“Okay. I’ll find a lawyer.” She turns on a heel. “I won’t contest. You’ll have all the visitation rights you want, when you get leave.”
“What. The. Hell. Callie! No!” I grab her shoulder.
“You don’t want to see the baby, either?”
“Fuck. Callie. I don’t want a fucking divorce. I want to call off therapy. Not us. Have things got so bad between us?”Holy shit, I had no idea.
She drops onto the sand and stares out at the ocean. “I’m so, so, sorry. This is all my fault. I was just trying to help. I love you so much. I don’t want you to get killed.”
“What makes you think I will? You have so little faith in me?”
“I read online how guys with PTSD get distracted. They don’t sleep good. Did you tell your old CO how bad it’s gotten?”
“I got it under control.”
Her brows raise. “Walk with me.” She stands and puts her hand out to me.
I see her form under her pink dress and all I want to do is forget everything and make love until the fog goes away.
“Where do you go, when the dreams come during the day?”
The fog creeps closer. “I had a close call in the desert. A lot of my pals died that day.”
I walk through the dead bodies washing up on the ocean, blank eyes accusing me. That’s a new one.
“Same dream?” Her feet make marks in the bloody sand.
“Variations of it.” I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping when I open them, the visions will be gone.
“Lucky?”
I hear her calling but I can’t stop now. There’s a busload of crying babies to unload. So many. The enemy comes with rapid fire weapons and I drop to my knees. Then, the restaurant blows apart, along with the bus, and everyone is dead, except me.
When I open my eyes, I’m on my knees as the ocean laps at my legs and she is too. Her arms wrap around me with my cheek on her bosom.
She kisses the top of my head like I’m a little kid. “Can you tell me where you were?”
“Part war, part the baby shower in the city. Everyone dies except me.” I whisper the words, for fear the fog will hear and engulf me forever. “There’s a bus full of babies and no matter how hard I try, I can’t save them.”
Suds rushes along the shore and sits in the water next to us. “Was it bad?”
“Bad enough.” I scoot back from a large wave and motion the others to do the same.
On dry land, Callie turns to me, “What happened that day, Lucky?”
“I was driving, hit an IED, and the truck blew up. Me and Suds were thrown clear. Everyone else died.”
Suds shakes his head back and forth. “Not quite right, pal. Remember? A woman carrying a baby jumped in front.”
While I try to envision the scene, Suds turns to Callie. “Lucky barely avoided hitting them and veered. Then all hell broke loose. It was a trap. Insurgents approached so he backed the fuck up. That’s when the Hummer’s rear wheel hit an IED. The rest of our crew didn’t make it, neither did the woman and child.”
Callie holds my hand. “That must’ve been so awful.”
Standing, I brush the sand off my ass. “I forgot all about the kid.”
Suds does the same and slaps me on the back. “It was a little girl, not just a kid. Think about it Lucky. Probably hit closer to home than you realize. Don’t know why you would want reenlist, pal. You’re a bigger man than me.”
I reach my hand to help my large wife to her feet. Then, the three of us walk along the beach, the steady beat of the ocean healing me. The fog at the edge of my vision sinks into the mist made by the waves.
“Bad guys are always out there, waiting to use women and children. Always have been, always will be. The bible talks about some asshole killing a whole lot of babies to get at the Christ child.” Suds shrugs, a bit embarrassed and I raise a brow.
“I had no idea you were religious, mate.”
“Twelve years of bible school. I don’t remember much but the flight to Egypt story stuck.” He shakes his head as if dispelling some long-forgotten memory, then winks. “I’ll catch up with y’all later.
