The Captains' Vegas Vows

by Caro Carson

  “I—” She stopped in surprise.

  “It makes me want to touch it. It’s loose. Swingy. Most women in the army seem to either have short, short hair, or else hair long enough to scrape back and pin up. Yours is perfect. Not too long. Not too short. Just right.”

  “Like Goldilocks’s porridge,” she muttered.

  He laughed. Another nudge. “What is making you mad today?”

  Her gaze darted to the counselor. “That’s not the question.”

  At the desk, Jennifer obligingly jotted down some notes and didn’t intervene.

  Helen sighed. “Why are you so happy?”

  “You made me chocolate chip cookies last night. Who wouldn’t be happy?”

  She wouldn’t be, apparently. She looked at him for one raw, unguarded moment, and he saw profound sadness in her eyes.

  “You misinterpreted them,” she said.

  Did his smile falter? The sudden chill around his heart caught him unaware. “How does one misinterpret cookies?”

  “I was baking them to make you unhappy, not happy.” She stopped there and pressed her lips together.

  “Well...” She wanted him to be unhappy? His voice was husky. His throat was tight. “Then in the future you need to know that they’re my favorite. You’re going to fail every time you try to make me unhappy with chocolate chip cookies.”

  “I’ll fail.” She tilted her head back to blink up at the unused ceiling lights. “Yes, I’ll fail. I’d kind of hoped I’d be done failing this December.”

  Tom was lost. The only thing he was certain of was that Helen was blinking back tears when she blinked at the ceiling. He looked to Jennifer, to the professional counselor with the psychology degrees. Now would be a good time for her to use those degrees to step in and explain what was going on.

  Jennifer had stopped writing, but she said nothing. The smallest frown marred her usual expression of polite interest.

  Helen looked straight ahead once more, but that didn’t mean she was going to say anything else. She sat with one hand on each arm of her chair, posing like a statue of Abraham Lincoln, and just as talkative, damn it. Even a counseling session could be destroyed by the silent treatment.

  You don’t want to talk to me? Then I don’t want to talk to you.

  If the counselor was waiting to see who would speak first, she’d be waiting a long, long time. The walls came up, cold and familiar—but where had they been? When had Helen slipped right past them again? Had it been the cookies? The cheese puffs? The margarine mess that first night?

  “Please explain how you expected cookies to make me unhappy.” The sentence was forced, stiff and formal, through a throat that should have swallowed it.

  He’d actually spoken first. Either his head had overridden his heart, or his heart had overridden his head, but either way, it was too late now. He’d done what he’d sworn never to do again, what he hadn’t done again, not since he’d moved out of his dad’s house: he was begging for attention from someone he loved when he—or she, now—didn’t love him back. Begging for scraps. Crumbs. Communication.

  Hell, he’d been doing that all week. He wanted the love of his life in his arms, sharing her thoughts, asking him about his. He wanted her in his bed. Instead, he’d eagerly caught the scraps she’d thrown his way, being pleased when she was just in the same room. Being happy when she silently handed him a plate of cookies.

  “I wasn’t going to share them.” She swallowed hard. Maybe those words had forced their way out of her throat of their own accord, too. Not all the tears had been blinked away. They were still there, pooling in her eyes, waiting to spill over her lower lashes. “I was going to make your mouth water and then take them all into my bedroom and not let you have a single bite.”

  “Why?”

  And then the first tears fell, although she sounded angry. “I’ve been trying to be the roommate from hell. A bad roommate. Didn’t you notice? I tried so hard to inconvenience you—no, to disillusion you. Hogging the whole bathroom counter with all that makeup I hardly ever wear? What did you think that was about? That was about giving you nowhere to set your shaving cream.”

  “Why?” he asked again, voice hoarse, but it wasn’t necessary. Helen’s words didn’t slow down. The dam had broken.

  “I thought if I could be a bad roommate, you’d want me out of your house in February. But I can’t do it. I’m not a mean person. I’m just feeling awful now, no matter what I do. I felt awful hiding in the spare bedroom and trying not to impinge on your space. I feel awful trying to take up all of your space. I feel awful when I make you happy, because it makes you want this fantasy version of me you have in your mind. I don’t mean to set you up for disappointment over and over.”

  She stopped to suck in a breath that shook. “I was braced to make it to the end of February. We could be civilized and I could move out, but then at the pub, you said you’ll never file. You told me I’d have to wait until June and file myself.” Her tears fell in earnest. The agony in her voice cut through any of Tom’s remaining walls as easily as a knife through butter. “I don’t understand why you want to punish me until June.”

  “Punish you?”

  “The only reason you won’t file in February is because you made a vow to some fantasy woman who looks like me, but whom I don’t even know, and you want to have the satisfaction of knowing you didn’t break your vow. It’s tearing me up to live like this, but you’re going to put me through it, just to preserve this image of yourself as this noble man who keeps vows.”

  “It’s not a punishment. I’m not trying to hurt you. My God.”

  “You’re hoping for something to happen, but I don’t have any memories miraculously coming back. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.”

