by Candy Crum
Thinking back on that now, it’s quite eerie. Logically, I knew he was just talking about the possibility of getting killed by an IED or in combat, but my guilt drags it back to what really happened. He died and she was the one that found him. I hadn’t spoken to her at all since that day. I had no idea how she handled things. It should have been me sitting next to her for the days following, holding her hand and consoling her. Telling her that everything would be okay and that we’d get through it together. In my own selfishness and fear, I ran. His trust in me was ill-placed and that is a regret that I will hold with me forever.
“Not becoming an alcoholic on me now, are ya?”
I looked up to see one of my old superiors. Sergeant Walker. Now, however, he was just “Tom.” To me, he would forever be "Walker."
“Hey, Walker,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Better than you, it seems,” he replied.
“Hey,” I said, smiling a bit. “You just happen to be in the same place that I am.”
“Well, I guess ya got me there. What drink am I walking in on?” he asked.
I laughed. “No need to worry, Walker. This is number one and I’m heading out after this. Just to take the edge off. This is a bad week for me.”
“Caleb Martin?” he asked.
His eyes full of something resembling sympathy. I wasn’t even aware that he remembered Martin. They’d only met once. I was in Walker’s unit before I was moved into Caleb’s.
I nodded.
“Thought I’d heard about that,” he said. “Damn shame. I didn’t know him well, but I knew of him. Lots of us did. Damn good man. Damn good soldier.”
“That, he was,” I said before taking another drink.
“I know you were close,” he said. “But this seems like more than just having a drink in honor of your fallen comrade.”
“It’s hitting me harder than what I expected,” I said. “He was my best friend. I wasn’t there when he needed me.”
“You couldn’t have been,” he said. “There’s no way you could have known. From what I heard, his own wife didn’t know. How did you expect to be able to do anything?”
I shrugged. “Part of me knows there wasn’t anything that I could have done to stop it, but that’s not all that I think about. Every tour we did, every time something bad happened, he would freak out and make me promise a bunch of crap. He always did that.”
In the typical way that men, especially soldiers, did, I was covering my emotion with irritation and anger.
“What kind of things did he make you promise?” Walker asked.
“Just things that men in combat make people promise from time to time. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s like when someone is sick and afraid they may die. They tell God they will never cuss or have sex again if He lets them live and those are always the first things they do when they recover. We all make our brothers promise that “if I die today” shit. Well, I didn’t make anyone promise anything. I didn’t have anyone at home to take care of. If I died, no one would have known other than Martin.”
“He made you promise to take care of someone? His wife?” he asked.
I nodded. “He made me swear, on my honor as a soldier and a man, that I would take care of his wife. Make sure she didn’t need anything. That she didn’t suffer without him.”
He sat there, staring at me for a moment. “And? Did you?”
I sighed. “No. I freaked out after the funeral and left town. I stood guard at the head of his casket for hours and would have for hours more if I’d been able. I made a great eulogy, told her that I would be there for her, and then I went back to the hotel. I planned to go to their house, but realized he’d died there, so I figured she wouldn’t be staying anywhere near that place. Since she wouldn’t be there, I used that as an excuse to bolt.”
“Why did you run? You can move through live fire, stealth through and clear buildings, and you’re the best sniper I’ve ever met, but you run from a widow?”
“I know,” I said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s not that I ran from a woman. There was a responsibility there that I didn’t think that I could be strong enough for. The way he talked about her… He was a great husband. He lived for her and took care of her. How was I supposed to live up to that? How could I even try to comfort her? I’m in my late twenties and I had no interest in family life whatsoever.”
“You act like you were promised to be her next husband. You were only going there to be her rock. To make sure she healed and didn’t lose herself to the grief,” he scolded.
“No. That’s not what I’m trying to say,” I said in an attempt to defend myself. I sighed. “What I mean is, how was I supposed to talk to her and relate to her when I didn’t understand anything she was going through? Sure, I knew what it was like to lose him, but I had no idea what it was like from her perspective. I’ve never had a serious relationship. I never allowed myself to because of the military. I wanted to build a life and then possibly go down the family road. Martin wanted to build that life from the start with someone. I’ve never wanted a relationship. I’ve never wanted kids. How the hell was I supposed to comfort this great and amazing woman who lost a man that was just as good, when I had no idea what the hell family even was?”
“You did know what family was, even if it wasn’t traditional. He was like a brother to you. That was all you needed. You’re acting like this is all too late for you. You act like you can’t go back and change all that.”
“What? And how do I do that? Show up and say, ‘Oh, hey. I know I’m a year late, but just wanted to see if you needed anything. Martin made me promise to take care of you. Kinda screwed that up, but I’m here now.’ Does that sound even remotely stupid to you? Because it sure as hell does to me.”
The bartender came by and offered to refill my drink, but I asked for a Coke instead. I only came for a single drink and that’s all I planned to have. Walker ordered a Bourbon, as I’d had earlier.
“The way you just said it, yes. It sounds incredibly stupid,” he continued. “What I meant was that you should go back and check on her. Tell her that it’s been a year and you wanted to make sure that she’s doing okay.”
