Captured

by Jasinda Wilder

  Silence again.

  Reagan opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again. She looks at me in the eyes and sighs. “I have to ask you something, Derek. And I…I need an answer. It’s about the letter.”

  Fuck. My hands are shaking. I turn away and pace the length of the kitchen. Sink into a chair, elbows on my knees, head hanging. “That letter kept me sane. I read it to him so many times I had it memorized. I still do. I think…I think I started to feel like—not like it was meant for me, but…I don’t know. Something about how much you loved him, how obvious it was in the letter, it gave me hope. I would…not read it, but say it to myself. Recite it, I guess. After Tom died, when I was cold and hungry, after they kicked the shit out of me, or broke my finger or whatever. That letter kept me going, over and over and over again.”

  I look at her, keep my eyes on hers, unblinking. “Thomas, my love,” I say. The words come easily. “I’m writing this in our bed. You’re lying next to me, sleeping. There’s so much I wish I could say to you, but I know time is short. You ship out tomorrow. Again. I can’t say it doesn’t bother me. It does. Of course it does. It hurts every time. I act brave for you, but I hate it. I hate watching you lace up your boots. I hate watching you pack your bag. I hate watching you straighten your tie in the mirror. I hate how goddamned sexy you look in your uniform. Most of all, I hate kissing you goodbye, hate watching you turn around, your broad back straight as you disappear down the jetway. I hate that your eyes are dry when mine are wet.

  “I hate all that. I know I signed up for it when I married a Marine. I knew from the very beginning that you’d go into combat. I knew it, and married you anyway. How could I not? I loved you so much from the very beginning, from the first time I saw you, all those years ago.”

  Reagan is crying silently, staring at me. Neither of us looks away. She covers her mouth with her hands.

  I continue: “You remember? I was visiting my brother at Twentynine Palms, and I saw you running with your unit. You looked right at me, and I knew in that very instant that we were going to be together forever. You dropped out of rank, ran over to me. You kissed me. Right there, the gunnery sergeant yelling at you, in front of half the damn base. You didn’t even ask my name. You just kissed me, and rejoined your unit. You got in a lot of trouble for that stunt. But you found me. You knew my brother, who was walking with me at the time. You asked him who I was a few days later. He said he’d let you have a shot if I was willing, but if you broke my heart, he’d break your face. You showed up at my hotel room dressed in civvies. You took me to Olive Garden, and we got drunk on red wine. We made love that night in my hotel room. You remember that night? I do. I remember every single moment. Just like I remember every other moment of our lives together. Eight years. Did you know that? You ship out tomorrow, and tomorrow is the eight-year anniversary—to the day—of the first time we met, when you kissed me. God, Tom. You know why I remember every single moment? Because for most of our ten years together, you’ve been deployed. Three tours in Iraq, about to ship out for your third in Afghanistan. I miss you, Tom. Every day, I miss you. Even when you’re home, I miss you, because I know you’re always about to leave again. But this time? This ship-out? It’s the hardest. So hard. I can’t take it. Can’t stand it. I can’t, Tom. I can’t watch you leave again, knowing you could die. You might not come back. You didn’t tell me much of what happened with your friend from your unit, Hunter, when he went MIA, but I know it was painful for everyone. He came back, thank god, but you were a mess. You called me from the base. You were going crazy with worry. You thought he was dead. Your friend Derek was injured, too. I remember all that. And I just…I don’t think I could handle it if that happened to you.”

  I stop. Swallow hard. Force the admission out. “I—every time I read Tom the letter, I stopped there. I skipped to the very end. Where you said you love him. I read the letter to myself first, before I read it to him. He could barely move, and he couldn’t read it on his own. He was too weak. So I read it. And…when I saw” —my voice breaks— “when I read the news…about you being pregnant, I panicked. He was dying. I knew he was dying. He knew he was dying. And I just—I couldn’t tell him. Every time I read the letter, every time I got to that part, I couldn’t do it.”

  She’s pale. Shaking. Eyes wide. “What? Derek, no. What are you saying?”

