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Noah calls from the bottom of the stairs just as I’m coming down.
“Hey, baby,” my mom greets, her eyes lighting up. “Katy, you look amazing.”
Hope seeps in and begins to spread for the first time in weeks. My mother is no bullshit.
“Really?”
“Yes,” she swears, pulling me in for a hug.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Don’t thank me,” she says, “you’re the one working on it.”
“I mean, thanks for taking Noah to Disney.”
“Oh,” she says, “well, we can still bring you with us, we have room.”
“Not ready for all that stimulation,” I tell her honestly, “but, soon.”
“It’s fine,” she looks at me and her eyes well up.
“Don’t cry, Mom, I’m okay.”
“I know,” she says as Noah commands her from his bedroom.
“Grandma, get up here!”
She gives me a weary look. “Here we go, that’s all we need is another alpha male in this family.”
“Speaking of which, where’s Dad?”
“He’s outside rearranging the trunk.”
“I’m going to go help him.”
Walking outside my front door, I’m stopped short when I see my dad on our porch steps staring at the open trunk of his SUV.
“Dad?” I ask as I take the seat next to him. He stays wordless for a few seconds before speaking low.
“You haven’t heard from him?”
I stare at my freshly painted nails. “Not in the way I hope to.”
He nods, solemnly.
“Dad, we’ll be okay. We will. It’s just the—”
“This is my fault,” he says, cutting me off before looking at me with guilt clouding his features.
“What?” My father is not an emotional man, not in the slightest.
“I raised you to be a soldier instead of a debutante. This never would have happened if I hadn’t encouraged you.” His shoulders slump as he tucks in his upper lip, a pain-filled breath escaping him.
“Daddy, stop. Even if you had discouraged me, I would still be military. Don’t for one second blame yourself. You supported my decision, you didn’t force me.” This conversation rings true to what a hypocrite I’ve been.
He nods, my consoling not doing much for him. He’ll continue to blame himself until he sees me happy. It’s only more incentive to get to that place, and for the first time since coming home, I feel like I have a fighting chance.
“I’m okay, Daddy.” As I stand, my father grips my hand pulling himself to his feet, before hugging me, hard. I giggle into his shoulder because I’m not used to the affection from him, and am quickly reprimanded.
“It’s not funny, Kathryn Nicole,” he says as he begins to pull away, but I can see the hint of a smile on his lips. “Just know, whatever happens, your mom and I are here to back you up.”
“I know that,” I tell him sincerely.
The sound of tiny sneakers echoes on the porch, just as Noah whizzes past us with his backpack on. “I’m going to Disney. Bye, Mommy!”
“Yeah right,” I say chasing after him, capturing him on the front lawn with his back to my chest. He giggles at being caught as we rub cheeks, and I pull him to the grass. After a few seconds of rolling around, Noah looks up to me with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.
“You’re better.”
Instant tears spring to my eyes. “You think so?”
“The medicine is working, Mommy. What is it?”
I look down at my son and tell him the truth. “You.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Katy
The last four days without Noah have been some of the loneliest I’ve ever had to endure. My craving for isolation has ceased, replaced by longing to fill the home I dwell in without my family. Gavin is tearing me apart with this silence, and it’s more apparent than ever, the damage I’ve caused through my own inability to communicate. He needs to know. He deserves to know and maybe by coming clean, I can help to eradicate some of the wreckage. If I want things to work, I need to open up the lines of communication. I know my husband, and I’m almost positive that’s what Gavin is waiting for. I’m just not sure he can handle what I have to say.
I’m greeted at base by one of the guards who knows me well. While he rattles on with pleasantries, I glance in the rearview. I’ve gone all-out today, fixing my hair and putting on a little bronzer and lip gloss. After being ushered inside, I slowly roll through base in an attempt to capture the pride I once felt in being a part of it.
I wasn’t able to officially resign from the army until a month after I returned home—following my psych eval, and some needed time and thought.
Yeah, no thanks. Remorse for my stand buds inside of me, because I’ve always been so incredibly proud of Gavin.
I park at the building that houses his office and step out, making a note to hit the commissary for groceries. The fact that I’m not contributing is starting to grate at me, and I need to pinch pennies where I can. There are still perks of being an army wife, and sooner or later I’m going to have to suck it up and realize even though I’m done, I married in.
That’s life.
And it’s the one I chose. Gavin’s uniform used to be one of my biggest turn-ons, and he knew it.
And you told him to never wear it in front of you again.
But where the hell is he? Absent, avoiding, doing all the things I did to him.
We need a come-to-Jesus, and we need one fast. Which is why I’m sitting outside his building trying to muster up the courage to ask him personally for a dinner date.
A part of me wants to lash out, but I call that part unreasonable. The reasonable part of me wants him to see that I’m trying. But both of those women are getting pretty pissed off. I can’t fight this war alone, and maybe this absence is a way of letting me know it’s over for him.
Either way, I’m about to find out.
Marching into the building, I find myself greeted by one of his lieutenants.
“Serg—Katy, good to see you,” she says with a smile. Lt. Lowe has always been kind of a mentor to me. She, much like the other women in my life, is no bullshit. Not only that, she’s got that personality spark I’m drawn to. As I study her brown eyes, I realize quickly who she reminds me of. “How are you?”
“Good,” I find myself saying with a nod, to try and seem more convincing.
“I’m so glad,” she says taking a step toward me. “He’s out now. Full schedule today, but I can see if I can get him.”
“Nah, I’ll just leave a note on his desk.”
“Okay,” she says, as I search her face for any indication that she may know what’s going on. She doesn’t. That’s Gavin.
On base, or out in the field at any given time, he’s liable for around a hundred and fifty soldiers. It’s a huge responsibility, one he’s mastered.
Walking back toward his office, I sink into the familiar feel of it. It’s been so long since I’ve been here. A lump forms when I stare at the picture of us on his desk. It was taken shortly after our honeymoon. We’re both bronzed from the Caribbean sun and smiling like lunatics. Sitting in his chair, I pick it up and study it.
How can he stare at this every day and not talk to me?
For the first time since he left, I feel like I’m in over my head. Picking up a pen from the side of his keyboard, I snatch a piece of scratch paper from a pad close by. It’s not a love letter, just another dinner invitation, a plea for the chance to prove it.
After tracing the happy couple in the frame with my finger, I stand and say my goodbyes to Lt. Lowe with a hopeful beat sounding in my chest.
Here goes nothing.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Transfixed on the neon box, my throat fills with sand, and I can’t help the way my lips rub together. Wetting them with my tongue, the sound of the checkout grows distant as my mind wanders back to a time I would have moved heaven and earth just to reach for something this soothing and be rewarded so easily. Pulling the entire box of Carmex off the rack, I hold it up to the lady checking me out.