I thought for a moment. It was almost the one year anniversary. I had good reason to go back. An excuse, I suppose one could say. It opened the door for conversation. I needed to check on her. I wanted to. I needed to let go of the brother that I lost and to do that, I needed to fulfill the promise that I’d made him time and time again. There was no other option, nor a better time to do it. There it was: my solution. I had to see Desiree.
Chapter Three
Desiree
Work was not going well. It was very obvious to me that Elizabeth had been very right. I had no business being at work. I loved my job. I loved being a therapist, but that was certainly not the day for it. I’m not exactly sure how many people think about what it takes to be going through your own trials and still have to give advice to others while listening to their problems. Being a therapist is wonderful, but that was definitely a setback.
“She doesn’t appreciate anything that I do. She lays around in bed all day long. I do everything. I work all day and I still have to come home and make dinner.”
That couple… I’d listened to them a thousand times and I was always able to keep an open mind, but that day it wasn’t going well.
“Well, when you screw someone else, it causes some problems,” she barked back.
“Okay,” I said. “Before we go too far, let’s talk about general responsibilities around the house. Clara, you work full time, yes?”
“Yes! I do. I work just as much as he does and I don’t…”
“I’m going to interrupt you right there for a sec. Mitch, you also work full time, correct?” I asked.
“Yes. I do,” he responded.
“So you both work full time. You both sleep the same hours. Explain to me the things you both do at home. The sharing of chores, cooking dinner, dealing with the kids – all
of it.”
They went into another bickering session and I had to intervene many times. It was hard for me to focus. I kept having flashbacks to my dream earlier and how hard it was for me to wake up. My head still hurt, even after eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen. That couple wasn’t helping.
“So, it seems that Mitch is angry that Clara doesn’t cook more and Clara is angry she has to do the dishes every time she cooks. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘the cook doesn’t clean' before? There are variations, but the rule is the same. He or she who cooks, does not do dishes. That is what is considered to be fair. I’ve done that before, in the past, and it worked beautifully. That means that if Mitch goes out of his way, he will be met halfway and vice versa. It’s a great middle ground. Laundry can be divided the same way. Each person can do their own, or one person can do the laundry and the other can put away. There are tons of things that can be done to equalize the pressure.”
“That sounds great!” Clara said. “I would be very happy with that. I know I’m depressed a lot, but it’s because of all that happened and the constant fighting. I think this could alleviate some of the fighting. You said you’ve tried it and it worked?”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. “Sometimes we get stressed with our spouses when we feel we have too much to do and the other does too little and, in reality, that can very easily be the opposite. It’s all about perception. Sometimes you may perceive that you are doing far more than you actually are. This is a way to ensure both are doing equal parts.”
Mitch stared at me, his eyes narrowed.
“No offense,” he said. “But didn’t your husband kill himself?”
“Mitchell Wayne!” Clara yelled. Her eyes were wide, her posture rigid. I could see the embarrassment all over her face.
“I said, 'no offense.' I mean… clearly shit wasn’t that great if he wanted to die that bad.”
My heart sank and rage filled me. It was a small town. It was no secret what had happened to Caleb. But to hear his name dragged through the mud like that set me on fire. I wanted to punch that man in the throat.
“Get up!” Clara shouted, grabbing at his arm. “We’re leaving right now.”
I sat in total silence, unsure of how to respond. My rage filled and stunned me to silence. I used to be in crisis counseling. Caleb talked to me about the fact that there are a lot of people out there that needed help. They were traumatized in ways people couldn’t imagine and they needed help. Military, police, fireman, and just regular citizens. No one was immune. That was why I’d originally gone into crisis counseling.
Abused kids. Abused women. Raped women. PTSD sufferers. There was no shortage of people that I could help and I loved making a difference. When Caleb died, however, I felt lost and unqualified. I couldn’t even see the signs in my own husband, how could I help someone else? I moved myself out of that area and took up marriage counseling. It was painful at first, but I remembered that his death had nothing to do with our marriage. Our marriage was as great as anyone could hope for. It was the pain he had in his mind that wouldn’t let him go. Mitch had crossed a line that could not be taken back.
The unhappy couple bickered and fought as he defended himself and his question while she screamed at him for being so insensitive. In truth, he was a jerk. That wasn’t my professional opinion. That was my personal opinion.
Clara had just gotten him to the door when I finally found it in myself to speak.
“Thirty-seven,” I said.
“What?” Mitch asked.
“Thirty-seven,” I repeated. “That is how many letters of condolences that I received. Thirty-seven letters from thirty-seven people.”
“Okay?” Mitch said, an infliction at the end to suggest he couldn’t care less.
