I felt the tears welling in my eyes but wished them away. Our love story didn’t have a happy ending. It had an ending, but it was far from happy. It was one that left me shallow, lifeless, and wallowing for days after a trip down memory lane.
Nick had come home. He’d come back to me. And two days after he knocked on my door, he’d driven us back to the lake, back to our spot and it was like we were teenagers again. It was like time and distance and loneliness had never happened. But I wasn’t the same young, naive girl anymore. I’d grown up. I’d had to. I’d had to fight to survive when my heartpacked his bags and enlisted in the army. I never once resented him for choosing the life he did, I resented him for leaving me, though. It was a pain I’d never recover from, and every time he walked out the door for another deployment, it was one that I relived. It was like pouring salt into the open wound, leaving me desperate and despondent for days.
Instead of falling into the back seat and making out like horny teenagers, Nick had asked me to take a walk with him. I remember everything about that moment like I was standing on the sidelines watching it happen. He laced his fingers with mine as we walked along the well-trodden path. It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves had turned and there was a chill in the air, but there was nowhere else I wanted to be. When I shivered, Nick peeled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
We rounded the corner and Nick froze. Stepping back, I didn’t know what he was doing until he dropped to one knee and reached for my hand. It was the closest I’d ever come to my heart exploding. He didn’t need words. I was nodding even before he opened his mouth. I wanted nothing more than to be his wife. I wanted to be the one he came home for. The one whose picture he carried in his wallet. The one he thought about when he looked up at the stars at night. With Nick, I wanted it all.
We were married three weeks later.
I didn’t want to wait. Nick tried to persuade me to wait so he could give me the wedding of my dreams, but I didn’t need all that. I just needed him.
By the time he was packing his bags and going out on another deployment, everything had changed. I was a wife. He’d moved me into accommodation near the other army wives so I had people around me who understood. He wanted me to have a support system in case … I refused to listen to him when he started talking like that. I didn’t want to even think about it. Hewas coming home to me. We had plans. He didn’t have a choice. We were going to be a family.
We had three years. Three short years. Three years of pure happiness. Sure, I spent most of my nights alone, eating frozen meals for one, watching Friends reruns, and reading some of the dirtiest books around. But when Nick came home, it made those lonely nights a distant memory.And we spent every minute he was home making memories of our own. Even if it was only cozy date nights cuddled on the couch or dinners out. It didn’t matter to me what we were doing as long as we were doing it together.
Nick brought up having kids, and I resisted. Not because I didn’t want them, I did. Being a school teacher, I saw kids grow every day and yearned for my own, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do it alone. Being a single mom was hard. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to keep going without Nick and raise our child.
“We’re not getting any younger, Holly,” Nick reminded me.
It was a week before Christmas. Nick had been home for three days and I had him for another ten before he boarded a plane and left again.
“I know that, Nick,” I’d spat back at him.
I didn’t want to fight, but I wouldn’t be railroaded into doing this. It was too big for a snap decision. This was life-changing. And it was my life that would be the one changing.
“I think it will be good for us. Imagine having a beautiful baby girl with your smile,” he placated as he took the cup from my hands and set it aside before surrounding them with his own massive paws.
I softened.
I always did when he looked at me like that.
Nick was like a puppy. All adorable and wide-eyed and he knew exactly how to use it to his advantage to get what he wanted.
The next day we threw away my birth control.
Two months later, two pink lines popped up on a pregnancy test and Noelle was suddenly my life.
Nick made it home for her birth. Barely.
I was eight hours into a fourteen-hour labor when he fell through the door in his crumpled army fatigues, looking like he needed a shower, a week of sleep, and a hot meal. But I didn’t care. In that moment, everything was his fault, and if he had to suck it up and go without, then so be it..
Noelle arrived, a screaming bundle of joy, and the moment the nurse laid her in my arms I knew that nothing else mattered. She was my world. From that moment on, everything I did, everything I was, it all became irrelevant. I had no doubt there’d be times when I was tired or scared or at my wit’s end not knowing what to do, but I’d figure it out. I had to. Noelle was depending on me, and I wouldn’t let her down.
It was a week before Noelle’s first birthday when a knock at my door changed my life.
Nick was due home in a few days, and I couldn’t wait to see him. Noelle had grown up so much. She was walking now or more like stumbling about, and babbled nonstop. I hated that he was missing it all, but happy he was going to be able to make it home for her birthday. I wasn’t sure why it mattered so much that he was there, it just did.
I’ll never forget the moment.
Trying to balance a wiggling toddler on my hip, I answered the door. The moment my eyes fell on a serious-looking gentleman in full uniform, I knew. My stomach dropped, I was blinded by tears and my heart shattered. Nick was gone. I knew it without a word.
The man introduced himself, apologized, and gave me some vague explanation of what happened but I barely heard a word. Disbelief and heartbreak overwhelmed me. It was Noelle whoquite literally kicked me out of the stupor I was spiraling in. She’d wriggled the wrong way and kicked me right in the boob.
I remember setting her on the ground and watching as she crawled away. I thanked the guy at the door, dismissed his offers of assistance, and pushed it closed. I closed it on the man on the other side, telling me half my heart had stopped beating, and I closed it on that chapter of my life. Of our lives. Noelle and I had been living on our own most of the time and we made do. We were surviving. Day to day, we put one foot in front of the other, counting down the hours until Nick came home but that had to change. He wasn’t coming home. Not today. Not next week. Not ever.
“Did he keep us safe?” Noelle asked, forcing me back to the here and now.
“He did.”