  I squeeze my hands into fists. I say the hardest words I’ve ever spoken in my life. “Tom never knew. He died not knowing you…not knowing—” I clench my eyes shut. I can’t finish.

  “He—he didn’t know?” She’s whispering. Her voice is thin, reedy. “He didn’t know about Tommy? He died…he—he didn’t know he was a daddy?” Tears, fat wet drops sliding down her cheeks.

  “Yeah.” I can’t look at her. “I’m sorry, Reagan. I just…couldn’t.”

  “How could you?” A whisper at first. Then she’s lunging at me. I’m standing, and she’s hitting me, slapping me. “How could you? He was a father! He deserved to know! God…god….”

  I catch her hands. “He was fucking DYING, Reagan!” I shout. “He had three bullets in his stomach. His stomach acid was eating his fucking flesh from the inside out. We were in a hut in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Taliban. I was wounded. We were getting beaten every other day. It took him fucking weeks to die, and I had to watch! I watched my best fucking friend die. I held him in my goddamn arms and fed him my own food, what little bit they gave us. He’d pass out, and when he woke up, he’d ask for the letter. ‘Read the letter, D. Read the letter, D. Derek, the letter.’ He could barely speak toward the end. He was in so much pain, and all he could think of was you. If I’d told him you were pregnant…? He held onto that letter, unopened, for months. He carried it on dozens of patrols. It was like a good luck charm for him. If he’d just read—just read the goddamn letter…but he didn’t. And I couldn’t tell him. I was too much of a coward. I was too scared. Too hurt. Too weak. I couldn’t handle how that would make him feel, when he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. All he could do was die.”

  She’s sobbing, bawling, collapsing onto the floor and covering her face with her hands. I kneel beside her, touch her shoulder, but she shoves at me. “Leave me alone! Just…please. I need to be alone.”

  “Okay.” I stand up. Turn away. “I’m sorry, Reagan.”

  She ignores me, and I leave her there, crying on the floor of her kitchen.

  CHAPTER 13

  REAGAN

  The house is silent when I wake up the next morning. I glance at my alarm clock: 9:30 a.m. I haven’t slept in this late…ever. I sobbed myself hoarse after Derek left. Crawled, literally crawled, up the stairs and into bed. I cried myself to sleep.

  I push away the storm of thoughts and emotions raging inside me and tiptoe downstairs. There’s a note on the kitchen table:

  Reagan, dear.

  Tommy is with me at my house. My granddaughters are over for a few days, so he’s going to spend the day playing with us. Don’t you worry about a thing. Go, have yourself a wonderful day.

  Ida.

  Oh. Right. My day off.

  The envelope with the gift certificate is on the table. I head back upstairs, take a shower, brush my hair and shave my legs and underarms, trim myself in other places. Head outside into the hot early fall air. I hear noises from the barn and look up to see Derek, shirtless, on the roof of the barn, scraping at the roof. Shingles tumble to the ground and fall in a pile. Hank is there on the ground, giving orders to three of his older grandsons, who are shoveling the mess into a huge red dumpster and carrying square pallets of what I assume are new shingles up the ladder onto the roof. Derek sees me, stands up straight, leaning on the tool he’s using to scrape at the shingles. Even from here, I can sense his turmoil. He doesn’t wave; he just stares at me.

  I can’t deal with him right now. I just can’t. So I wave. Hank, his grandsons, they all wave back. Derek just stares at me, and then goes back to scraping.

  I blast the radio on the
drive up to Brenham and refuse to think about anything. I find the salon easily, and an effusive red-haired woman a few years older than I am welcomes me. She introduces herself as Sandy and hands me a mimosa and helps me into a stylist chair, and starts chattering volubly without pausing for breath about my hair and how much fun I’m going to have. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and I’m soon laughing with her, telling her to do what she wants, just nothing crazy. Not too short, no weird colors. She waves me off and starts snipping. I watch as she clips a few inches off the bottom, leaving it just above my shoulders. After that, she goes through my hair again, adding layers and shape to it.