  “That’s because you haven’t tried.” The words came out on a wave of anger he hadn’t known he was holding back. “You said you remembered something when we kissed, so now you won’t kiss me. What’s that tell you? There was a moment, Helen, the morning after. I called you ‘dream girl’ in that hotel suite, and you remembered for just a moment. I saw it in your eyes when you looked at me. And then it was gone, and you damn near ran me over trying to get out of there as fast as you could.”

  And now he was the one on a roll, words tumbling out in anger, thoughts he hadn’t wanted to admit he had, not even to himself. “You could have stayed, Helen. You’d already remembered things twice in that half hour. You could have stayed and done like I said. Had some food, taken a shower, relaxed. It might have come back. I might have gotten you back.” The pain was terrible, loving the same woman he was so angry with. “You didn’t even try.”

  He realized he was standing. When the hell had he stood up? God damn it, he felt like a fool.

  “I couldn’t stay, Tom. I couldn’t. I had to report to Fort Hood by noon and—”

  “Did you really think the US Army was going to send out a national APB if you were three or four hours late? What was the worst possible punishment you think would have been leveled at you if you’d walked into Reed’s office at fifteen hundred hours instead of twelve hundred?”

  “I would have looked unprofessional. I wanted—I wanted my first impression to be good.”

  He laughed at that, completely unamused. “I don’t know if it was good, but it was certainly one hell of a first impression.”

  Her tearstained face was killing him. He wanted to hold her fine jaw in his palms as if she really were that fragile feather. He wanted to run his thumbs down those tear tracks to erase them. But the last time he’d tried to touch her had been when her hands had been slippery with margarine. She’d shied away from him. She’d flinched.

  He turned his back on her.

  “Is he right?” Her voice was small. Quiet. She was talking to Jennifer, not to him. “If I had stayed that morning, would I have remembered everything?”

 
“That’s impossible to say,” Jennifer answered. “There are so many variables when it comes to memory recall.”

  A small pause. Helen pushed harder. “There must be research out there. What is the science behind memory recall?”

  Tom didn’t trust himself to sit down again, but he turned his head to hear the counselor better. His heart threatened to pound too loudly for him to hear information that felt vital to the rest of his life. He forced his pulse to slow, to calm itself, like he did when he needed to pull a trigger smoothly and shoot accurately.

  “The first factor affecting recall is that those memories had to have been stored in long-term memory in the first place. Certain drugs, including some abused for recreational use, specifically prevent memories from being stored. Alcohol may have an effect. Or if you’d sustained a concussion or other brain injury, the damage could have deleted the memory. If you don’t remember, it may be because the memory isn’t there to recall.”

  Another pause. Tom knew she hadn’t been hit in the head. They hadn’t touched drugs. Alcohol, though—that was possible.

  “He says I remembered something for a moment when he said ‘dream girl.’ Does that mean the memories are stored there, somewhere?”

  She was brave to ask. It took guts to find out one way or the other what the future might hold. She dreaded recalling something that he prayed she’d recall. He could not have asked these questions. He could not live without hope if the answers killed all hope.

  “Again, there are so many variables, I can’t make a guess with any accuracy as to whether or not you stored a specific memory. There are factors that we know make memories stick. Sleep is helpful. There have been studies conducted that proved students who studied material immediately before going to bed had better recall when tested the next morning.”

  They’d made love off and on all night long. The sun had risen when they’d fallen asleep. Maybe she’d slept five or six hours before she’d walked out of the bedroom with that petal-stained sheet wrapped around her like a wedding gown. Then she’d driven herself to stay awake for a solid twenty hours after that. Sleep was not in their favor here.

  “Stress has an effect on both memory storage and recall.”

  As Jennifer discussed the effects in scientific terms, Tom closed his eyes against the memory of Helen’s distress that morning. High stress, too little sleep, consumption of alcohol. Three strikes. His heart pounded beyond his control.

  “Could I still remember now?” Helen asked. “You’re going to say that’s impossible to predict.”

  “To temper your expectations, I would say it’s not likely. But there is no telling what might trigger a memory, or when. Have you ever had an odd experience where you catch, for example, an unexpected whiff of a candle, and you suddenly remember something you haven’t thought of in decades, like candles on a birthday cake from kindergarten? Or you see an old toy and you suddenly remember receiving it at a long-ago party? Memories can be buried deeply and still spring back into our conscious thoughts, so I would never say never.”

  “But—but are you saying that two decades from now I might suddenly remember marrying him?”

  “Well...well, no, I think that’s unlikely. You first remembered our hypothetical kindergarten party the day after it happened, we presume, and then stored the memory. But in this situation, if you never stored the memory to start with...again, we just don’t know. I wish the scientific community had more assurances for you, one way or another. I wish we had more time now, but I do have another appointment. Tom? Let’s regroup now and wrap up for the day.”

  He needed time—a moment—he needed to keep breathing. His wife, the woman who’d held all his hopes and dreams, might never be more than a dream herself. She could be gone, forever. Would he forget her in time? Would he forget their first kiss? The way she’d said his name in the chapel? I, Helen Pallas, take you, Tom Cross...

  Wouldn’t it be easier if he let the memories grow dull? Then the pain might dull, too.

  “Tom?”

