s good return and how her Chip has never had any issues coming back. The more she talks, the more she makes it sound like it is my fault that my husband has ended up the way he has. I don’t want it to, but it still gets to me.

  Because that’s also what I fear.

  “I just think that if you try a little harder, then I’m sure Ryan will be able to come home. That’s all.”

  That’s all, huh? It’s that easy? Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Thank you for enlightening me. From now on, my life will be a lot easier.

  As she folds her hands, finishing her sentence, I rise to my feet, grab my kids, and tell them we’re leaving. Damian complains because he’s playing with Lotty’s son, while Isabella is relieved to go home finally. The men are playing football now, and Chip is in the grass fighting with Ted.

  “You’re leaving?” Lotty says. Her voice is shrill, and it makes the hair rise on my arm. I hate her right now; I hate her so much I want to punch her. Instead, I walk away. I don’t even say goodbye. I just send Vera a look, so she understands. I know she does.

  “Don’t be like this, Laurie,” Lotty yells after me. “We’re only trying to help.”

  Chapter 6

  I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Sandra and those deep cuts in her wrists. I keep thinking about Joe, Jr. and his dad, and how no one even mentioned them at the barbecue or even talked about Sandra. Was it because it was simply too unpleasant to even think about? Because it hit a little too close to home for so many of us? I keep wondering if the same thing would happen if Ryan had killed himself. Then, I wonder where he was. Why he didn’t show up. I don’t know why I expected him to. Because they were his buddies, his friends? Why did I assume it was easier for him to be with them and not me? Because I feared Lotty was right? That I scared him off? Made him feel unwelcome in his own home?

  I get out of bed, sick of staring into the darkness. I know I’m not getting any sleep anyway, so I grab the laptop and turn on Netflix. I want to watch an episode of The Crown. I am halfway through the last season. I hope it will get my mind off things and maybe make me sleepy. I am about to open Netflix when I decide to go on Facebook instead. Just a quick check to see if anything is new.

  Then I do what I promised myself I wouldn’t. I go to Ryan’s page and see if he posted anything. He hasn’t. He never does. The last picture is of him and me as he said goodbye to me at Orlando airport, kissing me. That was more than a year ago. The picture makes me feel sad. I remember that day so vividly. It was the last tim
e he was himself.

  I touch the screen gently while smiling softly. I wonder if he’ll ever be that guy again—the one who was completely devoted to me and our family. The one who’d post pictures of me from the gym, then tell the world he was a lucky SOB—the guy who made a picture of him and the kids his profile picture—because they were his everything. We were everything to him.

  Where did he go?

  Will he ever be back?

  I sigh and lean back, thinking about the last time I saw him a few days ago. Did he seem better? I wonder about the leave they gave him for being wounded in combat…if that is a blessing or a bad thing for him. He isn’t right; he isn’t himself. But the fact that he doesn’t have to get up for work every day, does that maybe make it worse? I know he goes to physical therapy at the medical center, and he shows up for that a couple of times a week. He has also started running again; I’ve seen him on the tracks by the landing strips, driving by one day, so I know he is keeping himself in shape. But what does he do all day? I was happy to hear he is sleeping at Chip’s place. Those two are close friends and have been through a lot together. Ryan was the one driving the squadron commander on a ground mission when the truck hit a powerful mine that blew off its rear end and flipped it over. Ryan was the first one out, and he helped Chip escape while under heavy fire. He earned the Purple Heart after sustaining a back injury and a possible concussion in the explosion.

  He wouldn’t talk about the incident when he got back, and after a while, I stopped asking. I don’t know if that is what is bothering him still, or if it is just the fact that getting back to everyday life rather than life-or-death situations is getting to him. Is it the trauma from the explosion? He won’t tell me, and he gets so angry if I ask. At least two of the holes in the doors in our house are from me asking about it.

  I scroll down and stare at an old picture of us, taken on our Valentine’s trip to St. Augustine two years ago. We are holding two cups of water in the air, from the fountain of youth.

  How were we so happy back then?

  I know it’s silly, but I can’t help thinking that maybe there’s more to the way he acts than a trauma. I fear he’s seeing someone else. The thought knocks the air out of me. I feel like I’m losing him; he’s sliding away from between my hands, and I don’t know how to hold onto him.

  I stare at the Facebook page, then do the last thing I ever thought I would. I log off my own Facebook profile, then log onto his. I know all his passwords. He thinks I don’t, but I do. He’s not that hard to figure out. He only shifts between three passwords: my birthday, Damian’s birthday, and Isabella’s birthday. It’s all he has ever used. I start with mine, then move onto the children’s. It works with Damian’s birthday. I am logged in and now have access to his profile.

  It’s the first thing I see. It pops up in a separate window, and my heart rate quickens immediately. I see now that he has been on Facebook, probably using his phone. And he has been messaging someone. A girl. Not just some girl.

  Sandra.

  I barely breathe as I scroll up and begin to read the messages. Apparently, they had been talking for a few days before she died. He’s the one who wrote to her first.

  Ryan: We need to talk.

  Sandra: I don’t want to talk to you, Ryan.

  Ryan: We have to.

  Sandra: No, we don’t. We’re home now. It’s time we forget what happened. Things are different now that we’re back.