  She says I don’t need any color, that my natural honey blonde is just perfect the way it is. So I’m hustled to the manicure station, where I’m given the royal treatment. Hand massage, clip, file, painted a deep plum. Same for my toes. Then they give me a long, luxurious facial, leaving my skin tingling and feeling cleaner than ever.

  Sandy looks me over and nods. “Lovely. Just lovely. But you still seem a little tense. Since it’s so slow in here today, how about I throw in a massage? Lisa is just the best. She’s got a light touch, but she can really get those tricky knots out.”

  “I’ve never had a massage before,” I say. “I guess I—”

  “Then it’s settled. Right this way!”

  The massage is probably the best thing I’ve ever felt. I’m jelly by the time Lisa is done, feeling more relaxed than I thought possible. I leave them as big a tip as I can afford, thank them, and leave. I find myself at a coffee shop, listening to quiet folksy music, sipping at a big mug of hot tea.

  Thinking about Derek.

  How angry I was. Rightfully, to my thinking. But then…I think about Derek, what he said in his defense. And I understand. It doesn’t make it any easier, knowing that Tom never knew. That Derek intentionally kept it from him.

  And then I think about how close I’ve come to having sex with Derek, three times now. How am I supposed to reconcile my wide extremes of emotion? Guilt, lust. Grief, need. Confusion and clarity.

  Clarity?

  I know for a fact that the next time I’m alone with Derek, there won’t be any stopping us. I’m no clearer on my emotions, no clearer on how I’m supposed to reconcile the love I still feel for my dead Thomas with the need I feel for Derek. It’s not just physical, although that plays a huge part of it. It’s a need for a companion. A need to banish the loneliness. He’s here, and he understands, as much as anyone on earth can, where I’m coming from emotionally and mentally. Just like I understand him and why he’s drawn to me. He knows I know the toll combat takes on a man. He knows I’m strong enough to fathom what haunts him. He doesn’t have to pretend to be fine around me, because I know.

  But then all the what-ifs crop back up. Will I still get attached if Derek and I have sex? Hell, I’m already attached. And Tommy? What if this keeps going? I bring Derek into my bed, and Tommy finds him there in the morning? How do I explain that?

  I huff in frustration. No matter how many times I go through this in my head, I get no closer to an answer. I want him, and I want to let myself go, let myself have it. I have a few moments of it’ll turn out fine, but then all the what-ifs clamor in my head, and I start thinking I should end it.

  But my heart and my body clench up at that thought.

  I just don’t know what to do.

  I think about going home, but end up at the grocery store instead. Since I’m all the way out in Brenham, I might as well get some things while I’m here. I had my pampering, and it was nice. Now back to reality. I feel spoiled, though. I’m going to want that again.

  I end up in the pharmacy section of the store, in front of the condoms. Looking. Knowing, if I get them, we’ll use them. Probably a lot of them. But I’m no closer to knowing the right thing to do, so doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t let it happen? But then, who am I kidding? Unless I make him leave, it’s going to happen anyway.

  I grab the smallest box. I toss it into the cart, then stop and pick it back up. I find a bigger box.

  I hear a voice from beside me, a woman about my age with a baby in a carrier in the front of the cart. “If you’re not sure,” she says with a grin, “it’s probably best to get the big box.” She grabs the largest box from the bottom shelf, tosses it into my cart, and sashays away, cooing at her baby.

  She’s probably right. I cash out, head home, stopping in Hempstead for a few boxes of pizza.

  When I finally park the truck under the tree, I see that the roof of the barn is almost done, and Derek, Hank, and his three grandsons are all sitting on the front porch, drinking bottles of water. They are all sweaty and laughing. I hand them the four boxes of pizza, watching in amazement as the first box is emptied within seconds, the second vanishing not long after. I shake my head and laugh.

  At least until I catch Derek’s eye. He’s watching me, and I can see that he’s biding his time. Expecting something from me. A conversation? I don’t know.

