I am coming home to you!!!! Wow, I didn’t think I would ever see your face again. Or kiss my boys, throw a ball with them, feel your soft body snuggled up next to mine at night.
I am weak and exhausted. My leg and a few of my ribs were badly broken in the crash, and my shoulder was dislocated. Of course, I’ve had no medical care, so there is work to do. But I can’t comprehend how lucky I am to be alive. We lost one of our men here, and I’m not sure I will ever be able to come to terms with the fact that I made it while he did not. How can that be?
I am rambling now when all I want to say is this: Sloane, you got me through these months. The thought of you, the memory of you, the warmth and the love of you is what pushed me forward when it would have been so much easier to succumb to the death that was so close I could almost feel it. I live for you, Sloane. I would die for you. And everything in between. And now, I get to see you again. Words do not exist to describe how much I have missed you, how I have longed for you in the darkest, deepest parts of me. I should warn you that once I come home to you, I may never leave your side again.
Counting down the moments, my beautiful wife, until I am in your arms again. Until then, I am, faithfully, lovingly, eternally...
Always and forever yours,
Adam
HOLDING TAYLOR IN MYarms for the first time was the last time I’d had this feeling that everything in my life had changed, like everything I had believed to be true was insignificant compared to this moment. To think I had lost my true love only to find him again... It was nothing short of rebirth.
I had looked at my watch every three minutes for the past few days, willing the time forward. I had gotten to Skype Adam and hear his voice, proving to myself he was alive.
And now, every ounce of me was buzzing with the pure thrill and unbridled joy that I would get to touch him, kiss him, and hold him close to me once again.
I was standing on the runway at Joint Base Andrews. Normally, I might have been excited to see Air Force One or been making small talk with Major Austin, the rear detachment commander who had kept me abreast of everything for the past few months. But I couldn’t. I had never felt this level of anxious excitement. A C-17 Nightingale flight would be bringing my husband from Landstuhl and landing right here in a matter of moments. I would get to ride in the ambulance with him to Walter Reed, where he would be having surgery and receiving treatment before I could take him home for good. This was the moment I had envisioned for all those long, painful weeks. And now it was here.
As the jet came into view, I had the sickening feeling it was coming in too quickly. But I should have known better. As it landed, blowing everything in its path including my hair and the cream sundress Caroline had let me borrow, I squinted to keep the debris out of my eyes, but wouldn’t dare close them all the way. I would get the first glimpse of Adam. When I saw the door open, I started running. There he was. My husband, my world, everything I wanted and needed.
He was in his combat uniform and boots, his arm in a sling and a cane in his hand. I ran to him, my tears nearly blinding me. I threw my arms around him, he threw his one good arm around me, and I kissed him like I’d never stop. He might have been pick thin and badly wounded, but he was still Adam. He was still that strong, confident man I had fallen in love with in line at the post office.
I could feel my tears and his tears mingling together like ingredients in a saucepan, could taste them between our kisses. I wrapped my arms around his middle so tightly he groaned, which is when I remembered his broken ribs. Poor guy. “Sorry,” I said.
But he smiled at me. “I don’t care,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re here, Sloane. I’m here. We’re together.”
I barely remember the ambulance ride or entering Walter Reed. I know there was paperwork and rustling and doctors and nurses, and then Adam was in a bed and a doctor was talking about taking him into surgery in the morning. I couldn’t process any of it, because he was home and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together just like we had planned. I had never felt a glee this pure. It was a high I didn’t know a human could experience.
At last, when we were alone, I finally noticed how gaunt and gray Adam looked, the exhaustion in his eyes, the new lines in his face.
I ran my hand along his sunken cheek. “Honey,” I said, “what happened to you?”
He shook his head. “Sloane, I’m alive. One of my men lost his life. An innocent kid lost his.” I had never, in all his deployments, seen my husband this raw, this vulnerable.
I felt myself bristle when he said “innocent kid.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, my stomach already turning, not truly wanting to know the answer.
“A seventeen-year-old kid, one of the sons...” He trailed off, and I waited patiently. “He helped us escape,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
“What?” I asked, truly stunned. “I thought it was a Delta Force operation.”
Adam bit his lip. “Well, it was, technically. And thank God. If they hadn’t been on their way, we’d all be dead. No question.” He swallowed hard, and I took his hand, rubbing it. He teared up and said, “I’m sorry.”
I kissed his forehead. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“If we’d just waited ten more minutes...”
I wasn’t surprised by his emotion necessarily, but it unnerved me all the same. I had never seen him like this.
“This brave little kid got us out.” He looked around and continued. “If we had just waited, if we had just been patient, that kid would still be alive. His father wouldn’t have killed him for being a traitor.”
I put my hand to my mouth. I felt sick. Sicker than sick. But my job here was to soothe my husband. “You don’t know that, Adam.”
He nodded, tears in his eyes. “I saw him fall. And it will haunt me forever. I can’t help but feel like it was my fault.”
I remembered the drone footage, the man running and falling. That wasn’t a man at all. He was a child. A teenager. A son. I wondered if his mother was grieving, if she was alone in her grief. “It’s not your fault, Adam,” I said. “It was God’s plan. We can’t control it.”