  “I’ll see you next week,” he said, polite words he forced out. He opened the door calmly and walked away.

  He could not look back.

  Chapter Ten

  Helen wondered if she would see Tom this morning.

  Their paths never crossed during the duty day, but this Friday, the entire brigade was participating in a unit run. They were in the same brigade.

  They were in the same house, too, but she’d barely seen him since he’d walked out of that last counseling session. She wondered if this morning she’d have the chance to see his face, to hear him speak, to judge for herself how he was doing—how he felt about her.

  Until that intense hour at the counselor’s, she’d had no idea he blamed her for not staying longer in Vegas. For not trying. But why would she have tried to do anything with someone she didn’t know? Why would she linger with a stranger when she had orders to report for duty? It hadn’t occurred to her that she might have remembered if she’d stayed. Might have, Jennifer had said. Might not have.

  Might never.

  The possibility of never made her feel relieved. Tom was...a lot. A lot of man. A lot of heart. She didn’t think she could handle being on the receiving end of so much love. She’d bungle it. She’d hurt him badly, and worst of all, he wouldn’t be a snot about it, like Russell. Tom would really feel it. He’d be...isolated. It would be much safer for Tom if he gave up and moved on now.

  Her thoughts tortured her even as she fell in line with the rest of the brigade headquarters company for PT.

  PT, short for physical training, was so routine, Helen could go through it on autopilot. PT didn’t distract her from her thoughts in the least, not after eight years of it. Across the US and at most installations overseas, Monday through Friday, soldiers stood in formation, performing whichever calisthenics the day’s leader chose. Push-ups were a given. So was the side-straddle hop, which was just military speak for jumping jacks.

  The most senior noncommissioned officer of the brigade, Command Sergeant-Major Richards, was leading the brigade headquarters company today.

  “The side-straddle hop,” he shouted.

  “The side-straddle hop,” the formation shouted back, including Helen, who shouted, if not enthusiastically, then dutifully. How many times in her life had she shouted the phrase side-straddle hop? One million.

  She glanced across the expanse of the parade field as she jumped, across the hundreds of soldiers who filled that field, catching flashes of reflective yellow on their black PT uniforms as they did their calisthenics in the dark. Nearly half a thousand soldiers wore black track jackets zipped up against the chilly Texas morning. Tom was one of them, somewhere.

  She’d never missed PT with her company when she was the commander, but she was on brigade staff now. It had benefits. The brigade staff only performed PT as a unit on Mondays and Fridays. The rest of the week, Helen was expected to work out, but she had options. Hitting the gym with her headphones on was a luxury she savored. Tom, on the other hand, worked out daily in the predawn dark with his company, setting the example for newly enlisted privates by keeping the routine of young privates, showing them it could be done, and done without complaint.

  “One-two-three,” the command sergeant-major called, keeping them all moving in sync.

  She jumped to the barked-out rhythm. The headquarters company was a strange mix of senior sergeants and commissioned officers who had many years in the service. It was a novel thing to have achieved the rank of captain with a company command behind her, and yet be one of the lowest-ranking members of a unit. She remembered now that it was somewhat relaxing to be the follower instead of the leader. She didn’t have to think about where to go or what to do or how to get one hundred and twenty people there, doing it. She was only responsible for herself. When she was told to do side-straddle hops, she did them.

 
But this Friday, she wished PT were more challenging. She wished she could force her brain to think about something besides her memories, her roommate and her future.

  It was the last Friday before Christmas. Since they were stateside this year and not in a combat theater, the brigade was being granted a training holiday. After today’s PT run, there would be showers, breakfasts, then a return to the unit for payday activities—a safety briefing, perhaps a reenlistment ceremony for a few soldiers who had committed themselves to more time in the service, perhaps a commendation pinned onto a deserving soldier. The brigade would be dismissed, and everyone not unlucky enough to have pulled a shift as the duty officer, a prison guard or a law enforcement patrolman would be free to go home and enjoy an extra-long weekend.

  But first, the run. Brigade headquarters lined up, sized up—tallest soldiers to the rear—and started out. Colonel Reed set an easy pace. The purpose of this run was team spirit, not a test of speed and toughness. Those were the purposes of every other run on every other day. Today, nobody was trying to see if a weak link could hang at a faster pace. This was supposed to be fun, a short two miles before everyone spent four days stuffing themselves with pumpkin pie. The NCO calling cadence for the unit threw in a few Christmas carols. Everyone chanted them in unison as their feet hit the pavement at the same time, left, right, left, right, jingle bells.

  Helen suddenly realized she had no idea where Tom planned to be on Christmas Day. Did he have family nearby? Had he bought a plane ticket to somewhere far away? She tried to remember something about his family, his hometown.

  Nothing.

  Behind her unit, the battalion headquarters company ran to their own cadence, their own carols. Following them, each MP company fell in line: the 401st, the 410th, the 411th and Tom’s company, the 584th. She was probably a quarter mile ahead of Tom. Her unit returned to the headquarters building first, of course, crossing the finish line and then standing at ease in their rectangular formation as all the other units ran in. Helen didn’t look obvious at all when she craned her neck to look past the 411th for a sight of Tom’s company.