“There were actually many more than that, but those were the ones that stood out the most. Those thirty-seven letters were from a mixture of children, wives, and men that my husband affected in his lifetime. Wives telling me just how sorry they were to know the world was short the man that was responsible for saving their husbands. Men thanking me for their lives because if I’d told my husband to never to have signed up in the first place, they would be dead. Young children telling me they cried because the man that saved their daddy was dead. He saved multiple lives. He changed many lives. Some of those children never would have been born had my husband not been around. Unfortunately for him, and unfortunately for me, his suffering and the horrors that he saw nightly became too much for him, despite the many smiles we shared together on a daily basis. He was a soldier. A husband. Most importantly, he was a man. A man that had more than he could take.”
“Doctor Martin,” Clara said, her hand over her chest, tears in her eyes. “I am so sorry, both for your loss and for my stupid husband. I'm just so sorry.”
I didn’t care to even address the stupid husband part. As a therapist, I was expected to caution against name-calling, but all I wanted to do was agree with her.
“Have a good day,” was all I said before walking them to the door.
I had no interest in talking to them further. They still had thirty minutes, but I planned to not charge for that last half and request them to move to another therapist. I honestly didn’t believe that I would be able to remain neutral on his behalf after that. It was the responsible, professional thing for me to do. Or, so I told myself.
Once they were gone, I went to my assistant and asked her to move all of my appointments. I needed some alone time before going home and I didn’t want anything else to happen. I decided to do charting and planning for a while. All alone. Just myself. No one else to worry about at all. With everything I was feeling, I didn’t want to risk not having the filter that I needed. The truth was that I didn’t belong around people at all, let alone clients.
Chapter Four
Aiden
Once I left the bar, I went back to my house and packed my things. I didn’t need much. Years of being in the military and constantly packing for something teaches a person exactly what they do and don’t need. Basically, don’t pack extra unless you want to carry extra. After eating a sandwich and grabbing a bag of chips for the road, I put my stuff in the car and headed out. It would be about a four-hour drive from where I was. Not fun, but not terrible either. I’d certainly been on commutes that were much worse.
Regardless of how long the drive was, I knew it would be worth it, even if she slammed the door in my face. I refused to give up until I’d fulfilled every promise that I made to my best friend and to his wife. She had no idea that I’d made those promises, but I did, and I intended to keep them. She was a good woman, but I wouldn’t blame her if she did send me away. I wouldn’t blame her if she punched me, either.
During the entire drive, I seemed to be on autopilot. It felt like I wasn’t even present for it. It was so odd to me. As soon as I made it into town, however, that changed. Drastically. I was painfully aware of everything around me. Some small things had changed over the past year, but I still remembered the way I felt driving through for the first time a year ago. It wasn’t a good feeling. It didn’t help when I saw a sign for the cemetery where Caleb was buried. I sighed.
“When I visit you in a week, I promise that I’ll have good news to report,” I said out loud.
If he was hanging around, and I was one that believed our loved ones never leave us, then I wanted him to know that I was about to put things right. The one year mark was almost up and I refused to go to his grave until I’d done some making up. In fact, I was kind of excited about it. It felt good to be moving toward a goal again instead of being lost in my own head.
I pulled into a hotel and went inside. It wasn’t the cheapest place in town, but it was cozy and certainly affordable. That was pretty much all I needed. There wasn’t anything special going on, so there were plenty of rooms. That meant that I could wander around the hotel later and maybe go for a swim without being bothered. I passed the gym on my way up and immediately planned how my evening would
go once I was settled in.
The overall agenda was to take the night to get comfortable, check out the town a little bit because I didn’t do that the first time I was there, and then in the morning go to see Desiree and pray that she’d forgive me. I wanted to take her out to lunch and catch up with her at one of the places that I’d probably find in my tour around the city. See just how the year had been treating her. Once that was finished, I’d basically offer my services. Anything she needed. Want the house painted? Windows replaced? Someone to scream at? I could – and would – do all those things.
I just needed to take the evening to shake the nerves and steel myself for whatever I might be met with. Hell, it was entirely possible that I’d be met with kindness. From all I’d heard about her, she was nothing if not kind. I simply found it arrogant of me to plan for her to welcome me completely when I’d basically abandoned her and all of the things I’d promised to do for her.
My room was relatively bare. It had a mini-fridge, which was great, but it had nothing inside. I decided that I’d probably have to go to the store and grab a few things to make the coming days bearable. Groceries would have to wait, however. Before heading to the store, I drove around the town. There was a baseball stadium, which delighted me to no end. I made a mental note to look it up and see if there would be any games that week. There was a zoo nearby, another plus, and several amazing restaurants. Outback was definitely on the list. It seemed that the town had no shortage of fun things that I could do to bide time while she was away at work. There also wasn’t a shortage of things that I could take her to go do as a way to break the ice. I wondered if she had a boyfriend or if she’d started dating. That could certainly be awkward.
I put myself in his place for a minute. Some strange man hanging around and pledging his loyalty to my girl? Offering to do whatever she needed and always checking on her…
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure about how I’d feel about that, if I were in his shoes. I also began to rethink my approach. The entire thing was becoming very stressful. All the things that I wanted to do seemed totally natural right after the fact, but worrying about a boyfriend factor made me see it differently. I sighed. One of my worst traits was that either I didn’t think enough, or I thought too much. This was certainly one of those times.