  Ryan: I need to see you. I’ll be over tomorrow at noon.

  Sandra: All right. Just for coffee. Nothing else.

  I stare at the words on the screen, then read them again and again. There’s a couple of days between some of them, but the last one was written the day before she was found dead. This realization makes my throat feel tight. I struggle to breathe. I suddenly remember something from the day I walked into her house, guided by Damian. There was something on the breakfast counter. Two cups had been left out. The kitchen was completely clean otherwise, Sandra never left anything out. Her kitchen was always annoyingly clean. Those two cups, and this message…does that mean…was Ryan visiting right before she killed herself? The thought makes me dizzy. The wording of the messages makes my stomach churn.

  Just for coffee? What did that mean? Did she fear he expected something else? Did they have an affair? Had they slept together while deployed, and now that they were home, he wanted to continue while she didn’t?

  Now that I think about it, I was worried that Ryan had been with someone else while being away. I noticed right away that Ryan was different in bed. He felt different, more aggressive. I told myself it was the PTSD. I had explained it with intimacy problems, which are typical for people with PTSD. I even read about it online. He didn’t want to look me in the eyes. He was like an animal, demanding and raw.

  The thought makes me feel sick. I can’t help but wonder if he has been lying to me all this time.

  And why did Sandra end up killing herself right after he visited?

  Chapter 7

  It’s driving me crazy. The next day, I send the kids off with the school bus. I am washing clothes, cleaning the bunnies’ cage, and walking Rosie, our Golden Retriever. I drive to Publix outside of the base, and, of course, I’m taken aside for a random inspection at the gate, so it takes forever. I buy three boxes of Cheerios, just to be sure Damian is happy while thinking about Ryan. So many thoughts rush through my mind all day. I can’t believe he would cheat on me and then come home and make me feel like it’s my fault. It all makes sense now. It explains his distance and why it was so hard for him to be with us again. He’s plagued by guilt. But does that mean he’s leaving us? Why did he come to our house after he went to Sandra’s? He was at our doorstep when we came home, and I wonder why he did stop by?

  Did he sense Sandra wasn’t happy? Was that why he stayed away from the barbecue? Because he felt guilty? Because he feared he was to blame?

  I avoid that other thought that keeps nagging at me because it doesn’t make me feel good. Besides, Sandra had cut her wrists. She wasn’t killed.

  Yet, I can’t stop worrying. He was there. Did he say something that made her want to end it all? I don’t want to. I really don’t, but the thoughts keep popping up in my mind. I keep thinking about his aggressive behavior and feel his hands on my throat from the day he left—the day he almost strangled me.

  No, Ryan would never do that. He’d never hurt anyone.

  Except he isn’t my Ryan anymore. This guy is different.

  I can’t convince myself, and the worry gets to be too much for me, my paranoia taking over, so I call a friend. I call Frank, who is a military forensic investigator on the base.

  “Laurie. Long time no see. How’s it going?”

  I give him a long chat about how things are great, busy as usual, and how the kids are growing. I tell him we should get together soon; maybe he can come over for a cookout? But I don’t really mean it. I mean, I like him, I always have. He’s a nice guy and all, but I am just not in a place where I feel like having people over. Finally, he asks how Ryan is doing, and I become suddenly honest. I don’t like lying to people or even pretending.

  “He’s not so well, I am afraid,” I say. “It’s tough to get back and well…he’s suffering this time. He’s been staying with friends for some time.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Frank says, but I am not sure he means it. Frank has always liked me, in that way that makes it necessary for me to keep him at a distance. We can still be friends, at least I hope so, just not close ones. As I think about this, I realize that if my husband really has been unfaithful to me, then I don’t have to worry about this anymore. I can have male friends and admirers if I want to.

  The thought doesn’t make me happy. On the contrary—it makes me feel sad. I don’t want to get a divorce. I don’t want to be on the market again. I was never good at being single. Ryan saved me from my loneliness when he came along, tall and dashing. I was still in college, getting my journali
sm degree, and he had just signed with the military. We didn’t see each other much, but the little we did was so thrilling that I soon started to dream of a life with him—even though I knew I’d be one of the military wives—one of those who’d have to send their loved ones off to war, not knowing if they’d come back. I thought I could deal with it…that I could take it. I have always been strong, and I loved him so much; I knew if anyone could survive this, it’d be us. We would be the ones to get through it.

  “So, what do you want from me?” Frank asks. “I know you didn’t just call to have a chat. That’d be a first, at least.”

  “I need your help with something. It’s important.”

  He goes silent. “Okay?”

  I tell him what I’ve found. I read him the messages from Ryan’s Facebook account and tell him I am concerned. He chuckles on the other end.

  “I can understand your concern about him cheating on you, but I’d hardly be worried about him killing her.”

  “But what if it was an accident? What if he lost it the way he did with me? He got angry with her because she didn’t want him, didn’t want to sleep with him again? He might not have meant to kill her, but then he did?”

  “And then made it look like suicide afterward? That’s a little calculated, don’t you think?”

  “He’s changed, Frank. I feel like I don’t know him anymore. Just tell me, okay? What did the autopsy say?”