  I start carting the groceries into the house and find Derek helping me. We get the dozen or so bags inside, and he starts putting them away.

  “S’posed to be a day off,” he points out.

  I shrug. “It was, and it was amazing, actually, so thank you. But there was no reason to be out there and not pick up a few groceries while I was at it. We were getting low on a lot of things.”

  He stacks the cans of soup in the pantry, puts the bread away, the milk and juice. Pasta, pasta sauce. Eggs. He gets to the pharmacy bag and quickly sets my carton of tampons aside, along with the aspirin and toothpaste. He holds up the box of condoms, finds my eye. Just stares at me, curious.

  I shrug. “Can we…can we talk about it later?”

  He sighs. “I packed. I thought…after last night, what I told you—” He sets the box back in the bag, along with the other pharmacy items, and sets the bag aside. “I figured you’d want me to leave.”

  “I—”

  Hank comes in at that moment, grandsons trailing behind him. “Well, that was a hell of a day’s work, wasn’t it, boys?” He slaps two of the boys on their backs. “Well, we’ll be heading back now, Reagan. Thanks for the pizza — it really hit the spot. Derek, we’ll see ya in the morning, finish that roof off.”

  Derek nods. “Thanks for the help, y’all. Made it a hell of a lot quicker.”

  Before I can grasp what’s happening, Hank and the gang are out the door, tromping down the porch steps. I set down the bag of frozen chicken and run after them. “Hank, wait! What about Tommy? Should I go and get him?”

  Hank turns. “Didn’t Ida tell you? Lizzy and Kim want to do a sleepover. Tommy has spent enough time at our place that he’ll be fine. Figured you might as well finish the day off with a night off.” The boys are heading across the field, roughhousing as they walk like boys do.

  Hank takes two steps back toward me. “Reagan, sweetie. I been where that boy in there is now, or close enough, and my Ida, she’s been where you are exactly. All’s I’ll say is, life ain’t meant to be lived lonely. You gotta move on. You don’t ever forget. Not totally.” Hank touches his left bicep in an unconscious gesture; I’ve seen that arm, seen the tattoo of his unit I.D.—battalion, company, platoon—surrounded by six military serial numbers. “True for him, true for you.”

  “But what if—”

  He shakes his head, speaks over me. “No. That never got anyone any-damn-where. You can ask ‘what if’ till you’re blue in the face. You won’t get anywhere with that. You either risk, or you don’t. Up to you.” He wraps me up in a bear hug and keeps going. “Nobody can tell you what Tom would have wanted, or would want. Nobody can tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. You don’t answer to anybody ’cept yourself. And little Tommy, maybe, when he’s older. But he’s a good boy. He’s loved. You’re loved.”

  “Thank you, Hank. For all these years of…everything. Thank you.”

  He clears his throat, speaks gruffly. “Family takes care of family.”

  He
lets me go, pats me gently on the arm. “Go on now.”

  I go on. Derek is sitting at the kitchen table, the last box of pizza in front of him, two slices folded over together in his hand. I sit down opposite him and take a slice. We eat in silence, sharing a can of Coke. When the box is empty, Derek puts it with the other empties, washes his hands. Straightens the dishtowel. Fidgets.

  He’s waiting for me, and I’m scared to open it all back up.

  He waits another few heartbeats while I continue to chicken out, and then he does it for me. “I should’ve told him. I know that. Guilt over it has been eating me alive this whole time.” He rubs his forehead with his thumb, not looking at me. “All I can say is I’m sorry. It doesn’t change anything, but I’m sorry.”

  “No one can fault you for it, Derek. I sure don’t.” He looks up at me, surprised. “I’m hurt, and I’m angry. But I’m not really angry at you. More at the world in general. But mostly I’m angry at Tom for just not reading the damn letter when I gave it to him. We talked on the phone, wrote other letters, and he never asked about it, never referenced it. I was scared he was…I don’t know. Mad at me for getting pregnant, maybe? It was an accident. We’d said we were waiting till his term ran out.