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I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need him. She knew that, though. The problem was, she wanted him. Not the man who he had hidden and become, but the man she’d married and raised her sons with. She was waiting for that man to show up. I was beginning to wonder if he would. He’d been on a business trip this past week overseas. He had called Sheridan, and though I hadn’t heard what was said, the tears at night told me it wasn’t what Sheridan wanted to hear.
My phone buzzed and startled me. I composed myself before answering.
“Hello.”
“Dani,” he said my name with such tenderness and longing. “How are you?”
“The question is, How are you?”
“Please, tell me how you are first. How are you feeling?”
“Physically, better.” The bleeding had all but stopped.
“How’s the rest of you?”
I thought for a second. “I have my moments. It seems so surreal, like it didn’t happen, but then there’s this emptiness that never seems to be filled no matter what I do.” I lay back on the mattress. “Anyway, let’s not talk about me.”
“No. I want to talk about you and . . . the baby.”
I sprang up. “You want to talk about the baby?”
He cleared his throat. “I do. Patrick, my therapist,” he coughed it out like it hurt to admit he had a therapist, “said we need to work through the loss together and the trauma of that day.”
“But it wasn’t your loss.”
“I beg to differ with you,” he spoke kindly, but firmly.
“Brock, it wasn’t—”
“My baby. I know. But you are my wife, and that baby was part of you. The baby was my family too.”
I held back my tears. I was so tired of them. Not to say my baby wasn’t worth them, but still I wondered if there would be a day where I didn’t cry. “Did you tell your therapist the baby wasn’t yours?”
“Of course not. That’s not what is most important to me.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice, even though I felt guilty we were discussing the baby when I thought we would be talking about his experiences at the center. And possibly his experiences in Afghanistan.
“I understand why you might not believe me. But the day you lost the baby changed me in ways I never knew were possible. I’ve seen carnage and men hurt in battle, but when I saw my wife,” his voice quavered, “bleeding and pleading for my help, it hurt so keenly in places I didn’t even know existed. I thought I might lose you. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”
“Not even when you were . . .” I wasn’t sure how to say it.
“Being tortured,” he owned it. “Not even then. I would have taken the beatings over and over again to spare you that day. To save you the pain of losing the baby.”
I stood and began to walk the floor. The pacing helped me think. “I would never ask that of you. I know what it’s like to have you die. I know the pain you speak of. It made me—”
“I know. And I understand now why. I’m sorry for behaving like a spoiled child who didn’t get his way. I was jealous of my brother because I felt like he took something that wasn’t his. Not to say you’re something to be owned. You know I don’t see you that way. You are your own person. Free to give yourself to anyone you want. That’s why I was angry. It was because I knew you would have given yourself to me but I had been too selfish to make you my wife.”
I looked down at my painted pink toes, courtesy of Sheridan, hardly believing what I was hearing. Trying so hard not to get my hopes up. My heart was still in that squishy cocoon stage, resisting transformation. Flying meant we could crash and burn. Yet I found myself aching to soar. “Sounds like you’re having quite the epiphany.”
“Damn therapy,” he chuckled, “it makes too much sense.”
“Have you sung ‘Kumbaya’ yet?”
“Close. There was a group therapy session with some hugging I wasn’t all that fond of.”
I laughed. “Sounds dreadful,” I teased.
“You have no idea. I now know why this place is way up in the mountains—it keeps you from escaping.”
“No one is holding you hostage.”
“That’s not true. You are keeping me here. I want to be whole for you, though I’m not sure that’s possible after what happened in Afghanistan,” he whispered as if he were ashamed.
“Brock, I don’t expect you to be. None of us get through this life without scars. And you . . . you went through something most people can’t imagine. Those men took something from you that you can’t get back, but you can learn to cope.”
